15th June 2024
It’s a deal – Zelensky and Biden, partners in crime
The recently signed 10 year security pact, agreed between the United States and Ukraine marks a further ramping up of NATO’s proxy war against Russia. The deal, signed on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy last week, aims to commit future US administrations to support Ukraine, even if former President Donald Trump wins November’s election. The G7 nations also agreed to a $50 billion loan for Ukraine backed by profits from frozen Russian assets. US President, Joe Biden, asserted that the G7’s message to Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is “You cannot wait us out. You cannot divide us.”
The deal is widely seen as a step towards NATO membership for Ukraine and a further move towards the encirclement of Russia by NATO nations. Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been pushing for full NATO member ship for some time. NATO regards any attack launched on one of its 32 members as an attack on all, under its Article Five clause, so membership is seen as a trump card by Ukraine in pressurising Russia.
Even without NATO membership the deal contains some clauses which point to potential US intervention in the current conflict. For example, in the event of an armed attack or threat of such against Ukraine, top US and Ukrainian officials will meet within 24 hours to consult on a response and determine what additional defence needs are required for Ukraine. Under the agreement, the United States restates its support for Ukraine’s defence of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The agreement also outlines plans to develop Ukraine’s own defence industry and expand its military.
The text of the deal allows the two countries to share intelligence, hold training and military education programmes and combined military exercises, which will clearly be a provocation to Russia. The deal also asserts that Ukraine needs a “significant” military force and sustained investments in its defence industrial base, consistent with NATO standards. All of which is tantamount to a blank cheque for the US military industrial complex to make massive profits from the arrangement.
The deal also comes against the backdrop of Biden having recently shifted US policy against allowing Ukraine to use American weapons for attacks inside Russia, in effect permitting Kyiv to fire long-range US missiles against Russian targets near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
In the press conference convened to announce the deal Biden said arrangements were being made to provide Ukraine with five Patriot missile defence systems, saying: “Everything we have is going to Ukraine until its needs are met.” Biden also added that his administration is “intensifying” its pressure on Moscow, including by warning banks earlier this week that they risk US sanctions should they do business with Russia.
The agreement between the US and Ukraine is the 16th such bilateral agreement Ukraine has now reached. As an executive order, it could be undone by a Trump administration, should Joe Biden fail to win the US election in November. However, the intention of the current US administration is that the accumulation of agreements collectively adds up to a form of security assurance that, although short of full NATO membership, will strengthen the hand of the military alliance in its provocations against Russia.
A unilateral so called, Global Peace Summit, takes place in Switzerland this weekend (15/16 June), initiated by Ukraine, to which Russia is not invited. The summit is little more than a vanity project initiated by President Zelensky in an attempt to galvanise international support around his right wing nationalist agenda. US President, Joe Biden, will not attend, sending Vice President Kamala Harris. China will not attend, as the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said it believes a peace conference should involve both Russia and Ukraine. Under half of the 193 United Nations member countries are planning to attend.
Russia remains keen to build upon a draft peace agreement negotiated in the early days of the war that included provisions for Ukraine’s neutral status and put limits on its armed forces. Ukraine continues to focus upon a 10 point plan drafted by Zelensky in 2022, which focuses upon the withdrawal of Russian troops and denial of the legitimacy of Crimea being part of Russia.
Mark Cancian, senior adviser for the International Security Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said he expects many attendees to remain neutral on the war.
“Zelensky will want to turn the conference into an anti-Russian coalition,” he said. “However, some of the attendees may want to explore end states that are short of what Ukraine wants — for example, some sort of in-place cease-fire.”
While the summit is unlikely to achieve anything significant, without the participation of Russia or China, the signing of the 10 year deal between the US and Ukraine will ensure that the NATO strategy of encircling and provoking Russia remains in place and that the suffering of both the Russian and the Ukrainian people continues.
Peace proposals put forward by both Russia and China have been rejected out of hand by the West, which continues to increase the militarisation of Ukraine and pour weapons into the conflict, adding fuel to an already raging regional fire and increasing the threat of global war.
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