Solidarity with Ukraine!

By: Ukraine Solidarity Network (U.S.)

Winter 2023 (New Politics Vol. XIX No. 2, Whole Number 74)

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Picture about the importance of mutual assistance and cooperation during the Ukraine war. Katya Gritseva, 2022, digital art, Kharkiv

Statement of the Ukraine Solidarity Network

The brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a litmus test for the Left. A principled and strategic commitment to the Ukrainian people, in their defense against Russian imperialism offers the answer. 

Arising out of the Socialism 2022 Conference—held in Chicago over Labor Day weekend—and inspired by a session led by Ukrainian political economist and activist Yuliya Yurchenko, a group of mainly U.S. leftists came together to form what has become the Ukraine Solidarity Network – U.S. (“USN-US”). Over the last few months, and with active support from both Ukrainian leftists (such as Social Movement / Sotsialnyi Rukh), and the growing international solidarity movement, the USN-US is seeking to grow and gain support. 

New Politics is built on a commitment to the politics of socialism from below and the vision of a “third camp,” which looks to the force of the working class and the oppressed, and not to rival capitalist states, as the key to our collective liberation. The work of the USN-US, in seeking to support “Ukraine’s war of resistance, its right to determine the means and objectives of its own struggle,” while “stand[ing] in opposition to all domination by powerful nations and states, including by the United States and its allies, over smaller ones and oppressed peoples” is consonant with our vision. We republish that statement here and encourage readers to add their names to the list of signatories.

The Ukraine Solidarity Network (U.S.) reaches out to unions, communities and individuals from diverse backgrounds to build moral, political and material support for the people of Ukraine in their resistance to Russia’s criminal invasion and their struggle for an independent, egalitarian and democratic country. 

The war against Ukraine is a horrible and destructive disaster in the human suffering and economic devastation it has already caused, not only for Ukraine and its people but also in its impact on global hunger and energy supplies, on the world environmental crisis, and on the lives of ordinary Russian people who are sacrificed for Putin’s war. The war also carries the risk of escalation to a direct confrontation among military great powers, with unthinkable possible consequences. 

It is urgent to end this war as soon as possible. This can only be achieved through the success of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion. Ukraine is fighting a legitimate war of self-defense, indeed a war for its survival as a nation. Calling for “peace” in the abstract is meaningless in these circumstances. 

The Ukraine Solidarity Network (U.S.) supports Ukraine’s war of resistance, its right to determine the means and objectives of its own struggle—and we support its right to obtain the weapons it needs from any available source. We are united in our support for Ukraine’s people, their military and civilian defense against aggression, and for the reconstruction of the country in the interests of the majority of its population. We stand in opposition to all domination by powerful nations and states, including by the United States and its allies, over smaller ones and oppressed peoples. 

We uphold the following principles and goals: 

1) We strive for a world free of global-power domination at the expense of smaller nations. We oppose war and authoritarianism no matter which state it comes from, and support the right of self-determination and self-defense for any oppressed nation. 

2) We support Ukraine’s victory against the Russian invasion, and its right to reparations to meet the costs of reconstruction after the colossal destruction it is suffering. 

3) The reconstruction of Ukraine also demands the cancellation of its debts to international financial institutions. Aid to Ukraine must come without strings attached, above all without crushing debt burdens. 

4) We recognize the suffering that this war imposes on people in Russia, most intensely on the ethnic and religious minority sectors of the Russian Federation which are disproportionately impacted by forced military conscription. We salute the brave Russian antiwar forces speaking out and demonstrating in the face of severe repression, and we are encouraged by the popular resistance to the draft of soldiers to become cannon fodder for Putin’s unjust war of aggression. 

5) We seek to build connections to progressive organizations and movements in Ukraine and with the labor movement, which represents the biggest part of Ukrainian civil society, and to link Ukrainian civic organizations, marginalized communities and trade unions with counterpart organizations in the United States. We support Ukrainian struggles for ensuring just and fair labor rights for its population, especially during the war, as there are no military reasons to implement laws that threaten the social rights of Ukrainians, including those who are fighting in the front lines.

There are more than 100 initial signatories to this statement, including the individuals listed below. To add your own name, please go to ukraine-solidarity-network@googlegroups.com. 

Check the online version of this statement on the New Politics website for a link to the full list of names.

Frieda Afary

Iranian American Feminists

Molly Crabapple 

Visual Artist, contributing editor VICE magazine 

Dr. Ron Daniels

Institute for the Black World-21 ACTION, International Activist

Cindy Domingo

Legacy of Equality Leadership and Organizing (LELO), Seattle

Eric Draitser 

Author, Podcaster, CounterPunch Radio

John Feffer

Institute for Policy Studies, Foreign Policy in Focus, Aftershock: A Journey into Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams.

Sue Ferguson 

Assoc. Professor Emerita, Wilfred Laurier University, Women and Work: Feminism, Labour, and Social Reproduction 

Bill Fletcher Jr.

The Real News Network 

Mindy Thompson Fullilove

The New School, People’s Center for Disease Control, From Enforcers to Guardians: A Public Health Primer on Ending Police Violence

Shiyam Galyon

Comms Strategist, Pub in Teen Vogue, TruthOut, Syrian-American activist

Dayne Goodwin

AFSCME Local 1004, DSA Salt Lake

Howie Hawkins

Green Party Presidential Candidate 2020

Meizhu Lui

Former Director United for a Fair Economy, Co-author The Color of Wealth

Peter McLaren

Distinguished Professor, Chapman University, Emeritus Professor UCLA, Emeritus Professor Miami University

Naomi Murakowa

Assoc Professor, Princeton Univ, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America

Joshua Pechtalt

California Federation of Teachers, Former President 

Haley Pessin

DSA Afrosocialist Caucus

Jamala Rogers

Founder & Past Executive Director of Organization for Black Struggles (St. Louis); author

Don Rojas 

Independent Journalist/Activist

Tanya Vyhovsky

Vermont Legislature State Rep, DSA member, Ukrainian-American activist 

Jeffery R. Webber

Associate Professor, York University Toronto, The Impasse of the Latin American Left

Suzi Weismann

KPFK Radio Los Angeles 

Matthew Zawisky

Ukrainian American Civic Center, Buffalo NY

Jonathan Zenilman MD

Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University 

The name of the organization is listed for identification purposes only. The endorser’s position does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the institution.

