The war in Ukraine and the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria
Niall Mulholland
It is often a paradox of war that as the end begins to loom in the distance, the ground fighting intensifies. With the election of Donald Trump to the White House, the war in Ukraine, which has been grinding on for more than 1,000 days, has significantly escalated. Trump has said that he intends to bring the war to an end “within 24 hours”. Leaving aside Trump’s bombast, both sides in the conflict regard his coming to power as an alarm call to try to gain as much territorial advantage as possible before any negotiations or truce.
The outgoing US president, “genocide Joe”, has relented to the demands of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, and allowed Atacms long-range missiles to be used against targets inside Russia. Zelensky’s regime lost no time in deploying the weapons to the north of the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy about 600 sq. km of Russian territory.
Unsurprisingly, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, reacted furiously to the use of these missiles and others delivered from the UK government. Putin stated that this has led to “a new spiral of tensions”. Russian military launched an “experimental” missile attack against Ukraine targets and hundreds of drone attacks on energy facilities and other targets.
Putin also announced the “lowering of nuclear weapons use threshold” by Russia. It is speculated in the West, alongside nuclear weapons sabre rattling, the Putin regime will give military aid to the Houthi forces in Yemen, which could be used to devastating effect against international shipping.
Following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the war morphed into a war of attrition, with a frontline more than 1,000km long, from southern Kherson region to Kharkiv in the northeast of Ukraine. In recent months, however, fighting on the ground has been going in the favour of Putin’s regime. “Russian forces make gains on the battlefield at a faster rate than at any point since 2022”, commented the Financial Times (28/11/24).
The Zelensky regime has lost nearly 20% of Ukraine territory and tens of thousands of soldiers (according to western politicians and media, Russia has lost many more troops, running into the 100,000s, but these figures are not independently verifiable). Russia has captured more than 1,200 sq. km in Ukraine since August, twice the territory Kyiv’s troops hold in the Kursk region in Russia.
Although Ukraine troops seized parts of Russia’s Kursk region last August, they have been on the rearguard since October, steadily losing ground to Russia in Kursk. Zelensky’s August gamble also came at the expense of losing territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region to Russia.
Ceding control of Kursk to Russia would be a significant setback for Zelensky, depriving him of a valuable bargaining chip in future negotiations. Military analysts say that Zelensky, up against a larger and better equipped Russian army, will primarily try to strengthen Ukraine’s eastern position and stabilise its defences in case it is forced by Trump into negotiations with Putin.
Even Western media has had to report that there is widespread demoralisation amongst Ukrainian soldiers, with reports of desertions. Many civilians attempt to avoid the call-up and there are reports of forcible conscription. Increasingly the population of Ukraine have called for negotiations to bring the conflict to an end. The days of fever pitch patriotism and war enthusiasm are long gone.
Unsurprisingly Putin is in no hurry to go into peace talks, with momentum in his favour. He demands that he only will enter talks if Ukraine accepts Russian occupation of four Ukrainian regions.
Syria
However, the Russian army has also faced overstretch, such as its recent intervention in Syria and failed attempts to shore up the now deposed Bashar al-Assad regime. The hated Assad dynastic regime, in power since 1970, imploded, leading to jubilation among sections of the Syrian masses. The right wing, Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), joined by the Syrian National Army (backed by Nato-member, Turkey) and former members of the western-backed Free Syrian Army, swept across Syria as they saw the opportunity to strike against the weakened and rotten Assad regime while its key allies, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, were engaged by the Ukraine war and Gaza and Lebanon conflicts.
In the initial aftermath of Assad’s fall, partly reflecting the desires of the masses from below, even HTS representatives talked about defending the rights of minorities and declared their victory as “the victory of the great Syrian revolution after thirteen years of patience and sacrifice.”
However, no trust can be placed by the working masses in Syria in HTS and other reactionary forces that have toppled Assad. To successfully cut across a new round of sectarian and ethnic conflict will require the building of united, non-sectarian defence committees to defend workers, the poor and others against attacks from all sides. To genuinely see the last of dictatorships, poverty and conflict requires a government of representatives of the workers’ and poor, prepared to break with all the imperialist powers.
Although it is reported that both Russia and Iran had lost faith in the Assad regime in recent months, the fall of the regime in Damascus is still a big blow for their interests in the region. The loss of Russia’s bases in the country would seriously undermine the Russian army’s reach in the region and Mediterranean. Donald Trump asserted on social media that the fall of Assad was a setback for Russia and Putin now needs to enter talks to end the war in Ukraine.
It remains to be seen what takes place in Syria in the next days, weeks and months. Can a ‘transitional government’ hold together given the sectarian and ethnic divisions and competing militias? The Russian military may be forced to step in again to defend Moscow’s’ interests, taking precious resources away from Ukraine.
