[News] Why the Russian Federation Recognized the Independence Movements in the Donbas

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 *Why the Russian Federation Recognized the Independence Movements in the
Donbas
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-russian-federation-recognized-independence-movements-donbas>*

<https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-russian-federation-recognized-independence-movements-donbas>
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-russian-federation-recognized-independence-movements-donbas
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and
columnist>
23 Feb 2022

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*Recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics is a direct
result of U.S. efforts to contain Russian economically and militarily.*

“Minsk, Minsk, Minsk,” they cried after Russia recognized Donetsk and
Luhansk. But those Western diplomats and pundits did not hear those of us
in the anti-war, pro-peace and anti-imperialist movements who insisted that
Minsk II was the only conceivable way out of the crisis!

There will be reams of words attempting to provide a coherent analysis of
the manufactured crisis dramatically unfolding in Ukraine, which took
another unanticipated turn when Russia extended recognition to the Peoples’
Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the territory referred to as the Donbas
in Eastern Ukraine.

I will not add to that mountain of ink because, for me, the story is
relatively simple. I have argued since 2015
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/corporate-oligarchy-or-people%E2%80%99s-democracy-countering-elite-agenda>
that it was greed informed by miscalculations that drove the U.S. — with
the support of European capital salivating from prospect of profits
generated by gaining full control of the Ukrainian economy through the
European Association agreement — to decide to overthrow the government of
Viktor Yanukovych when he turned to Russia instead of surrendering
Ukrainian sovereignty to U.S. and European capital.

This was the genesis of the crisis. For U.S. policymakers it did not matter
that the coup government was made up of literal neo-Nazis and extremist
white supremacists and antisemitic ultra-nationalists from the neo-Nazi
Svoboda party — the National Socialist Party of Ukraine.

Nor was there any concern that one of the former commanders of the Azov
Battalion, a violent right-wing gang that was merged into the Ukrainian
National Guard and is now being trained by the British, said that Ukraine’s
mission is to “lead in a final crusade … against the Semite-led
Untermenschen” (sub-humans).

No concern because aligning with rightist elements in order to advance the
economic and geostrategic interests of the U.S. state and capitalist class
behind the backs of the U.S. public is nothing new. That is why it is so
ironic, or perhaps contradictory, that while Democratic Party activists are
mobilized to struggle against the far-right in the U.S., Biden’s Ukrainian
policies are affirming once again that the neoliberal right does not mind
aligning with naked fascism to advance the imperial interests of capital.

>From rightist Islamic forces to right-wing apartheid state of Israel, to
anti-democratic monarchs of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC), there is usually never a state too odious for the U.S. to deal with
as long as there was the possibility of a buck to be made.

That is why it is almost surreal to read U.S. propaganda messages that
still frame U.S. intentions in themes that suggest a benevolent character
to U.S. behavior — and getting away with it! And even among African/Black
radicals who should know better, instead of educating Africans on what was
in play in Ukraine with the expansion of the white supremacist NATO
structure, the gangster move being made on Ukraine in order for U.S.
capital to continue to assert control over the European market, and the
crude attempt to divert attention away from the failures of Biden’s
domestic policies — some Africans, along with elements of the white left,
were more interested in having abstract discussions on the class nature of
the Russian state and economy — as if there was anything to debate there!

Like other subversive actions by the U.S. state, the destabilization and
then capturing of the Ukrainian state, and the installation of a puppet
government had nothing to do with any concerns for democracy. It is
impossible for the U.S. to be concerned about democracy when it is the
principal state undermining democracy around the world. If the U.S. were
committed to upholding democratic processes, it would not have overthrown a
democratically elected government in Ukraine.

And U.S. policy certainly did not reflect any concern for human rights in
Ukraine. The war that was sparked after the coup government decided to
attack its own citizens in the Donbas who rejected its legitimacy resulted
in thousands of Ukrainians losing their lives.

The U.S. was not concerned with the territorial integrity of Ukraine
either, because it was the coup government, backed by their bosses in
Washington, that forced the separation of the Donbas from Ukraine by
defining them as non-Ukrainians. Ukrainian citizens in Donbas became
“pro-Russia separatists and terrorists,” which made them eligible for
massive human rights violations, including murder as foreign entities.