Picture for Social Movement, Katya Gritseva, 2022, digital art, Lviv

Our Slogan Is “War Against War”

Russian socialists on the nature of the war in Ukraine and the delusions of Western “pacifists”

By: Russian Socialist MovementFebruary 19, 2023

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For a year now, Vladimir Putin’s regime has been killing Ukrainians, sending hundreds of thousands of Russians to their deaths, and threatening the world with nuclear weapons in the name of the insane goal of restoring its empire.

For us Russians who oppose Putin’s aggression and dictatorship, it has been a year of horror and shame over the war crimes committed daily in our name.

On the one-year anniversary of this war, we call all those who yearn for peace to turn out for demonstrations and rallies against Putin’s invasion.

Unfortunately, not all the “peace” rallies taking place next weekend will be actions of solidarity with Ukraine. A large part of the left in the West does not understand the nature of this war and advocates compromise with Putinism.

We have written this statement to help our comrades abroad understand the situation and take the right stand.

A counterrevolutionary war

Some Western writers attribute the war to causes like the collapse of the USSR, the “contradictory history of the Ukrainian nation’s creation,” and geopolitical confrontation between nuclear powers.

Without denying the importance of these factors, we are surprised that these lists overlook the most important and obvious reason for what is happening: the Putin regime’s desire to suppress democratic protest movements throughout the former Soviet Union and in Russia itself.

The 2014 seizure of Crimea and hostilities in the Donbas were a response by the Kremlin to the “revolution of dignity” in Ukraine, which overthrew the corrupt pro-Russian administration of Viktor Yanukovych, as well as to Russians’ mass demonstrations for fair elections in 2011–12 (known as the Bolotnaya Square protests).

Annexing the Crimean Peninsula was a domestic policy win for Putin. He successfully used revanchist, anti-Western, and traditionalist rhetoric (as well as political persecution) to expand his social base, isolate the opposition, and turn the Maidan into a bogeyman with which to frighten the population.

But the popularity boost that followed the annexation was short-lived. The late 2010s saw economic stagnation, an unpopular pension reform, and high-profile anti-corruption revelations by Alexei Navalny’s team that dragged Putin’s ratings back down, especially among young people. Protests swept the country, and the ruling United Russia party suffered a series of painful defeats in regional elections.

This context has driven the Kremlin to place all its bets on conserving the regime. The 2020 constitutional referendum (which required rigging unprecedented even by Russian standards) effectively made Putin a ruler for life. Under the pretext of containing the COVID-19 pandemic, protest gatherings were finally banned. An attempt was made to poison extra-parliamentary opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which he miraculously survived.

The popular uprising of summer 2020 in Belarus confirmed the Russian elite’s belief that the “collective West” is waging a “hybrid war” against Russia, attacking it and its satellites with “color revolutions.”

Of course, such claims are nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Social and political discontent in Russia has been growing due to record social inequality, poverty, corruption, rollbacks of civil liberties, and the obvious futility of the Russian model of capitalism, which is based on a parasitic fossil-fuel oligarchy appropriating natural resource rents.

If there’s one thing we can blame the “collective West” for, it’s its longstanding pandering to Putinism, including on the Ukrainian issue. For decades, European and American elites have sought to do “business as usual” with Putin’s Russia, which has allowed a dictatorship to emerge, redistribute wealth upwards, and conduct foreign policy with complete impunity.

Conceding to Putin will not lead to peace

Invading Ukraine was an attempt by Putin to repeat his 2014 Crimean triumph—by securing a speedy victory, rallying Russian society around the flag with revanchist slogans, finally crushing the opposition, and establishing himself as hegemon in the post-Soviet space (which Putin’s imperialism views as part of “historical Russia”).

Ukrainians’ heroic resistance thwarted these plans, turning the “short, victorious war” of the Kremlin’s dreams into a protracted conflict that has worn down Russia’s economy and busted the myth of its army’s invincibility. Backed into a corner, Moscow is threatening the world with its nuclear weapons while simultaneously urging Ukraine and the West to negotiate.

Moscow’s rhetoric is parroted by certain European and American leftists who oppose supplying arms to Ukraine (to “save lives” and prevent a nuclear apocalypse). But Russia is not willing to withdraw from the territories it has captured, a condition that Kyiv and 93% of Ukrainians consider non-negotiable. Must Ukraine instead sacrifice its sovereignty in order to appease the aggressor, a policy that has very dark precedents in European history?

Saving lives?

So is it true that Ukraine’s defeat, an inevitability if Western aid is withdrawn, will help prevent more casualties? Even if we accept the non-obvious (from a socialist perspective) logic that saving lives is more important than fighting tyranny and aggression, we believe that this is not the case.

As we know, Vladimir Putin has laid claim to the entire territory of Ukraine, asserting that Ukrainians and Russians are “one nation” and that Ukrainian statehood is a historical mistake. In this context, a ceasefire would merely give the Kremlin time to rebuild its military capacity for a new assault, including by forcing yet more Russians (mostly poor and ethnic minority) into the army.

If Ukraine continues to resist the invasion even without arms supplies, it will lead to innumerable casualties among Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. And terror, the horrific remains of which we saw in Bucha and elsewhere, is what awaits any of the new territories seized by Russia.

Multipolar imperialism

When Putin speaks about getting rid of American hegemony in the world and even about “anti-colonialism” (!), he is not referring to the creation of a more egalitarian world order.

Putin’s “multipolar world” is a world where democracy and human rights are no longer considered universal values, and so-called “great powers” have free rein in their respective geopolitical spheres of influence.

This essentially means restoring the system of international relations that existed in the run-up to World Wars I and II.

This “brave old world” would be a wonderful place for dictators, corrupt officials, and the far right. But it would be hell for workers, ethnic minorities, women, LGBT people, small nations, and all liberation movements.

A victory for Putin in Ukraine would not restore the pre-war status quo, it would set a deadly precedent giving “great powers” the right to wars of aggression and nuclear brinksmanship. It would be a prologue to new military and political catastrophes.

What would a victory in Ukraine for Putinism lead to?

A Putin victory would mean not only the subjugation of Ukraine, but also the bending of all post-Soviet countries to the Kremlin’s will.

Within Russia, a victory for the regime would preserve a system defined by the security and fossil-fuel oligarchy’s rule over other social classes (above all the working class) and the plundering of natural resources at the expense of technological and social development.

