Support for Ukraine looks shaky in the West

Zelensky is urging the West to allow him to escalate Ukraine’s offensive into Russia

There are so many crises—above all, the genocide in Gaza—that it’s very easy to lose sight of the most dangerous of all. This is the bloody full-scale conventional war being waged at the faultline between Russian and Western imperialism in Ukraine.

Ukraine succeeded in pushing back the initial Russian invasion in February 2022. But last year’s counteroffensive failed. Russia’s superiority in numbers and hardware is slowly telling as the Ukrainian frontline is relentlessly pushed pack in the eastern Donetsk region. Last month a Ukrainian expeditionary force seized about 500 square miles of Russian territory in the Kursk region. Yet it seems to have failed to divert Moscow’s attention from its drive to conquer the entire Donetsk region.

So Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has stepped up his campaign to pressure Western governments to allow Ukraine to fire their missiles. He wants to use Western missile systems—which have ranges of 150-200 miles—to attack deep into Russia.

Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, responded last Thursday. He argued that Ukraine couldn’t operate these missiles without Nato support. He concluded, “This would mean that Nato countries… are at war with Russia and if that is the case… we will take appropriate decisions.”

Britain’s Labour government supports Zelensky. Keir Starmer responded to Putin’s threat with the language of the playground, “Russia started this conflict”—as if this made it acceptable to risk a nuclear confrontation. Then he flew off to Washington to lobby Joe Biden for permission to allow the Ukrainians to fire Western missiles into Russia.

But, according to the New York Times newspaper, Biden is sceptical. It reported, “Time and again he has told members of his staff that their No. 1 priority was to ‘avoid World War III’”. Also, “Pentagon officials do not believe Ukraine has enough of the… missiles to make a strategic difference on the battlefield.

“Moreover, the US officials say, they simply cannot supply many more to Ukraine. The Pentagon has warned that it must keep a healthy reserve of weapons in case of an outbreak of fighting in either Europe or Asia.”

These other threats point to a way that Putin could retaliate short of going nuclear if Ukraine is nevertheless allowed to attack deeper into Russia.

Michael Kofman, a defence specialist at the Carnegie Endowment think tank, has warned of “horizontal escalation”. This would be “Russians countering and retaliating by transferring technology, know-how, and specialised personnel to countries like Yemen, like the Houthis” to enable the “targeting of major maritime shipping”. “This wouldn’t just be a problem for the United States but also for basically everyone who relies on that commercial route,” he said.

Back in June Putin already warned, “If somebody considers supplying such weapons to a combat zone to strike our territory… then why don’t we have the right to supply comparable weapons to regions where they could be used to strike sensitive targets of countries that do this to Russia?” This is a threat to exacerbate the crisis of US imperialism where it is most severe, in the Middle East.

This possibility aside, there is another reason why Putin will probably not look at nuclear options this time round. If he waits till 5 November, there is at least an even chance that Donald Trump will be re-elected US president. In his debate last week with Kamala Harris, Trump promised he’ll “get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended. If I’m president-elect, I’ll get it done before even becoming president.”

Political support for Ukraine is in any case waning in Washington. The Wall Street Journal newspaper says there’s “little hope of Congress approving additional funding for Ukraine no matter who wins the presidency”. Putin knows time is on his side.

This doesn’t alter the fact that those like Starmer pushing to ramp up Nato’s proxy war with Russia are playing a very dangerous game. As ex-British national security adviser Kim Darroch told the Financial Times newspaper, “If they are confident that Putin’s bluffing, then fine. But he’s bluffing until he isn’t.”