Ukraine

Daria Saburova - While Russia's annexation of the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia should shed some light on what happened in 2014, some voices on the left are still accusing Ukraine of having provoked the current military escalation. This article looks back at the events of 2014-2022 to answer several questions that continue to tug at the heartstrings of the radical left and hinder its solidarity with the Ukrainian popular resistance.

Chris Slee - One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's pretexts for invading Ukraine has been his claim to be protecting Russian speakers in the eastern part of the country, which he is now trying to annex to Russia. It is therefore useful to look at the history of the conflict in that area.

Ashley Smith interviews Ilya Butraitskis - The Ukrainian resistance has scored major victories in its struggle to liberate its country from Russian occupation. Putin, facing defeats on the battleground, has issued draft orders for 300,000 people in Russia to shore up his military forces in Ukraine. He has also staged “sham” referendums in occupied Donbas as part of his drive to annex it to be part of Russia.

Peter Birke interviews Karmína collective - How have social-economic conditions in Ukraine developed since the 1990s? What role has the labor movement played? How and with what goals have labor struggles been wagered? And what is currently changing as a result of the war?

Various authors - Those who now tolerate a Russian victory also tolerate a victory for both global and “domestic” fossil and commodity-based capital, which is closely intertwined with the Russian fossil and extractive sectors. Therefore, a new anti-militarist movement must uphold solidarity with the civil as well as armed resistance of the Ukrainian people, and with the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian leftists who oppose the Putin regime’s war.

Socialist Alliance - Socialist Alliance condemns the Russian attack on Ukraine. The war violates international law and is a catastrophe for people in both countries. We recognise the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination free from all foreign interference.

Dave Holmes - The Russia-Ukraine war has been raging for over six months. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians have died, many more have been wounded and traumatised. Millions have become refugees. The material damage is immense.

Stephen R. Shalom and Dan La Botz - It is urgent to end the war in Ukraine. But to achieve this goal, "Russia Out Now" is a better slogan than "Diplomacy Now."

Imagine you are a Russian-speaker in some bombed-out Eastern Ukrainian city, waiting to be liberated. Some of the “liberators” will be first checking your closets for young men to mobilize and use as a Z-branded canon fodder. The other liberators make it clear that they see you аs nothing more than a “vatnik,” a Homo Sovieticus. All that remains for you to choose is which knife you would like to be liberated with: the good knife of the victim or the evil knife of the aggressor?

Most of the left in France - we'll leave aside the sectors that openly support Putin - condemns this war of aggression by Russian imperialism, and demands the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. At the same time, however, it remains paralysed and voiceless, abandoning the field of Ukraine defence to Macron, to the bourgeoisie.

Tara Bilous is a Ukrainian socialist, editor of the left-wing publication Commons: Journal of Social Criticism, and an activist with the organization Sotsyalnyi Rukh (“Social Movement”). After Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, Bilous signed up for the Territorial Defense Forces.