In contrast, the defeat of Putinism in Ukraine would likely lend momentum to movements for democratic change in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet countries, as well as in Russia itself.

It would be overly optimistic to claim that defeat in war automatically leads to revolution. But Russian history is replete with examples of military setbacks abroad that have led to major change at home—including the abolition of serfdom, the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and Perestroika in the 1980s.

Russian socialists have no use for a “victory” for Putin and his oligarch cronies. We call on all those who truly desire peace and still believe in dialogue with the Russian government to demand that it withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territories. Any call for peace that does not include this demand is disingenuous.

• End the war! Stand in solidarity against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
• End the draft! Russians are not cannon fodder.
• Free Russian political prisoners!
• Free Russia!

About Author
The Russian Socialist movement was founded in March 2011 by two organizations, the Socialist Movement Vpered (“Forward”), Russian section of the Fourth International, and Socialist Resistance.

 

Europe has kept the lights on, but Ukraine war has brought energy crisis to unforeseen locations

The energy challenge that the Russia-Ukraine crisis has bred in developing countries has intensified global discussions about climate justice

BY AMY MYERS JAFFE

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

https://www.corporateknights.com/

Photo by Nazly Ahmed/Flickr

Through a year of war in Ukraine, the U.S. and most European nations have worked to help counter Russia, in supporting Ukraine both with armaments and in world energy markets. Russia was Europe’s main energy supplier when it invaded Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin threatened to leave Europeans to freeze “like a wolf’s tail” – a reference to a famous Russian fairy tale – if they imposed sanctions on his country.

But thanks to a combination of preparation and luck, Europe has avoided blackouts and power cutoffs. Instead, less wealthy nations like Pakistan and India have contended with electricity outages on the back of unaffordably high global natural gas prices. As a global energy policy analyst, I see this as the latest evidence that less wealthy nations often suffer the most from globalized oil and gas crises.

I believe more volatility is possible. Russia has said that it will cut its crude oil production starting on March 1, 2023, by 500,000 barrels per day in response to Western energy sanctions. This amount is about 5% of its current crude oil production, or 0.5% of world oil supply. Many analysts expected the move, but it raises concerns about whether more reductions could come in the future.

How Europe has kept the lights on

As Russia’s intent toward Ukraine became clear in late 2021 and early 2022, many governments and energy experts feared one result would be an energy crisis in Europe. But one factor that Putin couldn’t control was the weather. Mild temperatures in Europe in recent months, along with proactive conservation policies, have reduced natural gas consumption in key European markets such as Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium by 25%.

With less need for electricity and natural gas, European governments were able to delay drawing on natural gas inventories that they built up over the summer and autumn of 2022. At this point, a continental energy crisis is much less likely than many forecasts predicted.

European natural gas stockpiles are around 67% full, and they will probably still be 50% full at the end of this winter. This will help the continent position itself for next winter as well.

The situation is similar for coal. European utilities stockpiled coal and reactivated 26 coal-fired power plants in 2022, anticipating a possible winter energy crisis. But so far, the continent’s coal use has risen only 7%, and the reactivated coal plants are averaging just 18% of their operating capacity.

The U.S. role

Record-high U.S. energy exports in the summer and fall of 2022 also buoyed European energy security. The U.S. exported close to 10 million cubic meters per month of liquefied natural gas in 2022, up 137% from 2021, providing roughly half of all of Europe’s imported LNG.

Although domestic U.S. natural gas production surged to record levels, some producers had the opportunity to export into high-priced global markets. As a result, surpluses of summer natural gas didn’t emerge inside the U.S. market, as might otherwise have happened. Combined with unusually hot summer temperatures, which drove up energy demand for cooling, the export surge socked U.S. consumers with the highest natural gas prices they had experienced since 2008.

Prices also soared at U.S. gas pumps, reaching or exceeding US$5 per gallon in the early summer of 2022 – the highest average ever recorded by the American Automobile Association. The U.S. exported close to 1 million barrels per day of gasoline, mainly to Mexico and Central America, plus some to France, and consolidated its position as a net oil exporter – that is, it exports more oil than it imports.

Much like Europeans, U.S. consumers had to pay high prices to outbid other global consumers for oil and natural gas amid global supply disruptions and competition for available cargoes. High gasoline prices were a political headache for the Biden administration through the spring and summer of 2022.

However, these high prices belied the fact that U.S. domestic gasoline use has stopped growing. Forecasts suggest that it will decline further in 2023 and beyond as the fuel economy of U.S. cars continues to improve and the number of electric vehicles on the road expands.

While energy prices were a burden, especially to lower-income households, European and American consumers have been able to ride out price surges driven by the war in Ukraine and have so far avoided actual outages and the worst recessionary fears. And their governments are offering big economic incentives to switch to clean energy technologies intended to reduce their nations’ need for fossil fuels.

Developing nations priced out in energy crisis

The same can’t be said for consumers in developing nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, who have experienced the energy cutoffs that were feared but didn’t occur in Europe. Notably, Europe’s intensive energy stockpiling in the summer of 2022 caused a huge jump in global prices for liquefied natural gas. In response, many utilities in less developed nations cut their natural gas purchases, creating price-related electricity outages in some regions.

Faced with continuing high global energy prices, countries in the global south – Africa, Asia and Latin America – have had to reevaluate their dependence on foreign imports. Increased use of coal has made headlines, but renewable energy is starting to offer greater advantages, both because it is more affordable and because governments can frame it as more secure and a source of domestic jobs.

India, for example, is doubling down on renewable energy, unveiling plans to produce hydrogen fuel for heavy industry using renewable energy and moving away from imported LNG. Several African countries, such as Ethiopia, are fast-tracking development of hydropower.

Energy prices and climate justice

The energy challenge that the Russia-Ukraine crisis has bred in developing countries has intensified global discussions about climate justice. One less examined impact of giant clean tech stimulus plans enacted in wealthy nations, such as the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act, is that they keep much of the available funding for climate finance at home. As a result, some developing country leaders worry that a clean energy technology knowledge gap will widen, not shrink, as the energy transition gains momentum.

Worsening the problem, members of the G-7 forum of wealthy nations have tightened their monetary policies to control war-driven inflation. This drives up the cost of debt and makes it harder for developing countries to borrow money to invest in clean energy.

