By Danny O’Brien
March 2, 2022

The U.S.-commanded NATO military alliance has spent 8 years funneling tons of advanced weapons and fascist armed groups into eastern Ukraine along the 1,200 mile border with Russia. The constant U.S./NATO backed attacks have resulted in over 14,000 deaths of civilians in Ukraine. These facts on the U.S./NATO military alliance’s criminal and provocative role in Ukraine must be exposed.

1. NATO expansion: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance under U.S. command. In 1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker promised leaders of the still-existing Soviet Union that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward” of a German state that included the former German Democratic Republic. NATO had 16 members in 1990; now NATO’s 30 member states include former allies and even former republics of the Soviet Union that are now allied in NATO against the Russian Federation.

2. Ukraine: Historically Ukraine existed as a socialist republic; its economy integrated into the Soviet Union and closely linked to Russia, with a majority of the population east of the Dnieper River, the more industrialized region known as the Donbass, identified with Russia culturally and linguistically.

3. 2014 Coup: In 2014, the U.S. heavily armed and funded groups of ultranationalists, neo-Nazis and fascists to overthrow the government of Ukraine and help install one hostile to Russia and tied to U.S. and European Union interests.

4. The Donbass: Following the coup in 2014, the people of the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, in the Donbass region, in a struggle against fascism and privatization from the new coup regime, declared themselves as independent republics separated from Ukraine.

5. Russia’s fear: Every time NATO absorbs a former Soviet ally or republic, it threatens Russia economically and militarily. The U.S. funneled $5 billion over eight years to feed the attack of the Ukraine regime on the Donbass and destabilize Russian trade.

6. Sanctions: Sanctions are economic warfare, an act of war. They do the most harm to the civilian populations of the countries targeted, including starving them and depriving them of medical care.

7. U.S. military track record: The U.S. military has carried out scenarios for unpopular, prolonged wars that ruin the victim countries and their civilian populations and end in no resolution. From 1991 on these include wars against Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria among others.

8. European competition: Russia supplies oil and natural gas to the European Union at low prices, along with many other resources. By using sanctions to corner the European market, Washington will force EU countries to import resources like natural gas from the United States. Prices will be much higher.

9. Nord Stream 2 pipeline: U.S. pressure disrupted plans to certify the completed liquified natural gas pipeline from Russia’s northwestern border to Germany for distribution throughout Europe. U.S. corporations and strategists oppose a close economic relationship between Germany and Russia.

10. Material consequences for the working class: Ukraine’s workers and farmers will have their country torn apart further by imperialist penetration. Russian workers could face hunger, increased poverty rates and lose access to medicines because of economic sanctions. Workers in the EU will experience a rise in inflation and poverty. U.S. workers will face rising gas prices, potentially lower wages, higher inflation, and a cultural uptick in racism, xenophobia and irrational patriotism. The tensions have the potential to degenerate into a major war.