Thread by @DavidNorthWSWS

The US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership, signed in Washington on November 10, 2021, provides a critical insight into the background of the #UkraineRussiaWar. It confirmed Ukraine's status as a key US ally in an offensive anti-Russia alliance. 1/
state.gov/u-s-ukraine-ch…

This bellicose statement, signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, defined Russia as an enemy, committing the US to support Ukraine "in the face of ongoing Russian aggression, which threatens regional peace and stability and undermines the global rules-based order." 2/

This "strategic partnership" was not only a preparation for war. Secretary of State Blinken understood and actually intended that this document would be read by the Russian government as a direct threat. 3/

Dispensing with the usual cautious language of diplomacy, Blinken used the most provocative language. The US pledged to "hold Russia accountable" for "aggression and violations of international law" and "its continuing malign behavior." 4/

The Biden administration's aim was not to prevent war, but to incite one. It is now clear that the Biden repeatedly predicted a Russian invasion because he had backed the Kremlin into a corner. That is why Biden said at a press conference: "Putin has to do something." 5/

The Biden administration is fully aware that the United States is backing a regime in which fascistic elements wield immense influence in the state and military forces. The charter goes out of its way to accommodate the historical narrative of the fascists. 6/

A critical passage reads: "The United States and Ukraine intend to continue to cooperate closely to promote remembrance, including increased public awareness of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, and other brutalities committed within and against Ukraine in the past." 7/

Excluded from this promotion of "remembrance" is any reference to fascist Ukrainian nationalists' collaboration with the Nazis and their own gruesome participation in the genocidal extermination of Jews following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. 8/

Principled leftwing opposition to the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine demands the explicit denunciation of the criminal role of US imperialism and the Ukrainian ruling class in the incitement of the war. Absent that, claims of being "antiwar" are hypocritical and deceitful. 9/

Historians will eventually obtain access to the unpublished secret codicils of this charter. What has been promised to the Ukrainian capitalists - in territory, money, future access to Russian resources, etc. - as a reward for allowing Ukraine to be used as bait? 10/10