The U.S. is supporting a new approach called Just Energy Transition Partnerships, in which wealthy nations provide funding to help developing countries shift away from coal-fired power plants, retrain workers and recruit private-sector investors to help finance decarbonization projects. But these solutions are negotiated bilaterally between individual countries, and the pace is slow.

When nations gather in the United Arab Emirates in late 2023 for the next round of global climate talks, wealthy nations – including Middle East oil producers – will face demands for new ways of financing energy security improvements in less wealthy countries. The world’s rich nations pledged in 2009 to direct $100 billion yearly to less wealthy nations by 2020 to help them adapt to climate change and decarbonize their economies, but are far behind on fulfilling this promise.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on developed nations to tax fossil fuel companies, which reported record profits in 2022, and use the money to fund climate adaptation in low-income countries. New solutions are needed, because without some kind of major progress, wealthy nations will continue outbidding developing nations for the energy resources that the world’s most vulnerable people desperately need.

Amy Myers Jaffe is the director at the Energy, Climate Justice, and Sustainability Lab, and a research professor, New York University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

Soviet Union Ethnically Rooted Leadership in Non-Russian Republics Not to Promote These Nations but to Maintain Its Colonial Empire, Galko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 27 – Two views of Soviet nationality policy, one offered in the West and the second by Vladimir Putin, fundamentally misconstrue the nature of that policy, Dmitry Galko says. Moscow did not promote non-Russians as a form of affirmative action or to create nations where they did not exist but rather to do what it had to in order to maintain a colonial empire.

            The Belarusian journalist and commentator thus takes issue both with Harvard University historian Terry Martin whose 2001 book, The Affirmative Action Empire, has shaped the thinking of many in the West and with the current Kremlin leader who routinely blames the Soviets for creating nationalities (graniru.org/opinion/m.287295.html).

            The Soviets did not promote non-Russians to leadership positions in the non-Russian republics because they hoped to build nations but rather because as party discussions in the 1920s show, the Bolsheviks recognized that at that time they were too weak to hold the empire together unless they appeared to be solicitous of the non-Russians, Galko says.

            But as soon as the center gained strength, he continues, it wiped out almost all of these gains and it purged leaders in the republics on an ethnic basis, jailing and killing more non-Russians than it did cadres from the center and the Russian Federation more generally, a clear indication of what the original policy was really all about.

            An interesting question which Galko doesn’t address is this: did Putin draw on the ideas of the Soviet Union as an “affirmative action” empire as he shaped his own notion that Lenin and the Bolsheviks created nations? There is no public evidence that the Kremlin leader did, but it would not be the first time that something like that happened.

Putin’s war, the ANC 

and South Africa

by

 IAN LINDEN| @IANLINDEN| @PROFIANLINDEN

Earlier this month, a Russian frigate docked in South Africa’s Simon’s Town naval base near Cape Town.  Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy and his crew were not there for a swim with the penguins nearby, but to lead a joint naval exercise off Durban and Richard’s Bay.   The exercise involves the South African Defense Force (SADF) and the naval forces of the People’s Liberation Army of China.  Evmenov’s ship carries the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile, Vladimir Putin’s pride and joy.

Denis MacShane wrote about the wider implications of this joint exercise here in “Time for the Commonwealth to stop coddling Putin” (TheArticle 17 February).  Lord Howell, Chair of the House of Lords International Relations Committee, followed up here with “Putin’s great game, Britain’s role and the Commonwealth” (TheArticle 20 February), continuing both analysis of the situation and making practical suggestions as to the UK’s best response.  Given that the exercise coincided with the anniversary of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, both writers were reflecting widespread, justified concern and even outrage.

The Mayor of Cape Town, Major Geordin Hill-Lewis, a member of the Democratic Alliance, expressed sentiments common to Western Governments and many observers: “All freedom-loving people around the world should rightly be outraged at the South African government’s indefensible position and the moral position in this conflict.  So, while the Russian ship is here and has been allowed here by the national state, it is certainly not welcome in the Mother City.” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, at first condemned Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, but then backtracked under pressure from her President, Cyril Ramaphosa.

South Africa’s policy towards Russia is not exceptional.  Over 40 per cent of African states have been abstaining from UN votes against Russian aggression in Ukraine over the past year.  But South Africa, as a member of BRICS, a loose association that also includes Brazil, Russia, India and China, is the most significant.

Is there any more to say?  Yes, even though there is always the risk that explanation will be interpreted as condoning.  Why does President Cyril Ramaphosa — head of the Student Christian Movement at school, celebrated leader of the South African National Union of Mineworkers, legally trained, the adroit negotiator who facilitated the deal with President F.W. De Klerk that brought Mandela to power, and a successful businessman to boot — keep this sort of company?

We need to go back to the 1960s and early 1970s to the days of the ANC’s then lacklustre struggle against the apartheid regime, when the Soviet bloc were almost the ANC’s only supporters.  The South African Communist Party and its leaders were an integral and influential part of the ANC and seem to have had relatively high immunity to infiltration by BOSS (Bureau of State Security).  The Soviet Union provided funds. From 1987-1988, Communist Cuba and East Germany fought the apartheid army to a standstill and forced their retreat within Angola. The contrast with the policies of the Western powers could not have been more different.

Britain’s Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, meeting with the Press during the 1987 Vancouver Commonwealth Conference, refused to support sanctions advocated by the anti-apartheid movement. She described the ANC threat to “target” British companies in South Africa as showing “what a typical terrorist organisation it is”.  When, in May 1990, her Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, sought £1 million to fund UNHCR repatriation of South African refugees, she categorically refused, saying she would never give money to any organisation that practised violence.  Forthright and undiplomatic, but not out of step with the hostility of British policy towards the ANC.

US governments were no less hostile.  Reagan adamantly opposed sanctions against South Africa for years, until Congress forced his hand in 1986.  That July the New York Times reported credible suspicions that US satellite intelligence was being shared with the apartheid regime.  This may have been behind the large-scale slaughter of Namibian nationalist guerrillas from SWAPO, entering South African-occupied Namibia from Angola.