Yet, with all of that, up until February 21, 2022, the 57th anniversary of
the assassination of Black internationalist revolutionary Malcolm X, a
route to a peaceful resolution to the crisis existed — the Minsk II
agreement.  It was the Minsk II agreement, put in place after the
independent republics fought the Ukrainian neo-fascists to a military
stand-still, along with provisions for a ceasefire, that provided a path to
peaceful resolution. The agreement would have provided political autonomy
for the Donbas within the Ukrainian state, thus preserving the existing
borders of Ukraine before the coup of 2014.

Unfortunately, with the election of Joe Biden, who was the Obama
administration’s point person on Ukraine, the Democrats immediately
picked-up where U.S. policy left off in 2016 and started to encourage the
Ukrainian government to ignore the Minsk II agreement and to consider
taking back the Donbas by force.

Today, after the U.S. flooded Ukraine with weapons, including long-range
artillery that was introduced into the conflict area in violation of the
Minsk ceasefire deal, the deployment of 150,000 Ukrainian troops positioned
along the contact line between Ukraine and Donbas, and the shelling from
the Ukrainian forces right during the period that the U.S. predicted that
Russia would invade, the Minsk agreement has become another casualty of
war.

On February 18, 2022, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov stated that he
was “alarmed
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/russia-says-alarmed-by-situation-in-donbas/2506482>”
by a reported spike in Ukrainian artillery attacks against rebels in the
eastern region of Donbas with weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreement.
Reports <https://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/reports> from the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which was tasked with the
responsibility, since 2015, to monitor and report on violations of the
agreement, indicated that in Donetsk, between February 18 and February 20,
2022, there were 591 ceasefire violations, and in Luhansk it recorded 975
ceasefire violations, including 860 explosions.

What was the response from the Ukraine government? The government claims
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/20/ukraine-claims-russian-bias-among-frontline-monitors-after-western-pull-out>
that OSCE is biased because the data it is gathering seems to indicate that
it is the Ukrainian forces that are responsible for the increase in
military actions.

But that controversy and debate over that data failed to find itself in the
daily coverage of the situation by the Western press, even though the
empirical data clearly showed that Ukrainian forces were responsible for
escalating the military engagement.

*Ukraine is just the symptom; the Disease is U.S. Doctrine of “Full
Spectrum Dominance”*

The U.S. has its pretext to move the Europeans to impose economic sanctions
against Russia, even though it is clear to many in Europe that the Biden
administration’s policies are no more than the “liberal” version of
“America First” as it relates to Europe.

European capital, especially the Germans, are expected to take another hit
for the team like it did during the first round of sanctions against Russia
and the money they all lost with the Trump administration’s abrogation of
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran Nuclear Deal).

The capitalist oligarchy that is the base of Putin’s governing coalition
may understand something that U.S. policymakers in their arrogance are
underestimating, namely, that European capital is getting closer to a
breaking point with the U.S., especially when money can be made in a
context of relative stability in Europe as opposed to the destabilizing
effects of conflict.

They also know that the world is changing and that multipolarity is rapidly
becoming the new reality and that European capital will have to make
careful choices.

China is the number one trade and investment partner with the European
Union states, the Chinese inspired “Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership
<https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditcinf2021d5_en_0.pdf>
(RCEP) ” is the largest “free trade” agreement on the planet constituting
one third of humanity and one third of global GDP. Russia is sitting on top
of the Eurasia Economic Union
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/20/unipolar-governance-of-the-multipolar-world/>
that, in terms of land, is the largest trade union on the planet, and of
course the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/us-imperial-decline-and-belt-and-road-initiative-most-important-global-struggle-century>

The Russian recognition of the republics of Donbas was no more than the
open acknowledgment of the dismembering of Ukraine. A process that started
with the U.S. coup and the imposition of a government that completely
turned over Ukrainian sovereignty to U.S. and European capital.

The lesson for the colonized, working classes and nationally oppressed?
Authentic national liberation, people(s)-centered human rights, and
self-determination for peoples and nations are impossible in a world in
which capitalist competition and war are the defining characteristics of
global relations.

We must, as we say in the Black is Back Coalition and the Black Alliance
for Peace, turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism! That is our
task and responsibility. To do otherwise is to fail the historical mission
of our generation.

*Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and
was the 2016 candidate for vice president of the United States on the Green
Party ticket. Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black
Agenda Report and was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and
the Serena Shim award for uncompromised integrity in journalism.*
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