Ukraine and Russia have ramped up their attacks in recent weeks (Photo: Flickr/ Ministry of Defence Ukraine)
Russia has threatened revenge against Britain this week after Ukraine used British-made drones to target Russian oil refineries and transport networks.
Britain is being dragged into the long war over Ukraine—and it makes us all a target.
Both Russia and Ukraine have ramped up their attacks in recent weeks. Russian attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, killed at least 15 people on Wednesday night. On Friday, a further double tap drone strike killed at least 16 and injured at least 130 in Kryvyi Rih.
Ballistic missiles targeted blocks of flats and warehouses as well as damaging a hospital and a school.
On Sunday, Kiev’s famous Petrivka book market went up in flames after a Russian strike.
And Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz said on Monday that Russia had attacked its facilities 13 times in the space of a week.
Ukraine has also escalated its attacks by bombarding Russia with drones. The strikes are aided by high-quality satellite images, provided by the US government and by private companies in the West.
Ukrainian attacks on Russia killed at least 16 people, including a child, this week.
Its attacks have targeted warehouses belonging to the Russian company Wildberries, sometimes described as the Russian equivalent of Amazon.
Ukraine claims that the hubs are part of the supply chain for Russia’s armed forces. But Wildberries is also a supplier of consumer goods. Russians, especially in remote areas of the country, depend on it for everyday items such as clothes and electrical appliances.
After over four years, there is no immediate end in sight to the conflict.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has asked the US for even more weapons. Earlier this month he reported that Ukraine had run out of the US-made Patriot interceptor missiles needed to shoot down Russian missiles.
But Donald Trump has backtracked over whether to grant the license to Ukraine to make the missiles. And the US’s own stocks are running dry due to the war in Iran.
Zelensky is bogged down in a corruption scandal. It has seen his deputy chief of staff Iryna Mudra sacked over alleged involvement in a money laundering scheme and calls from a former defence minister for a new election.
Britain is being dragged further into the Ukraine quagmire as Andy Burnham vows to keep supplying weapons.
On Saturday, the Sunday Times newspaper revealed that drones supplied by Britain have been used by Ukraine this year to attack mainland Russia.
The strikes have led to fuel shortages and blackouts and caused some £35 billion worth of damage.
British drones used in the attacks include the Nyan, produced in Wiltshire by Callen-Lenz, a subsidiary of arms giant BAE Systems.
The Times said, “The use of British drones in attacks over the past six months” mark “a new phase in the military partnership” between Britain and Ukraine.
A Ukrainian military source told the newspaper they now say “God save the King” as well as “Slava Ukraini”—glory to Ukraine—as they launch the drones.
Burnham has argued that Britain needs to ramp up arms spending in order to protect our security.
But arming Ukraine makes us all less safe. It draws Britain deeper into a deadly arms race that neither side can win.
The Russian embassy in Britain has warned of a “high price” to pay if Britain chooses to escalate the war. A senior defence source speaking to the Times suggested that this could mean more spying or cyberattacks on Britain.
The Russian invasion has indeed been brutal and murderous. But both sides, the West and Russia, have sought to expand their influence over Ukraine for their own ends.
This inter-imperialist rivalry is the main driver of the war and it is the force that has torn Ukraine apart. Arming Ukraine ultimately deepens this rivalry.
Hope lies with ordinary people in Russia and Ukraine refusing to die for the imperial ambitions of their rulers.
Early on in 2022, there were sporadic reports of anti-war mobilisations in both Ukraine and Russia.
For example, in Kherson in Ukraine, some 2,000 people confronted Russian soldiers and fraternised with them, trying to turn them against the war.
And tens of thousands of people in Russia joined protests against Vladimir Putin’s war, despite the fierce repression they faced.
However, for much of the past four years, mass revolts against the war by Ukrainians and Russians has seemed a distant prospect.
But, according to a report in the Nation newspaper, by Russian-born anti-war journalist Dan Storyev, there are now millions of Ukrainian men refusing to be conscripted.
Zelensky’s drive to conscript more young men to join the war has intensified over the past two years. The article describes young men being chased in the streets, beaten and threatened with guns as they are forced to join the war effort.
It alleges that some are even tortured and killed by the Tetseka recruitment agency.
But there are outbreaks of violence against the Tetseka as Ukrainians fight back. In July, 200 protesters surrounded officers in Lviv as they were attempting to detain a suspected draft dodger. The crowd smashed and overturned their car.
This is not an isolated case. There were 341 cases of attacks on the Tetseka recorded last year by Ukrainian police.
These are not generally mass protests. Resistance to conscription often takes place on social media or involves individual acts of violence towards recruiting officers.
Some will be motivated primarily by terror at the thought of dying in the war or fear of the harsh conditions on the frontline.
But Storyev suggests that some are also rebelling against the Ukrainian state and rejecting the idea that the long war is there to defend liberal and Western values.
He quotes one soldier questioning what they are fighting for. “I am listening to this guy who tells me I need to fight the Russians, because they will kill and rape my sister. But I wouldn’t let this guy anywhere near my sister either.”
Acts of resistance by ordinary people in Russia and Ukraine could plant the seeds of future revolts that offer a real alternative to our rulers efforts to escalate the carnage.
If opposition to the war fuses with protests over the impact of corruption on ordinary people’s lives it could prove an explosive combination.
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