It has now finally dawned upon a growing number of people in Washington that the Ukrainian war is not only lost, but lost irrevocably.

The warmongers are never satisfied. They will continue their dangerous and reckless course to the bitter end, and the ordinary people will pay the bill in full. It is the fundamental duty of communists and all advanced workers and youth to fight against war and imperialism.

Apart from temporary propaganda value, the actual military significance of these gains is precisely zero. It will have absolutely no effect on the main war that is taking place in Ukraine – especially in the key area of the Donbass.

The announcement by the Russian Ministry of Defense that its forces had full control of the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka represents a devastating blow to Ukraine and, almost certainly, a decisive turning point in the war.

The complete failure of the much-hyped Ukrainian counter-offensive has opened a chorus of mutual recriminations within Ukraine and between Kyiv and its imperialist puppet masters. Funding for the proxy war against Russia is drying up in Washington, Brussels and Berlin, and so western imperialism is now pushing Zelensky into a course of action which he is resisting as it spells his political (and perhaps physical) death: peace talks with Putin.

If the meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies in India was intended as a show of unity against Russia, it succeeded in producing precisely the opposite result.

The failure of Ukraine’s counter-offensive has brought to the fore all the contradictions in the Ukrainian war effort. Disaffection is spreading in the army and among civilians. At the same time, Ukraine’s western allies are getting cold feet and starting to talk about negotiations.

The world woke on Tuesday 6 June to reports of a new ‘Russian atrocity’. A massive dam in Nova Kakhovka, a Russian-controlled area in Southern Ukraine, was breached, unleashing a torrent of water from the Dnipro River, resulting in devastating flooding in the Kherson Oblast.

The plot thickens! A month after acclaimed American journalist Seymour Hersh released a bombshell report, accusing the CIA of masterminding the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany last year, two articles simultaneously appeared in major U.S. and German news publications linking Ukraine to the attack. Not only that, but they claim western secret services knew all along! What are we to make of this?

Exactly 12 months ago today, Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine. The anniversary of that event has not gone unnoticed. Indeed, it has occupied many hours of time on television and as many columns in the pages of the press.