After “peace”, will Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and NATO continue waging a hybrid war?

A formal conclusion to the war in Ukraine won’t be the end of the violence: what lies ahead is a long-term structural alliance between ultra-nationalist Ukrainian forces and European militarism

Guest post by Andrea Zhok.

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In the past month, the Russian military has taken 505 square kilometres of territory — still a small amount for a country as large as Ukraine, yet one that shows a clear acceleration compared with the previous period.

The omnipresence of drones makes rapid advances with tanks and armoured vehicles impossible, but it also means that any gains made are more resistant to potential counterattacks.

Signs of a decline in Ukraine’s operational capabilities at the front are evident; yet indications of a rapid end to the conflict remain contested.

From the front, some Ukrainian commanders have informed Zelensky that, should he sign an agreement requiring a withdrawal from the Donbas, they will not obey.

In a modern war, this is of course more a symbolic gesture than a real prospect of fighting to the bitter end: if supplies were cut off by central decision, the front would collapse within a matter of weeks.

It would likewise collapse if the United States were to withdraw the provision of satellite data and intelligence, as they have repeatedly threatened.

Thus, in the end, despite the presence of more radical nationalist elements within the Ukrainian armed forces, the decision whether to continue the war or accept a still honourable defeat ultimately rests with the political leadership.

Everything suggests that the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is entering its final stages; it is plausible that between spring and summer we will see its formal conclusion.

But this conclusion — and herein lies the major problem we will face — will not truly be an end.

What lies ahead is a long-term structural alliance between the remnants of radicalised Ukrainian forces and European militarism.

In Ukraine, radical nationalist elements will interpret any peace agreement as their own version of the “stab-in-the-back” legend (Dolchstosslegende) that animated German veterans after the First World War. The narrative that the war was not lost on the battlefield but through political betrayal in the rear gave rise to the paramilitary movements of 1920s Germany, which fed into the Sturmabteilungen, the original paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler, and nourished the rise of the Nazi Party.

At the same time, Europe’s leaderships — while aware they are not realistically capable of confronting Moscow in a direct military clash — cannot consider peace an option. For the von der Leyens and the Kallases, “as long as there is war, there is hope”, as an Alberto Sordi film famously put it. So long as the absurd narrative of “there is an aggressor and a victim — we had no choice” remains alive, Europe’s catastrophic policy choices can avoid facing a reckoning.

For this reason, what awaits us is a permanent hybrid war in which Ukrainian paramilitaries will supply part of the manpower, while Europe supplies the technological and economic means. Thus: sabotage, terrorist acts, cyberwarfare, etc. — all actions covered by “plausible deniability”, often indistinguishable from ordinary accidental malfunctions, pushing us into a wartime atmosphere without bombardments but of long duration. And one should not harbour the illusion that Europe will be able to chip away at Russia through Ukraine while remaining safely insulated from a response.

This, I fear, will be the natural end point of the current situation, bringing a further diversion of public resources to finance the paramilitary industries of friends-of-friends, and an additional tightening of all remaining freedoms of speech, thought and expression on European soil.

The Russian threat will become a permanent refrain, and in the name of supreme defence imperatives, neoliberalism’s long-held dream will be realised in its purest form: a society of slaves, militarised in mind and in wallet, for the benefit of the new financial feudal lords.

History is never predetermined, but it does possess inertial tendencies. If we do not oppose them head-on, these tendencies will prove fatal in the near future.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope

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