Putin: ‘Butcher’ of Aleppo and Grozny

....In just two months, the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine has shaken up alliances between imperialist governments worldwide as the capitalist rulers search for how best to defend their national interests. The invasion has disrupted trade and delivery of everything from wheat to oil and increased the volatility of financial markets. Every capitalist regime is beefing up its military capacity in anticipation of more wars to come.

Russian forces launched an attack on Ukrainian defensive lines dug in along a nearly 300-mile front in an arc from Kharkiv in the northeast through Luhansk and Donetsk to the still surrounded and besieged city of Mariupol in the southeast, to Kherson further west. “The battle for Donbas,” which is the main industrial and mining region in Ukraine, looms.

Amassed Russian troops and tanks are being hurled at Ukrainian defenses in a drive to conquer territory adjacent to the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk that Moscow-backed separatists, reinforced by Russian agents, seized in 2014. This covered roughly a third of the two Ukrainian provinces. While Putin claims the inhabitants there are all Russians, he is planning a massive war against them.

While the Russian military commands much greater heavy armor and air power, its growing number of troops there are weakened by earlier losses and morale problems. They also face determined resistance by 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers seasoned in battle since the 2014 conflict and today’s combat.

Moscow’s troops out of all of Ukraine now! – The Militant