Nato is spreading the war in Ukraine across Europe, argues Robert Dale. It is a piece of unspeakable barbarism, committed in our name, on our doorstep

The war in Ukraine has now dragged on longer than the First World War (and trench gangrene is back). While the situation on the ground is murky and the conflict has dropped down the ‘news agenda’, two current developments stand out.

These are increasing interference with Russian shipping and intensifying drone and missile strikes deep into Russia itself. Both moves are clearly driven by Ukraine’s Nato masters and both bear the risk of serious escalation.

It has become hard to keep up with the direct attacks on Russian merchant vessels. The many incidents in the Black Sea are pretty self evidently Ukrainian, but the ‘naval theatre’ is much wider.

In the Mediterranean, ‘somebody’ wrecked a Russian gas tanker off Libya earlier this year, and a series of explosions sunk the Ursa Major in very mysterious circumstances in late 2024. Recently, an explosive-packed Ukrainian sea drone washed up on a Greek island. In the Baltic, ‘somebody’ has been placing limpet mines on tankers heading for the Russian port of Ust-Luga.

When it comes to seizing Russian tankers, the perpetrators can’t brag enough about their deeds. Nato navies have boarded and/or seized Russian vessels in the Baltic, the Gulf of Finland, the North Sea, the English Channel, the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. There was even an incident with the US Navy in the Indian Ocean.

Russian responses include avoiding the Mediterranean where possible and sending warships to escort convoys through the English Channel. You’d think that the proprietors of a declining, trade-dependent power like Britain would think twice before reviving piracy on the high seas. Reap what you sow and and all that.

But, isn’t the Russian shadow fleet under international sanctions? As you probably know this anyway, that’s just imperialist piffle-paffle. ‘Shadow fleet’ may sound dodgy, but is simply propaganda shorthand for vessels run and insured outside the reach of Lloyds of London. The ‘international sanctions’ are simply economic warfare by the Western bloc. Nobody else wants them, nobody else wants to observe them. The United Nations certainly never approved them.

So far, the Russians have reacted with moderation to interference with their shipping, as they haveto the deep missile and drone strikes on their territory. However, there is no guarantee that it will stay that way on either count.

Deep strikes have been going on for some years. It seems there was a decision in November 2024 to expand their intensity, with the first use of American ATACMS and Franco-British Storm Shadow missiles for strikes inside Russia. In recent months, there have been hundreds of drone strikes on oil facilities and major cities.

Make no mistake, these are Nato attacks in all but name. The targeting data is supplied by Nato members (hence the recent fuss over a near-collision between a Russian fighter and a British spy plane over the Black Sea). Many of the flight paths have been through Nato airspace, to avoid Russian air defences. The missiles and drones are largely manufactured in Nato countries (sometimes with a fig-leaf of final assembly in Ukraine).

And even if they weren’t, the Ukrainian war-fighting state is only kept afloat by massive injections of cash, these days pretty much all from Britain and the European Union. Something like half a trillion pounds over the first four years.

The Russian government knows its conflict is with the Nato powers (with or without the Americans), and sees that there is apparently no red line its adversaries will not cross. In a very dangerous game of nuclear chicken, ‘the Ukrainians’ attacked Russia’s nuclear early warning radars (May 2024) and its strategic nuclear bombers (June 2025).

What if the Russian rulers decided to strike back against the ultimate source of these attacks, the command centres and arms plants across Europe? The Storm Shadow plants in Stevenage and Beith (Scotland), or the Ukrainian drone factory in Mildenhall? This doesn’t bear thinking about: our rulers are playing with matches in a firework factory.

Paying the price

We don’t need to know all the details of what exactly Nato’s special forces have been up to in the shadows (though the Russians probably do). It’s enough to know that the war is spreading its tentacles all over Europe.

The whole killing game can only continue because our rulers keep pouring our money into it. Nato boss Mark Rutte recently said ‘we’ should all be paying more to keep the Ukrainian state afloat.

Total British military spending is now over 2 per cent of GDP – that’s upwards of two thousand pounds a year for every worker.

Our rulers have nailed their colours to the mast of the HMS Ukraine – and look set to go down with the ship (if not before). Their war is a piece of unspeakable barbarism, committed in our name, on our doorstep. Long since time to do something about it.

Robert Dale lives in the Berlin region, where he has been active in socialist politics since the 1980s.