“Solidarity means standing with the oppressed, not the oppressors”

MARCH 6, 2025

Yesterday, protesters gathered outside the US embassy in London to demonstrate their opposition to Russia’s continued unprovoked and illegal war on Ukraine and the Trump Administration’s capitulation to it. Here we reproduce the speech made to the protest by Vicky Blake.

Friends, I’m Vicky Blake, and I’m a member of UCU’s National Executive Committee.

I was UCU UK President when Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and I was proud to carry our union banner on an early Ukraine Solidarity Campaign demo.

In May 2022, I participated in an ETUCE [European Trade Union Committee for Education] mission investigating and advocating for education provision for Ukrainian refugee children and young people in Romania and Moldova, and saw how vital international solidarity is in practice. I saw Romanian and Moldovan unions making an immediate difference – and how urgently we must respond in times of crisis.

Today, outside the US embassy, we say:

No To Trump;  

No to Putin;

Yes to self-determination, dignity, and democracy for Ukraine.

We recognise that Ukraine’s fight is part of the global struggle against authoritarianism, imperialism, and the far right.

Ukraine’s incredible resistance has now entered its fourth year.

The people of Ukraine are fighting for survival, for democracy, and for the right to self-determination — principles that should fundamentally matter to everyone.

Putin is not acting alone.

We know his friends extend far beyond the Kremlin. And we’re here today because in the US, Trump and his allies disgracefully threaten the total abandonment of Ukraine, deploying this as cynical leverage for a so-called deal, inviting more destabilisation, violence, and destruction — in Ukraine and beyond.

Of course, none of us wants war. But peace imposed through imperial domination is no peace at all.

Ukraine’s struggle is bound to the wider fight for global security and justice. Ukrainian resistance is a lesson to us all.

Trump’s return to power threatens not only Ukraine but peace and democracy around the world. Our answer as trade unionists must be internationalism.

Solidarity doesn’t stop at borders. It’s people-to-people, union-to-union, school-to-school, worker-to-worker.

I’m proud to be a founding member of UCU Members for Ukraine, and  we’ve worked to build understanding inside our union, so we’ve been running webinars on academic twinning and energy security and publicising an appeal for a school in central Ukraine.

In this we’ve worked with the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, and I’m glad to report UCU is now affiliated to the USC.

Later this month, UCU will welcome a Ukrainian speaker at our flagship education policy conference (Cradle to Grave) to help us consider how we, as educators and trade unionists, can support the rebuilding of education under attack.

At UCU’s annual congress last summer, we reaffirmed our commitment to:

– Support humanitarian appeals;

– Build direct links with Ukrainian institutions;

– Resist the gendered violence of war.

Solidarity cannot be merely symbolic. Solidarity has to be practical — it means listening to what’s needed, delivering direct aid, and challenging disinformation wherever we find it. We all have a part to play.

We all have skills to offer — different skills to each other but we can all do something. As educators, in UCU we know we can:

– Offer support with educational resources;

– Help refugees access education;

– Stand with our Ukrainian colleagues keeping education going under unimaginable conditions.

Solidarity is not neutral. It means standing with the oppressed, not the oppressors. It means defending the truth of what Ukrainians are living through.

No to Putin.

No to Trump.

Yes to Ukraine.

And yes to decisions for Ukraine made by the people of Ukraine.

Yes to international solidarity.

Slava Ukraini.

Image: Ukraine Solidarity Campaign protest outside the US embassy on March 5th 2025. c/o Labour Hub.