British policy aimed to split off a supposedly “nationalist” section of the ANC from the Communists.  When that failed, virtuously pushing for Mandela’s release in the late 1980s, Britain stood by whilst members of the European Economic Community (EEC) dabbled with the idea of supporting the — violent — Zulu Nationalist movement Inkatha to divide the black vote in the 1994 elections.  Denis Macshane’s claim that “the democratic world gave maximum support to South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa when he was a young trade union leader” is therefore mistaken — unless, of course, he was referring to civil society and the Indian government.  All of the southern African liberation movements were viewed by Western governments through the prism of the Cold War.  Only the Nordics responded with a supportive position, seeing the future danger of leaving the ANC beholden solely to the Soviet bloc.

The most notable was Sweden which began funding the external movement of the ANC from 1977, and from 1982 under the leader of the Social Democrats, Olof Palme, increasingly funded what they called the “home-front component”, the ANC’s internal movement.  It may have cost the Swedish Prime Minister his life. In 1986, at the height of the repression in South Africa, Palme was assassinated by an unknown assailant in the street outside a Stockholm cinema.  Funding for the ANC was managed clandestinely from the Swedish Legation in Pretoria under the resourceful direction of Birgitta Karlstrom Dorph, the Legation’s head, using the churches and civil society organisations such as the trades unions as intermediaries.   Is it too much to imagine that Sweden’s non-alignment in the Cold War and support for the ANC, versus Western governments’ opposition, impressed Ramaphosa?

Shortly after the inauguration of the new government in 1994, South Africa joined the non-aligned movement and, from Mandela through the Presidency of Thabo Mbeki, made peaceful resolution of conflicts a foreign policy goal.  South Africa’s government has a sovereign right to adopt neutrality, especially when the dominant narrative is that the world faces a re-run of the Cold War — at a much higher temperature.  But conducting joint exercises with Russia during Putin’s imperialist war does not look much like neutrality.  The ruling ANC would argue that they conduct naval exercises with other countries too, such as France.  But they should not be oblivious to the timing of such exercises, nor heedless of the abhorrence in which most UN member states hold Putin’s Russia.

True, neutral states have never consistently managed punctilious even-handed treatment of the two sides in a conflict.  Nor is neutrality necessarily for all seasons, as Finland and Sweden, now seeking membership of NATO, have shown.

But hundreds didn’t die and thousands suffer in the anti-apartheid struggle to give succour and propaganda opportunities to brutal autocracies.  Their sacrifice was to bring about a non-racial democratic South Africa.

A Ukrainian Socialist Lays Out the Aims and Struggles of Her Country’s Left

Leftists in Ukraine are simultaneously resisting Russian imperialism and the domestic imposition of neoliberalism.

By Ashley Smith , TRUTHOUT

PublishedFebruary 24, 2023

Onlookers watch a search and rescue operation at an apartment block hit by a Russian-launched rocket during a massive missile attack on Dnipro in central Ukraine on January 14, 2023

.MYKOLA MIAKSHYKOV / UKRINFORM/FUTURE PUBLISHING VIA GETTY IMAGES

On the anniversary of Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian left faces a dual challenge — resisting Russian military attacks while also fighting against their own government’s imposition of neoliberalism and austerity. Meanwhile, the global left remains deeply divided in its approach to the war and its relation to Ukrainian leftists’ appeals for international solidarity.

Alona Liasheva is a sociologist, researcher of urban political economy, and works at The Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen. She is a co-editor of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism and member of Ukrainian democratic socialist group Sotsialnyi Rukh (The Social Movement).

In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Ashley Smith speaks with Liasheva about the nature of the war, the conditions faced by her country’s working-class majority, the popular and military resistance and the Ukrainian left’s strategy in wartime and for reconstruction.

Ashley Smith: Russia has launched waves of missile attacks on Ukraine. What impact has that had on people’s lives? How has it impacted popular consciousness? What effect has it had on people’s determination to resist the invasion?

Alona Liasheva: Russia started launching this latest round of missile attacks on October 10. They were supposed to weaken the Ukrainian army, but it didn’t work. Here in Lviv, they seemed to hit everything but the military buildings. While civilian buildings lost their electricity and suffered blackouts, the military buildings were up and running either with regular electricity or generators.

INTERVIEW |
WAR & PEACE
Exiled Russian Activist Challenges Pacifist Approach to Ending War on Ukraine
Russian feminist and antiwar activist Lolja Nordic explains why she supports Ukrainian resistance.
By Ashley Smith , TRUTHOUT November 13, 2022

So, the victims of these missiles were civilians and civilian infrastructure. Many lost heat in the middle of winter and had to endure extremely cold conditions in their houses and apartments.

The attacks knocked power out at hospitals, turning off refrigerators that keep the COVID vaccines cold. We couldn’t get vaccines for a while as a result. All sorts of people and organizations mobilized to get us new vaccines, get generators to key places, and get the electricity back on.

I think Russia hoped to break the will of the Ukrainian people. But the opposite has happened. In surveys, popular support for the military resistance to Russia has remained steadfast.

Many on the Western left persist in calling the war a proxy one between the U.S./NATO and Russia. They also call for an immediate ceasefire and a negotiated settlement to end the war. What are the problems with these positions?

Really this is an easy question. Just listen to what Putin just said in his state of the union address. He declared that his goal is to conquer Ukraine and subsume it into the Russian Federation. At the same time as he was speaking, the Russian Army was attacking and killing civilians.

So, both Putin’s rhetoric and his military’s action demonstrate that Russia does not recognize Ukraine as an independent nation, let alone a negotiating partner. He is certainly not interested in a just peace. With his regime dedicated to our national eradication, we have no choice but to defend ourselves.

Unfortunately, it’s that simple. Most everyone understands this in Ukraine. In sociological surveys, I’ve asked people what they think of a ceasefire and negotiations. Almost without exception, they say that Russia cannot be trusted in any talks.

That is especially true of people who have lived in the occupied areas of Ukraine. They describe living under a regime which they did not choose, which did not represent them, and which violently rejected their right to think of themselves as Ukrainians.

That regime imposed terrible economic conditions, discriminated against women and LGBTQ people, and abducted children and sent them back to Russia. That’s why Ukrainians would not accept Zelensky saying, “we’re not going to fight anymore, we’re going to agree to a ceasefire, and negotiate away occupied territories.”

All of this has changed my own view about diplomacy, which I had advocated over the last eight years. I supported the Minsk agreements as a way to freeze if not resolve the conflict.

Putin shattered my illusions, violating the agreement and launching this invasion. Negotiating with him at this point would be the height of naivete. It would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

I know that the left tends to look for a nefarious U.S. plot behind everything. Of course, I think it’s important to analyze every conflict to understand all the players, the dynamics, and who’s culpable.

