After months in which the Western media and politicians have been living in make-believe land, the reality in Ukraine is beginning to bite. Not so long ago it was claimed that it had turned the tide and was actually winning the war. That story has now fallen apart.

[Originally published on Marxist.com]

The situation on the battlefield is deteriorating rapidly. A complete naval blockade holds the country in its merciless grip. The economy is threatened with collapse. There is a black hole in the government budget.

And all this has once more brought to a head a severe political crisis and a renewed corruption scandal. It is impossible not to have a sense of déjà vu. It all bears an uncanny resemblance with the way events developed late last autumn, and it is worth reading over what we said at the time.

The difference is that the crisis today is that much deeper.

Drones: another “game-changer”?

On July 15, Zelensky sacked his Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov—the man who was the main driver of the “drone offensive.” Yet for months we’d been sold the idea that the drone offensive was the “game-changer” that had turned the tide of the war.

On the battlefield, drones were presented as the silver bullet Ukraine needed to tackle its chronic shortage of manpower.

Most brigades are at a third of the strength they ought to be operating at, with some estimates claiming that the Ukrainian army is able to deploy less than ten soldiers per kilometer of front. Mr. Fedorov was foremost among those arguing that that is no problem at all. It would be enough to plug the gap with FPV (first-person-view) drones to keep Russian soldiers cowering in their foxholes.

At the start of the year, it looked as though Russia’s advance had indeed slowed. The Western press took this to mean drones really could stop Russia’s advance and that Fedorov was right.

But events have burst that bubble. It is more likely that the winter rains (which always slow troop movements), strategic considerations (fortifying the rear, etc.), and the sudden loss of access to Starlink satellites were the real reason for the slower Russian advance.

At any rate, first Konstantynyvka fell in July, and now the assaults on Lyman area, Dobropillia and the outskirts of Sloviansk are tightening the noose around the last urban center still held by Ukraine in Donbas: the Kramatorsk-Sloviansk conurbation. Simultaneously, the Russians are storming Orikhiv, the last defensible urban settlement of any significance between the Russian lines and the big city of Zhaphorizhia.

After these targets fall, the next Russian targets will be Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, and Zhaphorizhia.

Economic targets

The real “game-changing” effect of drones was meant to be playing out far from the battlefield. It was in the use of fleets of hundreds of medium- and long-range drones to bombard economic targets deep inside Russia: coastal targets in the Black Sea and Baltic, the supply lines to Crimea and oil refineries dotted across Russia.

The idea was to bring the Russian economy to its knees, thus making life a misery for ordinary Russians, triggering a crisis. Putin would then either be forced to negotiate a ceasefire, or else someone would rise up and remove him.

This was the Ukrainian and western ruling class’ fantastical expectation.

Undoubtedly, the drone swarms had some effect. They hit oil refining capacity, although the degree has been much exaggerated. More serious disruption was inflicted on Crimea and Russian cities near the Ukrainian border. But the bottom line is that it failed in its aim.

Although the Russians were taken by surprise by the scale of the Ukrainian drone offensive, they have since reorganised their air defenses and found a way to stop them. It is estimated by some that less than 1% of drones now get through those defenses. In turn, the Ukrainians have taken to creating a spectacle and the image of success by hitting softer civilian targets, like Wildberries warehouses—the Russian equivalent to Amazon.

This has all caused plenty of pain to individuals, but it has failed to cripple the Russian economy, and it has only hardened support for the war inside Russia. Meanwhile, the cost to Ukraine has been disproportionate.

Attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s Black Sea fleet have provided the pretext for a complete Black Sea blockade of Ukraine by the Russians. This would have been politically unthinkable for Putin in 2022. Today, however, he has little fear of upsetting Russia’s major trading partners like India and Turkey, who are now lining up along with everyone else to buy Russian oil and gas because of the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

But when the Russians brought their Rassvet system partly online—the Russian equivalent to Starlink—now that really shocked the West. It has popped another bubble: that Russia is a backward, technically unsophisticated economy; a “gas station with an army.”

Rassvet is allowing the Russians to swarm parts of Ukraine far from the front with drones. Thus, Ukraine may soon be blockaded by land as well as sea. Coupled with the heavy, daily bombardment of energy, industrial and transport infrastructure, Ukraine’s economy is being brought to the brink of collapse.

