By David Sole
U.S. President Joe Biden traveled to France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing which created the long delayed “second front” in World War II. For 3 long years the Soviet Union had fought alone in Europe against Hitler’s powerful military. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had pressed his “allies” to launch an offensive in western Europe, thus forcing the Germans to fight on two fronts simultaneously. The Allies did not do so until the Soviet Red Army had crushed the Nazis in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. Faced with the Soviets pushing further into Europe, they rushed to put their troops on the ground in France.
In his June 6 remarks at Normandy Biden continued the propaganda “describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the actions of ‘a tyrant intent on domination’” and vowed “the U.S. and its European partners ‘will not bow down’” His address was given at the site of the American Cemetery and Memorial where 9,000 U.S. troops are buried.
The Ukraine war, it is widely acknowledged, was planned at least a dozen years prior to the Russian intervention in 2022. The aim was to take over Ukraine, expand NATO and weaken Russia. The reality has turned out quite differently. Growing evidence shows that Ukraine, even with hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons aid from its masters, is losing the war. Russia’s economy has actually expanded despite severe economic sanctions.
Biden also met with Ukraine’s President Zelensky in Paris on June 7. The U.S. recently approved supplying Ukraine with another $60 billion in aid. The European Union committed another $54 billion to Ukraine earlier this year. It was announced that the US would also be sending an additional $225 million in weapons to Ukraine.
Biden will also return to Europe next week to participate in a meeting of the G7 nations where, it is expected, these imperialist powers may approve a plan to take the interest earned on $300 billion of Russian assets seized and frozen by the west and turn it over to Ukraine to pay for the war. That amount is estimated to be $50 billion.
This taking of Russian assets, however, will not go unanswered. “Russia has said any actions taken against its assets would amount to theft and would violate international law. Moscow has warned it would respond in kind if the West went through with threats to confiscate Russian assets.”
The supply of weapons to Ukraine is unlikely to be able to turn the tide against the Russians who have been advancing steadily on many fronts. Ukraine, unable to fill its army’s ranks because of huge casualties, is counting on some dramatic, but militarily unimportant, strikes against Russia to keep the funds flowing.
TASS News Agency reported on June 7 that Ukraine launched 5 long range, U.S. supplied ATACMS missiles that targeted civilian apartment complexes at the city of Lugansk. Four of the missiles were shot down by air defenses. One hit a building killing at least 4 people and wounding more than 43. Russia believes that U.S. soldiers on the ground in Ukraine “were likely in charge of aiming the ATACMS on Lugansk….The Navstar satellite navigation system is used for target aiming” which according to experts “was obviously not done by Ukrainians.”
Further escalating the war: “The Netherlands has authorized Ukraine to deploy Dutch-supplied F-16 fighter jets against targets withing Russia … This move by the Dutch government stands in contrast to Belgium’s stance, which restricts the use of its F-16s by Kyiv solely to Ukrainian airspace.”
As Ukraine’s military situation further collapses the very real danger of escalation grows. Unfortunately Zelensky’s puppet masters, led by Joe Biden, continue to refuse any peace talks to end the conflict.
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