Ukraine

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.

Vera Iastrebova, a Donetsk lawyer and labor movement activist, reported on social media on February 26 that mothers and wives in the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” were desperately seeking ways to protect their menfolk from compulsory mobilization in the now-unfolding war.

This article was originally published in 2016, in a special issue of the journal International Critical Thought (vol. 6, no. 4) that addressed the topic of “Russia, Ukraine and Contemporary Imperialism”.

The war in Ukraine has provoked sharp differences among people on the left and peace activists. Federico Fuentes spoke to veteran British socialist and Anti*Capitalist Resistance member Phil Hearse about how these differences reflect deep underlying controversies about the world crisis.