A Dance with the Imperialist Dragons: The Motivations of the Russo-Ukrainian War

Written by French Vivienne T. Templonuevo/THE RED CHRONICLES
Layout by Luis Marco Mendoza/THE RED CHRONICLES

Revisiting the 24th of February 2022, the world witnessed how the armed hostilities and invasion of the Russian forces on the Ukrainian soil commenced, prompting the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. A full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched by the Russian State by utilizing its superior armaments to the detriment of the civilians in the Donbas region. Following the aggression, the US-NATO-backed Zelenskyy regime declared martial law, and thereafter retaliated by deploying Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv. To this day, the Russo-Ukrainian War has yet to be completely written in the historical pages curated by the hegemonic victors of the Western world. 

History, however, has its eyes on the unfamiliar narrative. One cannot simply imagine how the citizenry of Ukraine unclothed the gut-wrenching cloak wrapped on the face of global powers’ multi-polarity and violence. Beyond the militarist blitzkrieg, Vladimir Putin’s declaration of offensive counterattack, and Joe Biden’s rodomontade by uttering threats to Russia, there lies deep-rooted motivations of war brought by the intensified conflict of global hegemons and imperialist states. 

As the United States and the G7 States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) attempted to railroad and maneuver their rudimentary politico-economic agenda and militarist control for world dominance, waging wars, and slitting the throats of other States remain in their playbook.

While the hegemonic Western regimes recommenced their longstanding armed conflict by launching proxy wars, that is, akin to that of a Game of Thrones folly, the sovereign masses were left at the brink of doom and death. Thus, a humane query should foster a just answer to the subhuman riddles of war—who gets to win the prize of world dominance at the expense of the living masses?

A History of Oppression, Betrayal & Bloodshed: What Actually Transpired

Political history of hegemonic race is replete with literature, revealing that it was intensified as early as 1953. Internal conflict in Soviet Russia (USSR) arose when the revisionist key players of the Bolshevik Party attempted to “depart” from the orthodoxies of Marxist socio-economic base while inviting capitalist interests. Nikita Kruschev and Mikhail Gorbachev posited that changing the economic fabric of Russia would put an end to the then-impending threats of cold war, prompting the Russian nationals to revert to their local homes. Ascending from the total overhaul of the Russian economic base, Former US President George W. Bush explicitly backed the former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev in the paradigm shift of the USSR’s socio-economic base to a “democratic system and a market-oriented economy.”

Coupled with the infiltration of foregoing Soviet revisionists with the likes of Kruschev, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin among others, the rise of capitalist bourgeoisie in the seats of power triggered the Soviet Union founder-states Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus to sign the Minsk Agreement of 1991. It thereafter purported the disintegration of the USSR as a state. The US propelled the signatories to maintain the alliance for the “protection” of the democratic and human rights of the citizenry of the former Soviet nations through NATO. Furthermore, NATO assured that it would not unbridledly recruit former Warsaw Pact member-states.

While Russian revisionist political figures were becoming subservient to the Western European spheres of influence and political power, the US and NATO member-states became the primordial agents of the destruction of Yugoslavia by recruiting the former Warsaw Pact member-states to NATO membership. It is then interesting to note that the aforementioned prime agents had swiftly slit the throat of the Russian State as they threatened the latter with a massive nuclear attack. Following the strategic and cunning charge of the US against the Russian Federation, color revolutions arose within its territorial borders. These uprisings were bolstered and instigated by the US in order to maintain its hegemonic control, and to topple down the rise of any anti-US global power.    

Noting that the signing of the Minsk Agreement and peoples’ plebiscite birthed the founding of modern-day independent Ukraine, the pro-US and NATO leaders of Kyiv, Ukraine proliferated Russophobia and anti-Russian government sentiments. The agreement transpired despite the prevailing numbers of citizens with Russian nationality in the Donbas Region. Ukraine, following its integration to the European powers of NATO and US, blatantly launched militarist aggression in the same region, which forcibly displaced Russian nationals from their familial homes. Families were slain in the local communities at the expense of the US-NATO global expansion. Resulting therefrom the fascist attacks and oppression, Russian nationals in the Donbas Region organized people’s resistance as they established the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The resistance forwarded the calls for their right to self-determination.

However, relentless state-sponsored aggressions were not sufficiently halted by the brewing resistance of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russian-Ukrainians took refuge in the Crimean Peninsula, and thereafter aimed for the latter’s reversion to the Russian Federation. They opined that such reversion is lawful and justified within the ambit of the international law by citing the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ on Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia; that there was no prohibition on unilaterally declaring State independence arising from the principle of territorial integrity. Ultimately, historical accounts unveiled that USSR’s Nikita Khrushchev merely vested the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine, which was in fact “a gift on a golden dish.” 