In the case of Ukraine, it’s far simpler than many on the left think. Ukraine was attacked by an imperialist army, and as a result we are in a struggle to defend our lives and our very right to exist as a sovereign nation.

Those on the left in the U.S., especially straight white men who tend to be those most vocal in opposition to Ukraine’s right to self-determination, should take a moment and reflect on their privileged position.

They are not being attacked by an imperialist army. They have not been denied the right to say, “I’m Ukrainian. I want to live in my city. I want to peacefully do my job.” They have not been told you cannot be gay, or you cannot get this or that job because you’re a woman.

Instead of listening to us about our experience, instead of identifying with our struggle, too many on the left construct complicated narratives about geopolitics, which frankly do not hold up under close examination. The main problem is that 44 million people are being denied their nationhood, political subjectivity, and agency.

Why is it important for the international left to support Ukraine’s struggle for self-determination? What are the stakes of Ukraine’s victory or defeat in the war?

In reality, everyone in the world has a stake in Ukraine’s struggle for liberation from invasion and occupation. After the Second World War in Europe, countries agreed to have a red line that they would not cross; they would not invade and occupy other countries.

But increasingly, imperialist powers started crossing this line around the world. Russia did the same first in Chechnya and then Syria, Georgia, Donbas and Crimea. If Russia were to succeed with its invasion of Ukraine, it would set a precedent for other imperialist powers and states to do the same — invade, occupy, shoot and kill civilians with impunity.

That’s why the invasion is not simply a regional conflict; Russia is setting a process in motion that could lead to higher and higher levels of imperialist interventionism and potentially a Third World War between nuclear armed powers. So, solidarity with Ukraine is in everyone’s interests.

Really it should not even be a question. Support for struggles for self-determination from Palestine to Ukraine is a principle for the international left, or it should be. At its best, the left has always defended the right of oppressed nations to struggle for their liberation.

Any compromise of that principle discredits the left in the eyes of oppressed peoples. By contrast, international solidarity with all struggles of the oppressed strengthens our collective power to resist all imperialist powers and fight for progressive social change throughout the world.

This is not an abstract question for us. The international left can make a material difference in whether we are able to win or lose. The more solidarity with us, the more humanitarian aid, the more support for our unions, and the more support for our left will strengthen our capacity to resist Russian imperialism and fight for a progressive future in Ukraine and indeed in all of Eastern Europe.

Betrayal of that internationalism will weaken our struggle and it will discredit the left inside Ukraine and internationally. Who would join a left that justifies and excuses imperialist war or ignores the struggles of the oppressed for liberation?

Can you talk more about your experience with the international left? Have you found support? Have you been able to forge ties with Russian socialists and anti-war activists?

Unfortunately, many in the international community used a Cold War framework to understand the war. Most of these ended up ignoring or refusing to support our struggle for self-determination.

They variously sided with Russia, excused its aggression, or wrongly portrayed the war as an inter-imperial one between the U.S./NATO and Russia. The worst of these have gone so far as to blame Ukraine for being attacked. That is like blaming a woman for being raped because she wore a short skirt.

Others on the left sought out Ukrainians to talk with or read our books and articles to understand the war from our point of view. Whether they knew it or not, they were adopting a method that should be a principle on the left — listening to those who are being oppressed.

They built solidarity with our struggle for self-determination. Such leftists, trade unionists, and particularly international feminist networks, which I am part of, have played an important role. They have lobbied for Ukrainian interests, including supporting our right to secure weapons, which are essential for our ability to defend ourselves.

They have also provided humanitarian assistance, joined our international campaign to get our debt canceled, supported our unions’ struggle to defend our labor rights, and helped with many other campaigns. In Eastern Europe we have gotten lots of support from Razem in Poland in particular. They have played a pivotal role in our struggle for debt cancellation.

We have also gotten support from many Russian organizations and activists. Some, however, adopted the position of those on the Western left that blamed Ukraine for the war or the U.S. or NATO. They recycle Putin’s talking points verbatim.

But for most of our Russian allies, it was really an easy question. Being in an imperialist country, it was not a complicated theoretical problem. They saw that Putin ordered an invasion of another country, Ukraine, and said the solution was simple — Russia had to get out.

Those Russian organizations and activists, especially Feminist Antiwar Resistance, organized protests right after the invasion. But the Russian regime has repressed them, jailed many and forced huge numbers of activists to leave the country or go into hiding.

As a result, we cannot say that there is an antiwar movement in Russia now. Despite this we maintain close relations with Russian organizations and networks of militants both abroad and in Russia itself.

One of the challenges the Ukrainian left faces is how to support the struggle for liberation and at the same time protest the government’s neoliberal policies and attacks on the labor movement. How have your group, Sotsialnyi Rukh, and others navigated this?

It is not as hard as it would seem. In reality everyone criticizes the government. That vibrant political discussion is a result of the war itself. The horrible truth is that when bombs are hitting your house, you are forced to ask why this is happening, how to resist it, what the government is doing to defend you, how they can do it better, and what you can do to make the resistance more effective.

Fear and anger have motivated people to do everything from volunteer to fight to organize mutual aid to help one another through the catastrophe of war. People gravitate to one another in emergencies. No one wants to be alone; you want to join a collective and improve your conditions.

Inevitably such politicization spills over into every other arena of Ukrainian society. People start thinking about their rights as workers, as women, as LGBTQI people, and so on. That’s why a lot of Ukrainians are joining different political groups and organizations. Some people have gravitated to right wing organizations and their traditionalist ideas or religious ideas.

At the same time, the left has grown as people search for progressive solutions. Our organization has recruited a lot over the last year. We have way more members to do way more work. People are more active, ready to organize, and eager to mobilize for all kinds of initiatives.

Left-wing student groups have developed. They organized protests against universities being closed, raised demands about their rights, and built international solidarity with student organizations around the world.

Trade unions have also raised their demands and built new organizations. Some of these grew directly out of war conditions. For example, when Kherson was occupied, some turned to one another to protect themselves against the Russian forces. Others fled together to other parts of the country where they knew few people except each other.

In both cases, people relied on one another for mutual aid, building networks in the process. These became the basis of union organization in the case of medical workers, most of whom were nurses. They have formed a union to fight for their interests and for those of their patients.