A horrific situation is being created for the people of Ukraine in the months to come. New disasters loom on the battlefield. A bitter, terrifying winter approaches.

For these miseries it is not enough to point the finger at the Russians. An accusing finger must also be directed at the lying, cynical, criminal Western governments and media, whose role in this is all the more vile given their wont to dress up as “Friends of Ukraine.”

Knowing that the war cannot be won, they nevertheless continue to encourage Zelensky to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood. They aim at the prolongation of the war.

Not only did they cheer Ukraine’s drone offensive—knowing full well that there was little military logic to it, knowing full well that this bloodied country would pay a heavy toll for it—they made it possible. They supplied many of the drones, the intelligence and the vital targeting assistance.

Why? There is a purpose, an unspeakably cynical purpose. But it has nothing to do with saving poor Ukraine. In the words of Belgium’s General Frederik Vansina:

2030 will be a difficult time for Europe. By then, we hope the war in Ukraine will be over. Russia will still be there with an army of between 650,000 and 700,000 experienced soldiers. So by 2030, we must be able to tell Vladimir Putin that even without the Americans, he will not win a war against Europe. We still have a few years ahead of us. Thanks to the courage and blood of Ukrainians, who are buying us this time. That is why we support them so resolutely.

Buying time. These words should live in infamy for their deplorable cynicism. But he is right. That is why the Europeans support the Ukrainians so resolutely. And they thank the corpse of the Ukrainian nation for allowing itself to be sacrificed in order to “buy us time.”

The drone war was pure spectacle. Like the disastrous offensive into Russia’s Kursk region in 2024–25, it was a PR stunt that was meant to create the false impression that Ukraine could still win an unwinnable war.

Why? To provide a political pretext for more military aid, more sanctions, with which to “buy time” in order that European imperialism might rearm and defend its imperialist interests more effectively, thus preparing the ground for new wars. And, of course, to deceive Trump with the idea that this war can be won, to therefore cajole the Americans once more into fully investing in it—and thus more broadly in the defense of the imperialist interests of Europe.

The Fedorov-Zelensky split

The drone offensive was unsustainable. It is estimated that it costs Ukraine $1 billion every month, an enormous price. In fact, the Ukrainian government has eaten through much of the defense budget for the second half of 2026 in the first half of the year. According to The New York Times, spending on drones and other high-tech weapons has risen from 60 to 90% of the military’s weapons procurement budget.

This is madness. Eventually, this had to bring about a clash between the architects of this plan and saner voices in the army. And that is what we saw, when a public clash erupted between Zelensky’s Minister of Defence Fedorov, and the country’s Commander-in-Chief General Syrskyi. That clash has now spiralled into a full-blown crisis for the whole Zelensky regime.

For the military men, Fedorov’s obsession with automating war—with drones, autonomous robots, sensors, AI and the like—is a dangerous distraction. As useful as drones are, what is needed on the battlefield is artillery, bullets and above all men. This is the view of the military commanders, and was the view of General Syrskyi.

In purely military logic—terrible though that logic is—they were undoubtedly correct as against Fedorov. But there is a reason that General Syrskyi is commonly known as “The Butcher” in Ukraine—his meatgrinder tactics, of throwing waves of poorly trained conscripts to the front, are hated.

At the apogee of this split between Syrskyi and Fedorov, Zelensky was forced to back the military. How could he not? He fired Fedorov on July 15.

But Fedorov, once so loyal to Zelensky, has not gone quietly. In the days and weeks that have followed, we have seen protests erupting in cities in Kyiv and the west of Ukraine supporting Fedorov. Overwhelmingly, these are young, middle-class layers connected to the ecosystem of pro-Western, pro-European NGOs that the EU and the US have fostered in Ukraine. Precisely the types who last year protested in defence of the anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAPO when Zelensky tried to shut them down last year.

At this point, Zelensky showed what a weak position he is in. He bowed to the protests, and on July 21, less than a week after Fedorov went, he fired Syrskyi and replaced him as Commander-in-Chief with General Drapatyi.

