Around a month ago, parts of the Ukrainian army launched an offensive in the Russian oblast of Kursk. Not only the leadership of Russian imperialism seemed surprised by this, but also those of the so-called "West". After a week of relative silence on the part of the "Western" imperialists and their media with regard to the assessment of this event, attempts are now being made to somehow justify an offensive that has so far been strategically unsuccessful. At the same time, Russia is making its biggest territorial gains in eastern Ukraine for around a year, including in strategically important areas. An austerity package is being forced upon the Ukrainian people by the IMF time and time again, as the billions in "aid" loans are of course not for free…
Monopoly media and their role in disinformation
In fact, the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk achieved a certain surprising success, for which Russian imperialism was obviously not prepared. This may indeed have led to a short-term increase in morale within the Ukrainian troops. However, the "goals" set by the Ukrainian president for the operation in Kursk will be difficult to achieve. For weeks, one of the main arguments of the Western system press for the offensive in Kursk has been the aim of relieving the Ukrainian front in the east, because this would force Russia to move troops from Ukraine to Kursk. The fact that this is mere propaganda is also shown by comments from journalists in the bourgeois media when they state that Russia has not yet been forced to move troops to Kursk on a relevant scale. ORF's (Austrian official radio station) Ukraine correspondent, Christian Wehrschütz, reported in an interview two weeks ago: "That's the real hitch in this Kursk offensive, because one of the assumptions is that Ukraine has been anxious, even hoped, that Russia would withdraw troops from the Pokrovsk region [eastern Ukraine, Donetsk Oblast, note RF] in order to move them towards Kursk. But that didn't happen. The situation in Pokrovsk is that Russia is steadily advancing (...) it would be a massive defeat for Ukraine if the Russians were able to gain a foothold there or even take Pokrovsk in a few weeks. (...) Then an attack on the last two large cities in the Donbass could follow." (1) This interview excerpt shows that not only was the goal of relieving the Ukrainian front have not been achieved, but on the contrary, the Ukrainian front in Ukraine was massively weakened by the concentration of numerous troops in Kursk.
The second argument cited for Ukraine's "success" in the Kursk offensive is the "huge territory": It is officially around 1,300km2 that Ukrainian troops would have conquered in Russia. On the one hand, there is a difference between conquering or advancing into enemy territory and actually holding such territory (which would tie up considerably more forces). On the other hand, this reporting is characterized by deliberate disinformation about the significance of this area in relation to Russian territory. Russian warfare, even in history, has always been based on two key premises: on the one hand, it is the country with the largest territory in the world, and on the other, it has a relatively large population, which means a large potential reserve of soldiers in times of war. The entire Kurs oblast has an area of around 30,000 km2 (which corresponds to around 0.18 percent of Russian territory, or around 1/3 of Austrian territory) and a population of around 1.1 million people. (2) A thousand square kilometers would therefore be a relatively large territory in military terms in Austria, whereas in Russia it represents a very, very small territory. The response of the Russian imperialist leadership to the Kursk offensive was not the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine, but the partial evacuation of the population in Kursk, as well as an offensive on the front in Donetsk Oblast. It would also not be the first time in history that Russia (or the Soviet Union in the Second World War) has used the advantage of large territory by allowing the enemy to advance to a certain extent into its own territory in order to drain its forces and thus impose ever longer supply lines on the enemy. As Ukraine now has to tie up more and more forces in Kursk to hold the area, Russia is advancing further towards the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, the front line is less than ten kilometers away from the city. (3) Even the US Institute for the Study of War confirmed that the Russian forces were able to make "significant tactical advances southeast of Pokrovsk" (4). The city of Pokrovsk, although it only had around 60,000 inhabitants before the war, is of strategic importance to the Ukrainian army as, according to the Austrian head of department at the Military Academy in Vienna, it forms the backbone of Ukrainian defense and supply up to the north of the Donetsk region. According to the European Council on Foreign Relations, the "worst-case scenario (...) would be a complete Russian occupation of the Donetsk region" (5).
The main aim of these disinformation campaigns by the "Western" monopoly media is to present further arms deliveries as necessary and "decisive for the war". In addition, such apparent "success stories" are also intended to cover up the instability of the Ukrainian government. For example, it has now been announced once again that around half of all ministers in the Ukrainian wartime government will have to resign in order to be replaced by new ones. (6) This government has less and less support: both within the ruling classes in Ukraine and among the population.
Zelensky sells out the Ukrainian people to his financiers
Ukrainian President Zelensky is now trying not only to stylize the advance in Kursk as a "success of the Ukrainian army" against Russia, but also to use it as a signal to his imperialist financiers so that they will comply with his insistence on more and faster arms deliveries. Around a week and a half after the advance in Kursk, Zelensky claimed that the main purpose of this offensive was to expose the "red lines" proclaimed by Russia as "empty threats" (7) and thus win over the "Western partners" for increased support. He said: "If these partners had not limited the use of their long-range weapons, the advance into Russia would not have been necessary at all" (8). Although the media coverage within the imperialist media has not (yet) openly described the Kursk offensive as a serious military mistake, approval of the "success" of this event is very restrained, both on the part of the USA and, to some extent, the EU.
For months now, Ukraine has been repeatedly accused of an impending "inability to pay" loan installments. A loan of 2.2 billion to Ukraine will be offset by interest payments to the IMF of 1.9 billion in 2024. (9) The IMF links its loans to the fulfillment of measures. According to an IMF report, in agreement with the Selensky wartime government, electricity, gas and heating tariffs are to be drastically increased in Ukraine, and minimum wages and social benefits are to be frozen for three years (with a forecast inflation rate of eight percent!). Mass taxes are also to be increased as part of these measures. In June, the G7 countries agreed on a new loan plan for Ukraine worth around 50 billion dollars by the end of the year. (10) While these loans are forcing the people into ever greater dependence on the imperialists and their repayments are being squeezed out at the expense of the people, they are also part of a further sell-out of Ukraine to foreign financiers. However, it would be wrong to assume that funds are only flowing "unilaterally". At the G7 summit, German Chancellor Scholz tried to make the private investments for the "reconstruction of Ukraine" palatable as follows: "Hundreds of German companies are still active in Ukraine, 35,000 employees in the automotive sector alone (...) Despite the war, there is no outflow of German investments, the volume of trade has increased significantly compared to the pre-war period." Scholz explained: "All this shows me that the economy understands the potential Ukraine has." (11) The perspective of the Ukrainian people under the rule and warfare of the Zelensky clique is the sell-out of a substantial part of the country and territory to the "Western" imperialists. The anti-people government of Zelensky is selling out and betraying the national interests of Ukraine and the social and democratic interests of the masses in every respect. The Ukrainian population, which is suffering more and more under this leadership clique and is less and less willing to fight their "defensive war", will not submit to this perspective in the medium and long term.
Sources:
(1) orf.at, 24.08.2024
(2) wikipedia.org
(3) dw.com
(4) Ebd.
(5) Ebd.
(6) kleinezeuitung.at
(7) spiegel.de
(8) Ebd.
(9) zeitungderarbeit.at
(10) euractiv.de
(11) mdr.de
Image sources:
August 2024 Kursk Oblast incursion (Western Russia), Ecrusized, Public Domain, Wikimedia
August 2024 Kursk Oblast incursion, Ecrusized, Public Domain, Wikimedia
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