Notwithstanding the legal antecedents and historical assertions of Crimean authorities, Russian-Ukrainians, and the Russian Federation, NATO sanctioned Russia by removing the same from the G-8 NATO member-states. This sanction was peculiarly and strategically ascended by the formation of the second Minsk Agreement that preliminarily recognized the interim autonomous government of Donetsk and Luhansk, packaged with the 13-point clauses including immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weaponry. However, despite the newly ratified agreement, Kyiv’s political key players, emboldened by the US-NATO alliance, remained violative of the second Minsk Agreement clauses by launching offensive attacks in the Donbas region, slaughtering Russian families, women, and children.

Massive bloodshed among Russian nationals outpoured from the pseudo-armistice and militarist suppression in the Donbas Region. However, the narrative of the fallen, as figures of resistance, was erringly weaponized by the global hegemons. Needless to state, the US-NATO alliance pranced around the global military control and dominance on the world political economy by suppressing genuine resistance and by instigating mass killings. While it is true that US President Joe Biden uttered in his sharp declarations that the world calls for the accountability of the Russian State, beneath his bluster of words lies an underlying geopolitical and economic interest. 

Thereby, to intricately realize the interwoven interests of the Western Europe and the US with instigation of war and aggression, including the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the roots of politico-economic interests should be further plunged into.  

A Deep Dive to Ukraine’s Political Economy: What’s in it for the US, NATO, and Russia?

Politico-academic and geopolitical underpinnings reveal that the longstanding tactic of the US in maintaining its militarist dominance has always been lodged in preventing Russia as a regional hegemon in Eurasia from the Cold War period to this day. While economic critics claim that Russia is not relatively deemed as an “economic hegemony” in today’s time, it is undeniably established that the latter’s military arsenal, nuclear weaponry, and heavy artillery reflect a large military and defense-industrial complex. Contrary to the foregoing study, other scholarly contentions posit that the Russian Federation have been dubbed as an “impoverished superpower” as the latter valiantly maintains its militarist superiority in Eastern Europe, while its mixed-economy went downward spiral arising from the US-NATO economic blockade, and endemic corruption. 

Now, it is more interesting to note that the national interests of global hegemons and imperialist states such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and other G7 NATO member-states are all inclined towards an economic spring. As for the US, the nature of its national interest is two-fold—militarist and economic suppression of the Russian State power. Hence, the ultimacy of the foregoing states’ target is to secure Ukraine as their military and economic stronghold. In sum, the interests of the US and NATO combined, what is corollary to their objectives is the reduction of Russia’s spheres of influence in Europe. 

Coined as the “Breadbasket of Europe,” Ukraine has been one of the world’s largest exporters of articles of iron and steel, corn, wheat, rye, barley, machineries, computers, and oil seeds. The prominent figure in its export highlights the Iron and Steel industry, generating 4.6 billion US Dollars. Considering the aforementioned figures, one might raise this query in his head: What’s in it for Russia and the US-NATO? 

Foremost, while Russia’s economic base went downward spiral due to the economic suppression and sanctions posed by the US-NATO alliance, the former now becomes dependent on its neighboring spheres of influence, including Ukraine which had a relatively high exporting power and manufacturing capacity. Thus, the assertion of the Russian Federation in its Ukrainian economic tie envelopes the national interest of the former. Furthermore, the US, along with other imperialist NATO states, maintains its economic sanctions on Russia to assert hegemonic within and beyond Europe. Forming part of the US-NATO sanctions, the US and Germany halted Russia’s access to the Nord Stream 2 gas line stretching from Petrograd to Germany.

To finally establish the national interests of US, NATO, and Russia as the major key players in the Russo-Ukrainian war, the same verily arose from the profit-driven imperialist agenda. Unfortunately, the sovereign masses of Ukraine paid the bloodied price. 

Ukraine as the Iron Throne: Which Imperialist State should be hailed as victor?

It is earlier submitted that the US, as it asserts its hegemonic sphere, has been rolling the dice of preventing the rise of Russian power since the brewing of the Cold War. By strengthening its webs of power, the US railroaded and promulgated NATO along with other imperialist states to downplay Russia’s spheres of influence, economic rise, and unparalleled military complex. Meanwhile, the upholding of Russia’s economic chains with Ukraine roots in the accrual of economic profit and export industry.

US and NATO may have squarely divided and conquered Eastern Europe by instigating and funding coups, bolstering proxy wars, and forwarding military expansion, while Russia may have successfully launched its invasion of Ukraine. However, no imperialist state should be hailed as a victor. Ukraine, as a seat of imperialist power, should be rejected by championing the international laws of war, generally accepted principles enshrining human rights and the right to self-determination. 

At the outset, the Ukrainian masses have lost thousands of lives at the expense of the imperialist and expansionist agenda. In the face of genuine struggle and call for national liberation, Ukrainians paid the price, rendering the breath of innocent communities, women, and children. Thus, no reasonable and humane state should be deemed as champion of the throne.

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