Zelensky has begged Fedorov to come back on board. He has offered him not one but four different government posts. Fedorov has refused them all and said he would only settle for one job, the Minister of Defence role… although the unspoken fact is he would probably prefer Zelensky’s job.

Things have only escalated from there.

Corruption

The signal for the latest escalation was Zelensky’s confirmation of Mr. Fedorov’s replacement as minister of defence on August 19.

In clear coordination, first Fedorov publicly called for new elections—something Zelensky has absolutely ruled out during wartime. Fedorov is thus the first senior individual to break ranks and call for elections, questioning Zelensky’s democratic legitimacy—his mandate having long expired.

Then, within 24 hours, NABU moved to release video and audio recordings of its latest corruption target: no less than Iryna Mudra, a senior Zelensky aid who works directly under Kyrylo Budanov, head of the president’s office, seen as a potentially popular figure and thus possible political competition for Fedorov. In the recordings, Mrs. Mudra can be heard saying, “He says defeating corruption is the wrong approach… It needs to be systematized and controlled.” The “he” in question is clearly Zelensky.

She is accused of a real gem of a crime: laundering $3.4 million in a scheme to raise money to pay the bail of former Justice Minister Herman Haluschenko, arrested as part of last year’s anti-corruption swoop! This is the trough of corruption that endless billions of Western money has created at the very top of government.

Let us be under no illusion though, NABU and SAPO are not wonderful, clean, democratic anti-corruption warriors. And neither is Fedorov.

No, these people are connected to their own cliques, which are just as corrupt. NABU and SAPO are the direct products of Western and especially European funding. Through such mechanisms, they aim to discipline Zelensky when necessary and rein in corruption when it gets out of hand.

Meanwhile, there are those immediately around Zelensky who have used state contracts to get fabulously rich. And there are those oligarchs who have not been so well favored. They have influence in NABU and SAPO, which they hope to use to push aside one section of leeches to bring in another.

Fedorov himself has suggested he was sacked because of the influence of certain corrupt players in the Ukrainian defense industry. His allies claim that he was fired because he cut down the share of drone procurement to the notoriously corrupt Firepoint company—linked to Zelensky’s inner circle—from 80 to 25%.

But he himself is personally connected to a certain section of the capitalist class outside the clique in power, and especially foreign tech capital, having friendly contacts with Musk and Thiel. His offering to them is: come, turn Ukraine into a sandbox for testing your futuristic weapons of war.

Western—now primarily European—funding to constantly prolong this war has had many consequences. One is the prolonged horror suffered by the Ukrainian people. Another is contributing to the austerity felt by the European working class. And a third is the terrible metastasis of corruption in Ukraine, which while bad before the war has now been raised to a new level altogether.

Where is this clash going to lead next? That is a good question and it depends upon a number of factors, not least the battlefield situation and the economic situation.

Zelensky is digging his political trenches. By ruling out elections, he has left his enemies inside the regime with only one way of removing him: via a coup. It is in this context that we should probably understand some otherwise quite surprising moves by Zelensky.

In the recent period, he has heavily flirted with extreme right-wing and Neo-Nazi elements. He organized the repatriation with state honours of two World War II Nazi collaborators—incurring the anger of Poland.

And just yesterday, Zelensky placed two commanders of the Neo-Nazi Azov Brigades—Andriy Biletsky and Denys Prokopenko—into positions where they are essentially now leading Ukraine’s forces in the Donbas!

The Neo-Nazi Azov battalion is now more powerful than ever, having become two corps with several brigades each, numbering around 40,000 members. Again, this is something that has been downplayed and dismissed as “Russian propaganda” in the West. And now we see the Azov Neo-Nazis emerging as an influential element in the situation, with Zelensky trying to strengthen his own position by pandering to them.

The question is, is he using them or are they using him?

War weariness

Whilst the support for Fedorov overwhelmingly comes from the pro-European middle classes in Kiev and the west of Ukraine, he has another obvious appeal.

In Fedorov’s own words:

I am absolutely convinced that robots and drones should be doing the fighting wherever possible. That is how we preserve the lives of our soldiers… Ukrainians are the bravest in the world. That is why we need to preserve these brave people.

That is what Fedorov is ultimately selling to Ukrainians who want to see Ukraine win but who are tired of fighting and who can’t help but see the futility of more deaths. He is selling the wonderful illusion that Ukraine can win without anyone else needing to die.

