Ukrainian operations on Russian soil and the myth of defensive war
If anyone still had any doubts about the ruin that war represents forthe oppressed and exploited classes of the world, they will surely have
had the opportunity to see the true face of war in recent months. ----
We see the victims of the massacres carried out by the armies of
occupation, the bombings of cities, the missiles on markets, hospitals,
schools, which are repeated in different geographical areas as if the
governments' plans were the same everywhere, as if the brutality of the
state always had the same objectives, as if the war were always first
and foremost against civilians. But it is not only this, and not only
because on the level of military conflict less visible things happen,
which often do not appear in the media. There is also another issue that
we often forget because we live immersed in propaganda. Every army,
every state defines the war it wages as holy or just. In this, sometimes
the propaganda of governments, in addition to convincing a part of their
own citizens, also convinces many who do not live in the country at war.
So that many people, in very different fields, believe it is right to
fight a war, even if they live thousands of kilometers away.
But how can a defensive war be right? The attacked can win only if he
turns into an aggressor, from invaded into invader. Someone might say "À
la guerre comme à la guerre", that's how the world turns. Of course,
that's the problem, war cannot lead in other directions. Maybe if the
world turns like that we should think about changing it. This is also
clear in the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has been talked about
a lot lately.
Last September 10, the Russian armed forces launched a counteroffensive
in the Kursk oblast aimed at reconquering the territories that had ended
up under the control of Ukrainian troops since August 6, when they had
penetrated the territory of the Russian Federation with a massive operation.
According to several commentators, the "Kursk salient", i.e. the
projection area created by the offensive of the Ukrainian armed forces
in Russian territory, could soon turn into a pocket in which the most
advanced part of the Ukrainian positions would find themselves isolated
and forced to retreat. Whatever the outcome, it seems that the clashes
on this part of the front have taken on a particular significance.
Since the operation began, there have been comments and analyses of all
kinds, often contradictory ones. As often happens in these cases, one
can read anything and the opposite of everything: from those who,
especially at the beginning, welcomed the Ukrainian offensive as a first
sign of a reversal of the fortunes of the conflict, to those who judged
it to be more damaging than anything else for Ukraine. This latter
belief has asserted itself in particular in recent weeks. Many find it
difficult to explain this initiative by the Ukrainian armed forces,
which would have extended the front line, forcing them to withdraw
forces from other sectors, at a time when it seems clear that the
Ukrainian side is short of troops. To understand something, perhaps it
can help to escape the narrow "risk" dimension into which one risks
falling by observing only military facts. Inserting these events into
the general political context can provide further tools for
understanding. The news on the peace talks at the beginning of the
summer, the discussion - which has reignited since August - on the
delivery of long-range weapons to Ukraine by NATO and EU countries and
their use on Russian soil, the presidential elections in the USA and the
political situation in France and Germany. These are just some of the
issues that make up the picture.
However, even with the limited tools we have, it is certainly not on
these pages that we can attempt to reconstruct the events, nor are we
interested in focusing our reading on this.
There are instead issues of a more political nature that from our
specific point of view it is important to highlight. Undoubtedly, since
the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in
February 2022, the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region has brought
the war to Russian territory for the first time. This raises the
question of the fate of the people who live in the areas that Ukraine
controls outside its borders. We have read that there were evacuations
of population centers both organized by the Russians in the face of the
Ukrainian advance and by the Ukrainians when the Russian
counteroffensive began. But the most significant thing is that that
narrow part of the Kursk region invaded by the Ukrainian armed forces
has been under military occupation for over a month now. We do not know
how the Ukrainian armed forces maintain control over the area and the
remaining population, but it is still a military occupation.
Of course, it is nothing compared to the occupation that the Russian
armed forces have been imposing in various regions of Ukraine for years,
and for the moment there is no news of particular atrocities committed
by the Ukrainian armed forces of the Kursk oblast. But the point is
another. If you choose the path of war there is no way out, either you
lose, or you become invaders, occupiers and oppressors. We follow the
path of social liberation, and this path does not pass through armies,
because wars are always won only by states and never by peoples, by the
exploited, the oppressed. This is why we oppose war, military bases, the
production and trade of weapons, we try to support deserters on all
fronts, to keep alive the forms of solidarity that are torn apart by the
wars of states, to build networks of mutual support that can give new
space to grassroots movements and new impetus to a revolutionary
perspective.
Dario Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/guerra-giusta-per-chi/
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