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<b><font size="4"><a id="gmail-label" href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-russian-federation-recognized-independence-movements-donbas" rel="bookmark"><span>Why the Russian Federation Recognized the Independence Movements in the Donbas</span></a></font></b></div><div class="gmail-taxonomy"><a id="gmail-label" href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-russian-federation-recognized-independence-movements-donbas" rel="bookmark"><span><br></span>
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<span><a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist"> Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist<br>https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-russian-federation-recognized-independence-movements-donbas</a></span>
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23 Feb 2022
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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-body gmail-field--type-text-with-summary gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><p><em>Recognition
of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics is a direct result of
U.S. efforts to contain Russian economically and militarily.</em></p>
<p>“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! </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>I will not add to that mountain of ink because, for me, the story is relatively simple. I have argued <a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/corporate-oligarchy-or-people%E2%80%99s-democracy-countering-elite-agenda" rel="nofollow">since 2015</a>
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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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). </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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! </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>On February 18, 2022, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov stated that he was “<a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/russia-says-alarmed-by-situation-in-donbas/2506482" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">alarmed<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>”
by a reported spike in Ukrainian artillery attacks against rebels in
the eastern region of Donbas with weapons prohibited by the Minsk
agreement. <a href="https://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/reports" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Reports<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
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. </p>
<p>What was the response from the Ukraine government? The government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/20/ukraine-claims-russian-bias-among-frontline-monitors-after-western-pull-out" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">claims<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p><strong>Ukraine is just the symptom; the Disease is U.S. Doctrine of “Full Spectrum Dominance”</strong></p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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). </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>China is the number one trade and investment partner with the European Union states, the Chinese inspired “<a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditcinf2021d5_en_0.pdf" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
(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 <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/20/unipolar-governance-of-the-multipolar-world/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Eurasia Economic Union<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> that, in terms of land, is the largest trade union on the planet, and of course the <a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/us-imperial-decline-and-belt-and-road-initiative-most-important-global-struggle-century" rel="nofollow">Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). </a></p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p><strong><em>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.</em></strong></p>
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