Russian President Vladimir Putin is pursuing his regime’s murderous war aimed at ending Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign state. He has feigned interest in calls by President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for peace talks, while continuing to launch hundreds of missiles and drones on cities across Ukraine.
Proposals for a 30-day ceasefire, pushed for by Washington, have been backed by the Ukrainian government, but Putin has countered with maximalist demands he knows Kyiv will not accept, insisting Ukrainian forces withdraw from regions in the southeast that Russian forces only partially occupy as a precondition for a ceasefire. Moscow doesn’t control the regional capitals of Kherson or Zaporizhzhia, two regions it has partially seized.
In the face of Putin’s demands, working people in Ukraine are continuing their three-year-long heroic defense of their country’s sovereignty.
The day before Trump’s May 19 phone call to Putin, Moscow targeted Ukraine with one of its largest drone bombardments, directed mainly at Kyiv. Most of the 273 drones were downed by Ukrainian air defenses but one woman was killed and several people injured. During earlier negotiations in Istanbul, a Russian drone targeting a bus carrying civilians in the Sumy region killed at least nine people and injured seven more.
The only agreement reached at Istanbul was each side agreeing to release 1,000 prisoners of war.
Washington is pushing for an end to the war to stabilize the region for its own predatory interests, not to uphold Ukrainian sovereignty. The U.S. rulers are determined to shore up their domination of the weakening imperialist world order, amid sharpening competition between rival capitalist powers and growing conflicts between Washington and Beijing. Trump hopes to pull Moscow closer to Washington and away from the ties it has established with Beijing.
Putin believes his forces can outlast those of Ukraine, which has a population one quarter the size of Russia’s. He hopes that military backing from Washington and other imperialist powers in Europe will decline. He wants to conquer more territory before any ceasefire is reached.
On May 15, the Kremlin promoted two paratrooper generals who command forces that have made some inroads into Ukrainian lines. Both have records of utter disregard for the lives of the workers in uniform that Moscow sends into battle.
Despite being on the offensive for nearly two years, the Russian military has conquered less than 1% of additional territory, while suffering losses approaching 1 million troops. In its unsuccessful attempt to take the now deserted town of Toretsk in the east, the Kremlin sacrificed the lives of 20,000 soldiers over the last 10 months, with another 30,000 wounded.
Moscow’s war spurs realignments
Putin’s expansionist war in Ukraine, the deadliest in Europe since World War II, has led to shifting alignments and accelerated rearmament drives among capitalist rulers worldwide.
Friedrich Merz, Germany’s newly elected chancellor, said May 14 that Berlin had to transform its forces, the Bundeswehr, into the “strongest conventional army in Europe.” He argued this was “appropriate for Europe’s most populous and economically powerful country.” He added that “anyone who seriously believes that Russia will be satisfied with a victory over Ukraine or with the annexation of parts of the country is mistaken.”
Competition between Berlin and Paris over who “leads” Europe is sharpening.
Moscow has begun beefing up military bases along its 830-mile border with Finland, part of its plans for a long-term military expansion there. The rulers in Finland joined the Washington-led NATO alliance two years ago. The Arctic region is becoming a new zone of contention between the major capitalist powers, with the Trump administration vowing to take control of Greenland and casting an eye on parts of Canada.
The Turkish government has sought to enhance its own clout during the war and has long balanced between Moscow and Washington, while remaining a member of NATO. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government hosted recent Russia-Ukraine talks. The rulers in Turkey have NATO’s second-largest army after the U.S. and a booming armaments industry. They’re looked to by imperialist powers in Europe as a bulwark against Moscow.
Working people in Russia are paying a price for Putin’s war, not only on the front lines, but also at home. His regime continues to jail anti-war activists at the same time that imperialist sanctions and armament costs are putting a squeeze on living standards.
The price of potatoes, a staple food in Russia, reached a historic high after a sharp decline in last year’s harvest. Wholesale prices nearly tripled.
Despite Putin’s clampdown on rights, he fears Russia’s working people. Unlike the imperialist rulers in Washington and elsewhere, workers in Russia, along with working people worldwide, are the only dependable allies of the Ukrainian people in the fight to prevent Ukraine’s subjugation.