The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 6th October 2023
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 6th October 2023
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
A new and possibly pro-Russian government in Slovakia, worsening relations with Poland, rows in the American Congress that threaten the continuing flow of arms to Kiev and more bad news from the front – it’s not been a good week for the Zelensky regime.
The failure of the US Congress to approve additional Ukraine spending in the 45- day stop-gap funding bill and the subsequent ousting of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House reflects the growing strength of the Donald Trump come-back campaign. But whether it will seriously derail the deep state’s reckless war now depends on how the voting public responds in the forthcoming elections. Likewise with the Poles, once Ukraine’s best friend in NATO but now at loggerheads with Kiev over cheap grain exports that threaten the livelihood of Polish farmers.
But the worst news, as far as Kiev is concerned, was the victory of the Slovak social-democrats in last week’s election. The Direction-Social Democracy (SMER-SD) party came first in the general election last weekend, and they’re now poised to start talks about forming a government. The party is the social-democratic heir to the old communist movement that ruled the country when it was part of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and its leader, Robert Fico, says he will not support further military aid for Ukraine. “Slovakia and the people of Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine,” he told the media following the announcement of the results that left SMER-SD with around 23 per cent of the vote, with the liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS) behind with some 18 per cent.
The old Slovak government, led by conservatives who loyally toed the imperialist line, supplied the Ukrainians with armoured personnel carriers, howitzers and its entire fleet of Soviet-era MiG29 fighter jets.
This will all stop if Fico can build a working coalition in parliament. Humanitarian aid would continue but all military assistance to the puppet regime would cease. “We are prepared to help with the reconstruction of the state, but you know our opinion on arming Ukraine,” he said.
During the election campaign Fico said his party would not “send a single round [of ammunition] to Ukraine” if it won. This week the social-democratic leader, who is a former prime minister, described the ongoing conflict as a great tragedy, adding that prolonging the conflict would only make things worse. “We will do everything we can to start peace negotiations as quickly as possible,” he said. “Further killing does not benefit anyone.”
Meanwhile back in the Kremlin Vladimir Putin has held talks with Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen republic, on the war and the economic development of the Caucasian member of the Russian Federation. Chechnya has sent five regiments and three battalions to the front and their troops played a major part in the liberation of south Ukraine last year.
A Ukrainian commando raid on Crimea was foiled when Russian war-planes sank the commandos’ motorboat and jet skis in the sea off the western coast of the peninsula.
Driving the Russians out of Crimea was a major objective of the Ukrainian offensive that began in June. Supplied with state-of-the-art NATO rockets and armour the puppet president, Vladimir Zelensky, and his masters in Washington had high hopes of victory in the summer. But those dreams were dashed as the Russians stubbornly held the line along the front that runs from the Donbas to the Black Sea.
Although Russian air defences have repeatedly foiled rocket and drone attacks on Crimea’s road and rail links to the rest of Russia, Ukrainian missiles did manage to hit the HQ building of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol last month. The Ukrainians claimed a direct hit had killed or wounded over 100 Russian officers and men, including the fleet’s commander, Admiral Viktor Sokolov – but this was wishful thinking. Sokolov appeared alive and well on Russian TV a few days later and, in any case, the Russian naval command had evacuated the building, whose location was well known, a long time ago.
The Ukrainian naval presence in the Black Sea, which it inherited from the old Soviet Union, was significantly reduced after the Crimean republic returned to the Russian Federation in 2014. The Ukrainian navy and its marines were downgraded as most of their colleagues who served on the peninsula joined the Russian side.