Ukraine

Ukraine is the victim of Putin’s murderous, Russian-imperialist aggression. Ukraine is right to fight to defend its democracy and its right to self-determination. The international left and labour movement has an obligation to make solidarity with Ukraine. The full-scale war which began two years ago, on 24 February 2022, has led to 22,000 civilian deaths. 5.1mn people are internally displaced. 6.2mn have fled Ukraine. The US suggested that by summer 2023 the total number of deaths, on both sides, amounted to around 500,000. A staggering waste of life. 18% of Ukraine is still occupied by...

Ten years ago — in the early hours of 23 February 2014 — Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his personal advisers and military and security chiefs. The meeting agreed that Russia should seize the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Less than 24 hours earlier Putin’s placeman in Ukraine, President Viktor Yanukovych, had fled Kyiv after three months of mass popular protests. He had then been voted out of office by the Ukrainian Parliament. Even before Putin’s meeting had finished, Russia was already transporting marine and Spetsnaz (Special Operations) units to the Anapa airfield on the...

On 8 February President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sacked armed forces commander Valerii Zaluzhnyy. Although Zelenskyy and Zaluzhnyy have had disputes on battlefield tactics, the sacking is essentially a destructive political move by Zelenskyy to remove a potential political rival. Zaluzhnyy’s removal will have an impact on the morale of Ukrainian troops. Zaluzhnyy is very popular amongst the army’s rank and file. Zelenskyy is concerned that opinion polls conducted at the end of last year showed that the only potential candidate who might defeat him in a future Presidential election was Zaluzhnyy...

Ukraine is the victim of unprovoked Russian imperialist aggression. Ukraine is facing an enemy — Russian President, Vladimir Putin — who has openly stated that Russia’s war aims are to abolish Ukraine and subsume it into Russia. Russia’s brutal war has probably cost Ukraine 70,000 military dead, some thousands of civilian casualties including at least 550 children. 1700 secondary schools and over 1,200 medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed together with 170,000 units of housing. 18% of Ukrainian territory is currently occupied by Russia and 5mn people have fled the country. Russia...

The Morning Star carries claims, some veiled, some shameless, that support for Ukraine is somehow incompatible with support for the Palestinian cause

Russia is confident and Putin’s recent statements indicate his stated aims, to “de-Nazify” Ukraine and overrun the country remain. He believes the West will give up on Ukraine.

Between 11 and 17 November, I was in Ukraine as part of a PCS union delegation. During our stay in Kyiv it was quiet with only three air alerts, which everyone ignored (they have a fine sense of what is dangerous). Unfortunately that quiet period has ended with multiple sustained air attacks in the past week. These have been drone attacks but the attacks that people most fear are ballistic missiles, where you get little or no warning (as you can imagine having discussions about ballistic missiles is slightly surreal). Everybody I met in Kyiv described living there as being in a bubble, and...

In June 2023 Ukraine launched its long-expected offensive with the intention of breaking through Russia’s well-prepared defensive lines in southern Ukraine. Ukraine aimed to get to Tomak, Melitopol and Berdyansk in a drive towards the occupied Black Sea coast, but has fallen far short. The US, EU states and the UK had eventually provided Ukraine with some of the modern weapons it had been demanding for many months. However, the delay in donating the equipment which Ukraine needed to follow-up spectacular victories against the Russians in Kharkiv and Kherson at the end of 2022 allowed the...

Two national peoples, one historically colonially subjugated by the state of the other. An ongoing war of attempted conquest and occupation. Devastating air strikes, bombardment of civilian targets, cutting off access to utilities and humanitarian aid. An authoritarian leader who continually denies the legitimacy of the subjugated people’s national identity and right to self-determination. Israel/Palestine, Russia/Ukraine, Putin/Netanyahu. There are many clear similarities between these two situations. As Ukrainian activist and writer Daria Saburova put it, “How can we look at images of Gaza...

The film 20 Days In Mariupol confirms many times over the essential truth of the old saying, “war is hell”. At times so grim as to be unwatchable, the film, produced by a small team of Ukrainian journalists working for Associated Press (AP), documents the first days of the siege of Mariupol, (24 February-20 May 2022). The port and industrial city was an important target of the initial Russian invasion. Its capture was key to providing Russia with a land route to Russia-controlled Crimea (to the west of the city). Russian-speaking Mariupol was a city that was largely and traditionally Russian...