Joe Lombardo’s talk to the NATO counter-summit in Madrid 2022

The United States is the main imperialist power in the world. NATO is its partner in crime. The US has its military in around 170 countries. It has about 20 times the number of foreign military bases as all other countries combined, and it has a military budget close to that of the rest of the world combined. The United States dominates the world, politically, economically, and militarily. Any country that does not go along with its demands becomes a target of its propaganda, its military, its sanctions and its many regime-change organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID and others. It has created numerous coups, military actions, and wars to further its goals.

The war in Ukraine is part of this plan, as it relates to Russia. The US would like to see Russia become a country that will follow its dictates and eventually be used to help surround China, which is currently challenging US hegemony and is therefore the main enemy of the US today.

The war in Ukraine may have been avoided simply by saying that Ukraine will not be let into NATO, but the US and its European allies would not say that.

In a UNAC handout that I have with me, we outline the steps that led to this war, let me reiterate them here.

In 1991, the US promised to not move NATO east of Germany. To date it has moved into 14 countries east of Germany.

In 2014 the US helped orchestrate a coup that overthrew the elected government of Victor Yanukovych, who they felt was too open to good relations with Russia. That coup banned Yanukovych’s Party - The Party of Regions - the largest in the country. The second largest party - the Communist Party - was also outlawed, but extreme right-wing Nazi movements were welcomed into the government. The first act of the coup government was to ban the Russian language.

Protests against the coup spung up throughout the country. In Odessa, the protesters were attacked by pro-Nazi gangs and 48 people were killed and hundreds wounded. In many other places, the protests were put down, but in Crimea the people voted to leave Ukraine and return to Russia, which they had been part of for hundreds of years prior to the 1950’s. Two sections of the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine declared their independence from Kiev and formed the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

The right-wing and Nazi gangs formed into militias and tried to put down protests across Ukraine and instill fear to stop opposition to the coup government. They were armed and trained by the US and its NATO allies, integrated into the Ukrainian military, and led a war against the independent areas of Donbass. By the beginning of 2022, 14,000 people had been killed in that war. The war in Ukraine started in 2014, not on February 24, 2022.

At the beginning of 2022, Ukraine started massing troops on the border of Donbass and increased the shelling of the independent areas. Draconian sanctions were applied by the US and other NATO countries to try to bring down the Russian economy. At the same time Russia recognized the independent republics in Donbass, and when Ukrainian forces moved into these areas, Russia moved into Ukraine.

This conflict is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between US/NATO and Russia, one in which they are using Ukraine as a proxy and are prepared to fight to the last Ukrainian.

The US hoped that the war in Ukraine would weaken Russia. They openly stated that their sanctions would destroy the Russian economy, which they thought would cause a crisis in the country and could lead to the end of the present government, and perhaps install one more friendly to the US and its interests. They also understood that Europe and Russia and Europe and China were major trading partners and they hoped they could end that relationship to hurt both Russia and China and perhaps the US companies could move into that vacuum and make more profit. The US also realized that a major war in Europe would be good for the US military industrial complex as it supplies weapons for the war.

But the US plans have not worked out. Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. They are achieving their stated goals of de-Nazifying the country, protecting the Russian populations especially in Donbass and they are gaining territory important to them with access from the mainland to the Black Sea.

The Russian economy is growing while the Western economies are contracting. At the same time all the Western economies are experience high inflation even as they experience slow growth. Europe will likely go into a major decline without the energy resources from Russia.

In short, the US empire and hegemony is being challenged, and the war in Ukraine appears to be a pivotal point. Every anti-imperialist, every socialist and every peace activist should take heart from this. A new world is in the making. It may come with some pain, but if we want to be able to deal with climate change, militarism, white supremacy, and the other evils that effect our world, we should embrace it.