Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime is escalating its murderous bombing campaign, deliberately targeting civilians in cities and towns across Ukraine. Moscow’s attempt to conquer the country is largely stalled, with its forces continuing to try to push forward at a tremendous cost in lives.
Putin hasn’t shown interest in ceasefire talks initiated by President Donald Trump and agreed to by the Ukrainian government, though he hopes to gain better relations with Washington.
In the most extensive aerial strike against Ukraine of the whole war, 355 attack drones and nine cruise missiles were launched May 26. Although Ukrainian air defenses were stretched, most were downed. This was the third large-scale aerial and drone assault against Ukrainian civilians in as many nights.
Over the preceding week, 30 civilians were killed and more than 163 injured. People in residential apartments, hospitals, schools, shopping centers, buses and cars were targeted in cities from Kyiv and Kharkiv to Odesa and Kherson.
Moscow’s aerial terror against civilians apes the methods of the U.S. and U.K. imperialist rulers during World War II. Heavy bombing by Washington and London targeted working-class neighborhoods in the German cities of Hamburg and Dresden while the U.S. Air Force did the same to Tokyo. The aim was to inflict maximum civilian deaths and the greatest destruction possible, trying to force the German and Japanese rulers to surrender.
But Ukrainian working people continue to fight Putin’s assaults on their country’s sovereignty with resilience and determination. The Ukrainian government has built 15 underground schools in frontline cities, with 200 more under construction.
The largest and most complicated prisoner swap of the war took place May 23-25, the one tangible result from the first direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian representatives a week earlier. About 1,000 captives were exchanged by each side at the border with Belarus, in northern Ukraine.
More than 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers may have been captured by Russian forces since 2022. According to Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, more than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are also in Russian captivity. For the first time, some of them were also released.
Rifts between U.S., European powers
Putin’s war is widening differences between Washington and rival imperialist powers in Europe. Washington says Ukraine can’t join NATO and calls for recognizing Moscow’s seizure of Crimea. Officials in Europe say the latter question should be settled later and there should be no restriction on the stationing of foreign troops in Ukraine, a proposal Moscow strongly opposes.
Trump says he’s considering whether to impose further sanctions against Moscow, while London, Paris and Berlin insist on expanded measures if Putin doesn’t end the war. Sanctions fall most harshly on working people in Russia and cut across what’s most needed — building solidarity between Ukrainian and Russian workers.
The U.S. rulers aim to normalize relations with Moscow to advance their own global interests, regardless of what that means for Ukrainian sovereignty. Trump hopes to draw Moscow closer to Washington and away from its ties to Beijing, which the U.S. rulers regard as the most serious threat to their domination of the world imperialist order.
As a result of a phone call between the U.S. and Russian presidents May 19, Moscow’s stance softened on Trump’s plans to build a space-based missile defense system. Putin’s spokesman announced the move was “a sovereign matter for the United States,” after Moscow had previously slammed the project. Following the Trump-Putin phone call, the Chinese government reiterated its opposition to Washington’s plan, calling it a danger to world security.
Europe’s deadliest war in eight decades, along with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom against Israel, has triggered growing militarization and realignments among the world’s major capitalist powers.
The German rulers made their first permanent foreign troop deployment since World War II, opening a tank brigade base with 4,800 soldiers in Lithuania May 22. Lithuania borders Belarus, whose government is allied with Moscow, and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Germany’s armed forces are “ready to defend every square inch of NATO territory,” Defense Minister Boris Pistorius proclaimed last month.
Putin’s war opposed inside Russia
Despite Putin’s repression of anti-war activists, opposition to the war continues to get expressed by working people in Russia.
Lyudmila Vasilyeva, a survivor of the World War II siege of Leningrad, was fined 10,000 rubles ($130) by a St. Petersburg court May 23 for staging an anti-war protest. Fifty people came to support her at the court hearing.
Vasilyeva, 84, had marked the third year of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with a brave solo demonstration. Despite police harassment, she stood for an hour at a shopping center holding a sign reading “People, let’s stop the war! We’re responsible for peace on planet Earth.”
She ran for St. Petersburg governor last June, attracting thousands of campaign volunteers before she was ruled off the ballot by authorities.