As a result of all this ferment in civil society, many, not just the left and feminist groups, have made criticisms of how the government leads the war and its class and social policies. Of course, a majority support Zelensky as the leader of the government and military resistance, but not uncritically.

In that context, the left can both stand on the same side as Zelensky in the resistance and oppose his reactionary neoliberal laws and attacks on union rights. We are gaining an increasing audience based on this approach.

We write articles explaining why his neoliberal policies are unjust, undermine morale and compromise the resistance. We send these to government ministries and parliamentary committees. Sometimes our viewpoint is heard and has an impact.

Sometimes we’re ignored. That’s why we publish our positions on our website, send them to the media, and share them directly with unions and social movement organizations. We also share them internationally and draw on our allies to pressure the government.

One of our key tools is petitions. If a proposed law gets 25,000 signatures on petitions, it must be brought to the president’s attention. For example, we helped with a petition for a law legalizing gay marriage. It quickly got 25,000 signatures, forcing Zelensky to publicly state that he agreed with the proposal. The government has not passed it yet, but we have helped spur a public discussion about gay marriage.

Such campaigns are how the government was forced to crack down on corruption. It was not the result of a journalist just writing an article that exposed it, but the result of long-term activity by liberals and anti-corruption activists.

Already there are discussions about the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war. Many are concerned that it will be done along neoliberal lines, using debt and dependence as means to deepen free market reforms. What kind of reconstruction do you advocate and how does the fight for that grow out of the liberation struggle?

There will be an enormous struggle over the terms of reconstruction, just as there has been an enormous struggle over the neoliberalization of Ukraine since the 2008 global financial crisis. I’m not naïve enough to believe that after our victory, Ukraine will rise up and support social democratic reforms. But we can help lead a fight for as progressive a reconstruction as possible.

There is no doubt that Zelensky and the international financial institutions have a neoliberal reconstruction planned. The Western powers and the IMF and World Bank will give out loans on the condition that Ukraine implement further free market reforms like deregulation, cuts to the welfare state, and an opening to global capitalism.

We have a great deal to defend, especially our health care system. I can go to the hospital and get basic medical services like blood work and vaccinations for free. Of course, it’s underfunded, so you have to wait for some services. Because of that, people who have money go to private clinics.

But it’s still better than in the U.S. Some of my friends are refugees in New York City. They have been shocked by advertising for health insurance, the cost of health insurance, the co-pays on medical visits and how much people pay for services even when they have health insurance.


Debt cancellation should be the first thing done to help a country reconstruct itself after war, occupation and economic crisis.

I’m confident that the struggles we have seen emerge during the war will make it possible to stop the worst of neoliberal reconstruction. We don’t want to end up like neoliberal America!

For example, the new organization of medical workers will be able to fight for better pay and working conditions and defend the entire health care system. Through such struggles, we will make the case that another, socially just reconstruction is possible.

Instead of loans we should get direct aid and most importantly reparations from Russia to rebuild our country. Our existing debt should be canceled. It would be insane to use reparations from Russia to repay debt to the international financial institutions and western banks.

Our campaign for debt cancellation should be a global precedent for all indebted countries. Debt cancellation should be the first thing done to help a country reconstruct itself after war, occupation and economic crisis.

Free of debt and more loans, Ukraine could then invest in a progressive reconstruction of the country, defend our welfare state and invest in the public sector. Our whole economy will have to be rebuilt from our agriculture to our military industry, which will be essential so that we can defend ourselves against future attacks from Russia. Such a reconstruction would be in the interests of the country’s vast working-class majority.

The new fight will be similar to the one after 2008. The Ukrainian government took loans from the IMF and agreed to their neoliberal conditionalities. But people rose up against them, forcing the government to balance between the popular pressure from below and the international financial institutions.

The same pattern will happen in reconstruction. Zelensky will take the loans and agree to neoliberal terms, but then face domestic opposition. The results of that struggle will be determined by the balance of power both domestically and internationally.

That’s another reason why we need solidarity from the international left, indebted countries in the Global South and international unions. Our fight is against imperialism and the entire model that has been imposed on nearly every society.

If we can win liberation and a progressive reconstruction we can set a positive example for struggles of the exploited and oppressed throughout the world.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

ASHLEY SMITH  is a socialist writer and activist in Burlington, Vermont. He has written in numerous publications including Truthout, The International Socialist Review, Socialist Worker, ZNet, Jacobin, New Politics, and many other online and print publications. He is currently working on a book for Haymarket Books entitled Socialism and Anti-Imperialism.

Russian War Crimes Have Hardened Ukrainians Against Peace Talks, Activist Says

A Kyiv-based activist says Russia’s mass attacks on civilians have bolstered many Ukrainians’ resolve to keep fighting.

By Mike Ludwig , TRUTHOUT

Published February 27, 2023

People walk in front of buildings damaged by Russian attacks in Dnipro, Ukraine, on February 27, 2023.

ADRI SALIDO / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES


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The world held its breath when Russia invaded Ukraine one year ago. Would Kyiv fall to Russian forces, as President Vladimir Putin and a small inner circle had planned? Would the Kremlin install a puppet dictatorship and brutally crush dissent, just as Putin does at home?

We soon learned Putin seriously underestimated his neighbor and its allies to the West, but today there is no end to the war in sight despite growing global awareness that the current stalemate is untenable. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday that the Russian invasion “triggered the most massive violations of human rights we are living today,” with attacks on civilians and infrastructure unleashing “widespread death, destruction and displacement.”

Heroic Ukrainian resistance forced Russia into an embarrassing retreat last year, but experts say the outcome of the war remains in doubt. Time does not appear to be on Ukraine’s side as attacks on critical infrastructure continue. Ukrainian officials said Monday that Russia launched yet another wave of overnight drone attacks, killing two rescue workers and injuring others far beyond the front lines. Russian forces continue an offensive on the eastern battlefront, where casualties remain high on both sides, and the Ukrainian military claimed Russian shelling killed civilians on Sunday as Ukrainian forces rebuffed dozens of attacks.

Despite the war’s global humanitarian, economic and environmental consequences, both sides have not been anywhere near the negotiating table since last spring, instead doubling down on their intent to fight for every inch of contested territory. Antiwar activists across the U.S. and Europe remain deeply divided over the role of the U.S. and NATO allies in the war, as well as the escalating effect that U.S.-led weapons shipments to the Ukrainian side may have on the conflict.