Ukraine war’s consequences
The Ukraine conflict has had consequences across the region and globally, interacting with the fallout from the Gaza and Lebanese fighting. We have seen a significant rise in military spending in the US, Europe, Russia and China over the last number of years. The Ukraine conflict has only speeded up this process. While the working-class across Europe and internationally is facing the squeeze of the cost of living crisis, obscene amounts of money are spent on weapons.
The Ukraine war also looms over the politics of the region. Recent elections and referendums in Georgia and Moldova, where there are significant Russian speaking minorities, have resulted in sharp polarisation and street clashes. Recently in Romania there was the shock election result of a populist nationalist, and supposedly pro-Putin politician, in the first round of the presidential elections.
Although facing Western sanctions, the Russian economy has opened new trade links to China, Iran, North Korea and others. Russia has become a ‘war economy’, with factories and production tailored towards the war effort.
With the coming to office of Trump it is likely that Zelensky will face huge pressure to negotiate an end to the conflict. At the same time, Zelensky will be under pressure from Ukrainian nationalists, including the far right elements, not to give an inch of Ukrainian territory to Russia. It is not ruled out that Zelensky could be removed from office by whatever means for Ukraine to sit down at the table and discuss with Russia.
Under pressure from the Trump White House, it is possible that a negotiated agreement can be reached between the two sides over the next months. This is not definite however as war has its own momentum. A truce may take place without any formal negotiated agreement. This could become another so-called ‘frozen conflict’ in the region, where the level of fighting declines, at least for a period.
It is mooted by some western politicians that the European powers should keep arming and funding the Ukraine war effort should Trump withdraw support to Kyiv. But this is predicated on agreement on such a policy between the major European powers, at a time when Germany and France are in economic and political crisis, and it would entail huge financial and military costs for the EU and UK. And continuing a war against Russia would be without the state of the art military assistance of the US, the world’s strongest armed power.
There can be no long-term solution to war and division and poverty in Ukraine and Russian based on capitalism – of the rule of the oligarchs who will exploit national and ethnic divisions when fighting rivals and with the meddling of outside powers who used Ukraine as a pawn in their geo-strategic considerations.
Socialist alternative
For the working classes of Ukraine and Russia the only way out this horror is to return to the ideals of the Bolsheviks and the 1917 October Socialist Revolution. This is the only way to win genuinely long lasting peace and prosperity. In the first place, this requires building mass working-class organisations, such as independent trade unions, and mass parties of the working class, with bold socialist policies to oppose the oligarchs and the rule of Putin and Zelensky.
The analysis and approach of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) to the war in Ukraine has been vindicated by events. The CWI did not fall into the trap of cheering along either Putin or Zelensky. Some on the Left drew the erroneous conclusion that Putin’s Russia must represent some sort of progressive rule or that Zelensky was leading a military struggle comparable to the fight against Franco’s forces in Spain in the 1930s.
There is nothing whatsoever progressive about the rule of Putin and his oligarch friends. They represent the interests of the rich elite which are opposed to those of the working-class and all minorities.
Indeed, when launching his aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Putin, in a long rambling speech, attacked the Bolsheviks, especially Lenin, for supposedly having created an artificial Ukrainian nationhood. The reality is that Lenin understood that the way to win over the oppressed nationalities to the socialist revolution was to guarantee their right to self-determination, up to and including separation, if that was the wish of the oppressed nations.
Ukraine became a republic within the workers’ Soviet Union. Under the rule of Stalin and the Great Russian chauvinist bureaucracy, however, the principles of Lenin and the Bolsheviks were trodden upon. Instead of a socialist federation voluntarily entered upon by nations based on genuine equality, we saw the monstrous Russian bureaucratic-dominated USSR dictatorship.
Today it is necessary for socialists and Marxists to condemn the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s forces. From the start of the war, the CWI supported the rights of Ukrainians to sovereignty and to resist foreign occupation, advocating for this to be organised by workers on democratic lines and making a class appeal to Russian troops. The CWI never gave an inch of support to the reactionary Zelensky regime, which like Putin’s regime, is based on the rule of capitalism and oligarchs. Zelensky has conducted the war utilising right wing Ukrainian nationalist propaganda, and a bourgeois hierarchal army that includes far right elements, in league with western imperialism.
At the same time, Marxists must consider the sentiments and demands of those living in Crimea and the ethnic Russians in the Donbass region and other parts of eastern Ukraine. They have the right also not to be coerced, including under Zelensky’s Ukrainian nationalist, right-wing regime. We support the right of the people of these areas to determine their future, in a genuinely democratic manner, free from all outside powers’ interference.
Winning the working class of Ukraine, Russia and the region to a socialist programme will not be easy or straightforward. But the ‘alternative’ under capitalist restoration is being played out before us like a dystopian movie – wars, ethnic divisions, poverty and right wing dictatorial rule.