These are all lies, of course, but that many are willing to believe them—even among his fervently pro-Western middle-class supporters—shows that an enormous war weariness, exhaustion, and above all anger at the way men’s lives are being laid down for nothing is beginning to be expressed.

But as an excellent article from The Nation, published on August 18, explains, the middle classes are not the layers that are bearing the brunt of this war’s impacts. 2 to 6 million men are being hunted across Ukraine like wild game by conscription officers, a big majority of them working-class.

The article is very much worth a read. It details the barbarity of the recruitment officers: the way men are chased down, dragged violently from their families, even tortured to death. And as one interviewee explains, “The often-unsaid reality is that mobilization primarily targets working-class Ukrainians.”

The article gives a number of interesting details. A wealthy person can pay a $50,000 bribe to get a fake disability status. On the other hand, it tells of one man, Boris, who was able to live a normal life in Kyiv for a few months by renting a flat in a wealthy neighbourhood… but wanting to save money, “I moved into a poorer neighborhood, more proletarian. And there they got me. A Tetseka [recruitment] guy just slammed me to the ground.”

Among these layers, a mood of hatred is building. It is reflected in ever more violent clashes between recruitment officers and ordinary people. In the past year, there have been over 600 physical confrontations, some escalating to full-scale riots involving dozens, even hundreds as we saw in Lviv at the start of July and in Ternopil at the end of August

The words of a conscript soldier quoted in Strana give a vivid depiction of the feeling developing:

I and most of my comrades, mobilised, to put it mildly, not entirely voluntarily, don’t give a damn about all this mess around who will head the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Just like at Syrskyi, they marinate us and rot us in positions without rotation for months; we hold the defence of useless ruins in a terrible sh*thole, useless to anyone except our regiment commander. Instead of normal food, we eat dry rations for weeks. There are also problems with water: sometimes we have to drink from puddles. They send everyone who is able to combat orders—it doesn’t matter that the soldier is sick with a temperature of 38. At the same time, there is no one from the command with us in positions, commanders from company and above sit and command remotely, on the second or third lines. In general, the attitude towards the soldiers is below the baseboard, we were meat, and meat we will remain—whether for Syrskyi or for Drapatyi.”

Far from slackening, the struggle for more men to feed the war machine is growing—and not just men. The government has announced it will not only be seeking to lower the conscription age to 18 among men, but is seeking to mobilize women too.

Where next?

The question is, where is all this leading? War is the most complex of equations. There are a number of factors: the ability of the Europeans to maintain unity in their ranks and keep the cash flowing; the battlefield situation, which is slowly deteriorating but which can give way to sudden setbacks for Ukraine; the economic situation, where we could also see a collapse.

But the repeating pattern of crises in Ukraine shows that the economic, social, military and political crises come together and exacerbate one another. This war has dragged on for a long time, without fundamentally altering the fact that Russia is inexorably winning. But when the collapse does come, which it will, it is likely to come rapidly.

And what then? Then, thanks to the prolonging efforts of the West, Ukraine will emerge a battered country. Its industry, agriculture, transport, and energy infrastructure in ruins. Significant parts of the country’s territory absorbed into Russia.

Whatever rump of Ukraine exists will be a dysfunctional mess—there will be no EU membership, no NATO membership. Those were lies sold to the Ukrainian people by the West. The state will be bankrupt and indebted. A hardened core of Neo-Nazis roaming the country and riddling the army.

Monday August 24 was independence day in Ukraine. All the western nations sent their representatives to the celebrations. What a mockery. Since August 24, 1991, when Ukraine officially broke from the USSR and capitalism was restored, the country hasn’t enjoyed even so much as a drop of “independence.”

It has been dominated since the beginning by a corrupt, rotten oligarchy of capitalists that has robbed the people. It has been a playground for Western imperialism, and a chessboard over which the West has contended with Russia. Since the Maidan coup of 2014, Ukraine has been little more than a Western fiefdom.

Finally, those forces that have subjugated Ukraine since that so-called “independence,” the Ukrainian capitalist oligarchy and the West, have destroyed the country.

There can be no independence, and no future at all, in fact, for Ukraine under capitalism.