Russia

Solidarity with Ukraine

This was written before Russia attacked Ukraine on 24 February. But its basic line has, unfortunately, been confirmed. Ukraine, an impoverished country of 41 million people, faces an army massing at its borders, much larger and more technologically advanced than its own. On Tuesday 15 February Russia announced it was pulling back some of its troops. However, military units continued to pour forwards towards the border. Russian President Putin, a corrupt authoritarian, made the same lie last December. The Russian military has surrounded Ukraine on three sides. It has, apparently, over 150,000...

Putin and Xi's unpaid propagandists

Until recently the Morning Star would occasionally criticise Vladimir Putin. The Russian Communist Party is the largest opposition group in the Duma and makes criticisms of Putin’s domestic policy. But when it comes to Ukraine, the Russian CP is a very loyal opposition and differs with Putin only by being more belligerent — for instance calling for formal recognition of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Morning Star ’s coverage of China (which the paper unhesitatingly describes as “socialist”) has long been no more than Chinese Communist Party (i.e. regime) propaganda...

For Ukraine, against Putin

Russia continues to mass troops on Ukraine’s borders, apparently moving attack and troop-carrying helicopters into position on Sunday 13 February, while continuing vast military mobilisations in Belarus. The US believes an attack is probably imminent and has removed almost all its diplomatic staff from Ukraine, calling on all US citizens to leave the country. Other Western states have done likewise. Should the Russian military invade, possibly following a manufactured excuse to do so, it will probably quickly overcome the Ukrainian armed forces, which gave up Crimea without resistance in 2014...

Bernie Sanders is wrong about Ukraine

A few days ago the Guardian ran an article by Bernie Sanders entitled “We must do everything possible to avoid an enormously destructive war in Ukraine”. He’s certainly right about that — no reasonable person would disagree. And he correctly names the culprit in the current crisis: Vladimir Putin. But Bernie adds that he is worried about “the familiar drumbeats in Washington, the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war, demanding that we must ‘show strength, ‘get tough’ and not engage in ‘appeasement’.” I disagree. Showing strength and getting tough are not terrible strategies...

Oppose Russian war on Ukraine!

The US assesses that the Russian forces massing at the Eastern border of Ukraine are at about 70% of the strength needed for a full-scale invasion. Russia is estimated to have over 130 000 troops near the border with Ukraine. If Russia does send troops into Ukraine, their most likely objective will be to grab more territory to augment the areas already effectively under their control. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), where 2.3 million people live and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) which is home to a further 1.5 million, have been sustained with funds and military help by Russia. These...

How Socialist Worker fails to support Ukrainian rights

The Socialist Workers’ Party are not apologists for Putin’s regime or its foreign policy. Yet in practice their stance on the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine will feed into such apologism on the left. The SWP website published three articles in the last week of January, sharing three key themes: That an important aspect of potential escalation in Ukraine is the rivalry and manoeuvring of big imperialist powers, primarily the US and Russia. That the left and labour movement should oppose all ruling classes in the name of working-class solidarity and internationalism. That we should seek...

Questions and answers on Ukraine

Are the breakaway ”People’s Republics” in Donetsk and Lugansk an expression of the democratic rights of the local Russian population? No. The supposed “popular anti-fascist uprisings” in Donetsk and Lugansk in 2014 are a political myth. The creation of the “People’s Republics” was part of Putin’s response to the ousting of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Yanukovich by the mass protests of early 2014. The two “People’s Republics” could not have been created, and could not have survived, without Russian political, financial and military support, including Russian troops on the ground. Putin’s...

Russia: hands off Ukraine!

A Ukrainian soldier deepens a trench If Russia invades Ukraine — as looks increasingly likely — it will be a continuation and escalation of the regional-imperialist project pursued by Putin since he came to power in 2000. It will constitute an assault on Ukraine’s right to national self-determination. Over the past two decades Putin has coupled increasingly authoritarian domestic policies, aimed at stifling any display of internal opposition to his rule, with an expansionist and imperialist foreign policy, aimed at bringing neighbouring ex-USSR independent states back into Russia’s sphere of...

Campism runs up against reality

The Morning Star divides the world into two camps, labelled “progressive” and “imperialist”. From that all else flows. In any international dispute or crisis, the paper’s stance is determined by which camp the participants fall into. Usually, this is easy: China, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua are all “progressive” and in the case of the first two, “socialist”. Despite the tremendous anti-imperialist opportunities opened up by Brexit (so the MS thinks), the UK has yet to break free and establish an independent foreign policy. Until recently, Russia was a bit of a problem, especially as the Russian...

The socialists who deny Ukraine's rights

IMT members in Brazil demonstrate alongside the Brazilian Communist Party in support of Russian nationalist rebels in Eastern Ukraine (2014) On 24 January, after almost two months of silence since the new Russian threats to Ukraine began, the International Marxist Tendency website, run by the Socialist Appeal group and its co-thinkers, published an article by Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick with the title “Will Russia invade Ukraine?” As we’ll see, Halinski-Fitzpatrick’s article is blander, less overtly pro-Russian, than what SA has put out in the past. But in a way it is worse: in 3,677 words, it...

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