Russian left statements: ‘The Putin-Trump “peace talks” will bring nothing but new imperialist wars’
Below are two statements — one by Russian Socialists for Peace Without Annexations, the other an editorial by the Posle Media collective — produced on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The statements take a revolutionary left stance on the negotiations underway between US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
‘A Trump-Putin deal would represent a triumph for imperialism and inevitably lead to more wars of conquest’
Russian Socialists for Peace Without Annexations
Translated by LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
The full-scale phase of Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has been ongoing since 2014, began three years ago. For the first eight years it was a covert hybrid war. For the past three years, it has been an unmitigated meat grinder, monstrous in its cruelty.
Ukraine has been dealt an unjust blow by its neighbour. Ordinary Ukrainians, workers, have lost their homes, jobs and lives, and been forced to flee from the war. For three years, the heroic Ukrainian people have resisted Russia’s invasion with insufficient international solidarity and little help from Western countries.
Now, on the heels of the third year of the war, right-wing anti-Communist US President Donald Trump is promoting the idea of peace at the expense of Ukraine. He blames Ukraine for starting the war and seems to want to share Ukraine with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin — well, at least its natural resources. Contrary to what some have been saying, the imperialists are tired and would prefer to end the war by finally stripping Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, of their sovereignty.
Should we support such a deal? Revolutionary defeatists in Russia must stand against such a deal!
It would be monstrously unfair to Ukrainians. It would also lead to the triumph of imperialism and inevitably to many more wars of conquest. If such a deal is reached, Russia will likely start a new war to keep the war machine running and prevent soldiers from returning home. Meanwhile, the impunity with which parts of Ukraine have been annexed will untie the hands of all imperialists, including the Russian Federation.
Do we want the occupation of Ukrainian regions to continue? No!
“People who forge chains for others forge them for themselves’" — Russians living under dictatorship understand the meaning of this phrase. Imperialism is waging an all-out war against everything that is progressive, depriving all peoples of a safe and healthy future.
Do we want new wars of conquest on the part of Russia? No!
Imperialism, revanchism and Russia's desire to again subjugate neighbouring peoples has destroyed relations between Russians and our neighbours (Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Belarusians, Armenians, Georgians, Moldavians, etc.), pushing back the prospects of socialist internationalism. It covers with shame those Russians who do not fight against their imperialism, allowing aggression and revanchism against neighbouring oppressed peoples!
The most important condition now for the struggle is the voice of civil society in the countries of Europe and the United States, and the pressure of workers on Western imperialist governments to not reduce aid to Ukraine, but on the contrary expand it! The left in Europe must agitate for this!
The left also needs to demand Western countries give aid to Ukraine, for free or at minimal cost. Expanded aid from the European Union, even with the temporary suspension of US support, would allow Ukraine to continue its resistance against Russian imperialism, allowing the Ukrainian people to win in the long run!
At home, Russian left-wing defeatists — Communists, socialists, social democrats and anarchists — must speak out in favour of the right of Ukrainians to resist and for the defeat of “their own” imperialism!
We make the same call to the Russian expatriate left! Let this year be the last year of Russia’s imperial aggression!
Three years of war: The lessons of Black February that we haven’t learnt
It has now been three years since Putin’s criminal aggression against Ukraine expanded into a full-scale invasion. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions of refugees have fled their homeland, and dozens of cities have been turned into ruins. Since March 2022, when the initial plan for a rapid “regime change” in Kiev definitively failed, Putin's “special military operation” has become a war of attrition. Disregarding casualties, the Kremlin has continued to raise the cost of war for both Ukraine and its allies with monstrous persistence. For Putin's Russia itself, this war is no longer just about expanding the borders or increasing its influence in the post-Soviet space. Rather it is now an existential problem. The question is: can the Russian regime not only survive, but also make its outlook a new principle of world politics? It seems that the destruction of an independent Ukrainian state — which is the ultimate goal of the “SVO” — would be recognized by all as a sign of the superiority of a true military power over powerless international law. Only when the world enters a new era of imperialist redistribution — a struggle for territories between the strongest military powers — will Russia's “victory” be truly solidified.
Today, after the start of Russian-American negotiations, it seems that this “victory” is close at hand. However, this is not a military victory — the Ukrainian army continues to resist, and Russia has not been able to take a single major Ukrainian city in three years. Instead, it is an ideological victory, a victory of Putin's worldview. The very format of the meeting between Sergei Lavrov and Marco Rubio — representatives of military powers calmly discussing the division of another country's territory and its natural wealth — brings to mind the most shameful and unjust events of the past, such as the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century or the Munich Pact of 1938.
The difference, however, is that, in contrast to what it was like in Munich, this time there are no maps on the negotiating table on which the diplomats might draw the new borders of empires. The US administration does not offer any definitive plan to end the war, and Russia has not yet demonstrated any willingness to compromise and relinquish at least some of its territorial claims. For both sides, these negotiations are primarily of symbolic importance: it is important to them to show that such a scenario should no longer seem unthinkable and that the rules of the game have been radically changed. Although it was rather fruitless, this meeting will go down in history as the beginning of a new era — the era of 21st-century imperialism. However, if the whole world is really divided into predators and victims, is today's Russia — economically weak as it is and having already lost the lives of more than 200,000 soldiers — guaranteed a place among the ruling elites?
As is well known, the Russian Empire turned a deaf ear to a similar question on the eve of its entry into the First World War. Overestimating its own power and blinded by false imperial myths and contempt for its own population, Tsarist Russia did not capture Constantinople, but, instead, faced military collapse and revolution. Following the workers of the Russian Empire, millions of citizens of other countries engaged in war turned their anger against their own governments. It took another century for this lesson to be completely erased from the minds of the ruling elites, who are once again obsessed with the idea of imperial expansion.
The “peace talks” that are now taking place between Putin and Trump will bring nothing but new wars to the world. Imperialism never stops halfway — it only takes the acquisition of desired territories as an invitation to further aggression. The fate of tormented Ukrainians today may soon become the image of the future for humanity, but humanity always has the chance to say “Enough!” to this imperialist madness.