Ukraine

Ukraine, Israel and the left

Solidarity has long argued that sections of the left have fallen into particular form of antisemitism. Starting from ultra-hostility to Israel which goes beyond criticising the real misdeeds of its governments and into demonising it as the world’s hyper-imperialism and hyper-racism, they end up reflexively hostile to all “Zionists”, i.e. all Jews who have some default or instinctive affinity with Israel, however critical. Readers who wonder why should look at how the same sections of the left portray the war in Ukraine. In this portrayal of the conflict, Ukraine takes on many of the political...

Ukraine: Beat back Putin!

As the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 approaches it is worth taking a balance sheet of the war, its human costs, political consequences and the left’s response. Ukraine was a poor country before the war began, but its GDP slumped by 45% in 2022. Well over 100,000 residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed. 8 million Ukrainian refugees are now registered across Europe, from a pre-invasion population of 44mn; a further 5mn, at least, are internally displaced. In October 2022 Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Schmyhal estimated the cost of re...

Arming Ukraine: Lessons from history

Everyone knows that the only way to end the war in Ukraine — to really end it — is to ensure a Ukrainian military victory over the Russian aggressor. A decisive victory by the Ukrainians would almost certainly lead to the toppling of the Putin regime. The result would be a de-fanged Russia, one that poses far less of a threat to its neighbours. Everyone also knows that Ukraine needs the latest tanks and aircraft to achieve that goal. The Russians have been hurling their best weaponry at Ukrainian cities. Ukraine has been fighting back with what they have on hand, mostly Soviet-era tanks and...

Ukrainian socialists visit UK in March

Olenka and Brie, two activists from the Ukrainian socialist organisation Sotsialniy Rukh (Social Movement, SR), are visiting Britain in March. Their visit is hosted by Workers’ Liberty. The comrades will meet activists, trade unionists, socialists and feminists as they briefly tour the country, speaking at conferences and public meetings. No one on the British left should understate the significance of what they have to say or misunderstand the urgency of their message. The comrades of SR have been active in countless campaigns against the Ukrainian capitalist class. And now they have the...

Holodomor: the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33

Etymologically, the Ukrainian word Holodomor is composed of holod, hunger, and demoryty, which has no direct equivalent in French and can be rendered as 'to let perish deliberately'. In this formulation, intentionality is decisive: to allow someone to perish is to murder.

Socialist Worker bemoans backing for Ukraine

“Not a single Labour politician”, complains Yuri Prasad in Socialist Worker of 3 February , “is today prepared to speak out openly against Nato’s flooding of Ukraine with hi-tech tanks and missiles. Whatever their private misgivings about the way arms shipments heighten the danger of nuclear conflict, none will join the platform of a meeting to say so.” Straight off the bat: the big issue of militarism in Ukraine, for SW , is not the armed-to-the-teeth Russian invasion, but the provision of (actually so far pretty limited) weaponry to help Ukraine resist. In an article calling for an anti-war...

Arms for Ukraine, victory for Ukraine

German Leopard 2, American M1 Abrams and British Challenger tanks, together with highly effective armoured vehicles from the US and Sweden, have finally been promised to Ukraine. Lt. Col. Voloshin, a Ukrainian tank commander fighting in eastern Ukraine, says his unit is using Soviet T-64 and T-72 tanks dating back to the early 1980s. The Wall Street Journal quote him complaining: “For these heaps of metal, one day of fighting is followed by four days of repairs.” The Ukrainian army really needs modern tanks and has been asking for these weapons for many months. German and US objections to...

Putin can be defeated

German chancellor Olaf Scholz Much of the British far left — groups such as the Communist Party, Socialist Worker, and Socialist Appeal — see the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a war between NATO and Russia, fought on Ukrainian soil. They argue that the US and NATO provoked Russia, in order to isolate Russia and destroy its military power. They oppose Ukraine’s self-defence and struggle for self-determination which they equate with a Western war to subordinate Russia to the West. So it is difficult to know what these groups make of the US and German denial of advanced tanks to Ukraine. Surely...

The Stop the War trade union conference and Ukraine

I only made the second half of the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) trade union conference on 21 January, but I think I got a pretty good sense of the event’s politics. It was broadly what I expected. What was said about opposing war and militarism in general, and increased militarisation and military spending in the UK, was mostly good. What was said about Ukraine was mostly bad, by implication and in some cases very explicitly. Stop the War makes a great play of its anti-imperialism: but it won't back Ukraine against Russia's brutal imperialist war . There were maybe 150 people in the closing...

Why we won’t march with Stop the War on 25 February

The risible pseudo-pacifist Stop the War Campaign, run by Stalinists and peaceniks, and despised by the left and trade unions in Ukraine, has called a demonstration to mark the first anniversary of the Russian invasion (25 February, London). The demands of these marchers are: “Stop sending arms [to Ukraine]; immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations.” Conspicuously, the marchers will not be demanding that Russian forces get out of Ukraine. The StW call to end arms shipments to Ukraine, if carried through by the West, would lead to a Russian victory, the subordination of Ukraine to Russian...

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