Vladyslav Starodubtsev, a historian in Kyiv and member of the Ukrainian democratic socialist organization Sotsialnyi Rukh, argues that Ukrainians need international solidarity more than ever, as well as more weapons from the U.S. and European allies to drive out Russia. If both sides settle in for a long, protracted fight and Russia is allowed to keep punishing Ukrainian towns and cities with drone attacks and rocket strikes, there may not be much of Ukraine left to salvage when a settlement is eventually reached.

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“We cannot fight Russian imperials with sticks or stones. Okay, we can, but it wouldn’t be very effective,” Starodubtsev told Truthout. “So, our goal now is to strengthen our anti-imperialist position, strengthen our resistance so we could drive out the occupying forces that continue destroying our land and killing our people.”

After a year of brutal alleged war crimes against civilians, Ukrainian resolve to push Russia out of eastern Ukraine, if not the annexed territory of Crimea, has only hardened. Starodubtsev said working-class Ukrainians are absolutely exhausted by a war they never wanted to fight, but they see no sustainable end to a conflict dating back to 2014 until Russia is pushed back across its internationally recognized borders.

“They saw rapes, they saw mass executions, and the jailing of political activists, journalists, trade unionists and just ordinary people; they saw mass strikes on civilian infrastructure, they saw blackouts and a lot of other horrible crimes,” Starodubtsev said. “And so, after this, we can actually see in polls that more Ukrainians now are against unjust peace negotiations than in any time of this war… they feel like there is no space for selling their own people to Russia.”

Indeed, cities and towns lie destroyed across eastern Ukraine, where both sides are dug into a bloody battlefront bisecting the contested Donbas region. The total number of deaths among soldiers and civilians is likely reaching into the hundreds of thousands. Millions more are displaced, both by fighting in Ukraine and political repression in Russia. The war has devastated Ukraine’s economy, pushing the poverty rate as high as 60 percent according to some estimates, and leaving behind an estimated $138 billion in infrastructure damage.

“ … our goal now is to strengthen our anti-imperialist position, strengthen our resistance so we could drive out the occupying forces that continue destroying our land and killing our people.”

If the war drags on for years on end, there may not be much left of Ukraine to save. Putin knows this. The Russian president, who has shocked the world with talk of nuclear weapons, seems to be betting that his country can survive sanctions and sustain a war of attrition to wear down Ukraine and its allies over the long haul. Putin once again described his aims in apocalyptic terms on Sunday, framing the war not as a battle over mineral-rich, Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine that he claims historically belong to Russia, but as an existential battle with the U.S. and Western nations whose main goal is a “strategic defeat” of Russia.

Unfortunately, the U.S. stance toward Russia and the U.S.’s increasingly close relationship with Ukraine over the past decade — including more than $30 billion in military assistance since January 2021 — has fueled Putin’s propaganda. This is compounded by comments from President Joe Biden and others in his administration who claim support for Ukraine “as long as it takes” while hinting at a desire for regime change in Moscow, even if that is not the official U.S. policy.

Many observers argue that Ukrainians have the right to sovereignty and thus it deserves international military support against a stronger enemy with little regard for human life and international law. Others point out that the U.S. and NATO could have done much more to prevent the war through diplomacy with Russia but pursued their own interests by meddling in Ukrainian politics, an argument Putin has also made from his own geopolitical angle.

A left-right coalition in the U.S. now argues the top priority should be bringing both sides to the negotiating table, either by halting weapons shipments to Ukraine or leveraging them to influence the Ukrainian government. Another U.S. anti-imperialist camp is coalescing under groups such as the Ukraine Solidarity Network and the slogan “Russia Out,” which urges activists to listen to what Ukrainians say they need and support a victory over Russia’s invasion, along with war reparations, reconstruction funding, and labor rights for Ukrainian workers in the longterm.

Starodubtsev, who is appealing for solidarity from left social movements in the U.S., said halting weapons to Ukraine would be a mistake. Ukrainians were left with two bad options after the invasion: either defend themselves with weapons, or be attacked by murderous Russian soldiers, potentially imprisoned, and forced to live under an imperial authoritarian regime. To break the stalemate in Ukraine without rewarding Putin for his brutality, Ukraine must be supported militarily in pushing Russian occupiers out of the country, Starodubtsev asserts.

Of course, forcing Russia out of more territory would also strengthen Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table. As Truthout has reported, isolated pacificists in Ukraine are working internationally to demand an immediate ceasefire and challenge coercive military conscription policies, but Starodubtsev said most Ukrainians do not see nonviolence as a viable option.

“More than 80 percent of everyone in Ukraine [has] a unity position on this — like, we are for delivery of the weapons because we need something to fight against Russian imperialists,” Starodubtsev said. “It’s just the position that everyone has because everyone now lives under rocket strikes, and whether they live in unoccupied territories or near front lines, they understand Russia needs to be pushed out.”

However, critics point out that Ukraine and Russia both have incentives to negotiate, but adding more weapons escalates the conflict and pushes both sides further from negotiating a ceasefire.

British, French and German officials are reportedly preparing a pact that would provide arms and advanced military equipment to Ukraine while withholding NATO membership and protections. Concerned about the West’s ability to support a prolonged war effort, diplomats said the pact aims to support Ukraine in a counteroffensive that brings Russia to the negotiating table while signaling to Ukraine’s government that it must also make concessions. That could include dropping aspirations for NATO membership, which Russia views as an implicit military threat just over the border.

While much of the international community supports a ceasefire conditioned on Russia’s immediate withdrawal, Putin appears determined to salvage some kind of victory and take more territory, if not topple Kyiv given the chance. Starodubtsev said this leaves Ukrainians with no choice but to continue civilian and military resistance while seeking international solidarity and military support. He suggested that U.S. antiwar activists and trade unionists organize with Ukrainians both at home and abroad to build lasting solidarity networks.

“Listen to Ukrainians, try to look through propaganda and investigate what’s right and what’s wrong, and continue to promote cooperation with the diaspora communities in America, because it’s those people who know about Ukraine more than anyone else in America,” Starodubtsev said.



MIKE LUDWIG  is a staff reporter at Truthout based in New Orleans. He is also the writer and host of “Climate Front Lines,” a podcast about the people, places and ecosystems on the front lines of the climate crisis. Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.