Ukraine

Keeping up with the Star

During Solidarity’s August hiatus, your columnist has dutifully kept reading the Morning Star

Ukraine: it’s not a US “proxy war”

On Tuesday 15 August Stian Jenssen, the chief of staff to NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said, “I think that a solution could be for Ukraine to give up territory and get NATO membership in return.” Jenssen said that NATO members were discussing how the war might end. The Ukrainian state under Zelenskyy has, in the past, considered territorial concessions to halt the war. At the start of the full-scale invasion Ukraine appeared close to defeat and suggested, alongside giving up Crimea, it might also agree to shelve its plan to join NATO. That was before the retreat of Russian forces...

Ukrainian unions back Scottish strike

Barring a last-minute settlement, GMB members employed at the Department of Defence Equipment and Support depot in Beith (near Glasgow) will strike again Friday 4 and Monday 7 August. The munitions depot supplies weapons to British nuclear submarines based in Faslane, and Storm Shadow and Brimstone missiles to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invasion. The dispute centres on the existence of a two-tier workforce in the depot. Managers and craft workers are paid bonuses, but non-craft workers are not. To make matters even worse, their current hourly rate of pay is just 23p more than the...

With socialists and feminists in Ukraine

"Women, Life, Freedom" - sign from a protest in solidarity with Iranian women at Feminist Workshop's office The first of the two full days the recent Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (USC) mini-delegation had in the country was spent mainly meeting trade unionists. We delivered a vehicle and equipment to the KVPU union federation to take east; met with Lviv teachers’ reps; and visited a mine and hospital in nearby Novovolynsk. The second day was spent mainly with left-wing political activists. Feminist Workshop USC held a conference on post-war reconstruction on 17 June, and some UK-based Ukrainian...

Against Putin: victory to Ukraine!

Some supporters of Ukraine at Durham Miners' Gala (8 July). On the right are Ukrainian trade unionists Oksana and Pavlo Holota with an NGPU miners' union flag brought specially from Ukraine It is now slightly more than 500 days since Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s imperialist war, launched with the intention of abolishing Ukraine as an independent entity, to subordinate Ukraine to Russian political power, has been a disaster for not only the Ukrainian people, but for the Russians too. The war has also broken down important global economic bonds, especially in...

Morning Star veers even more anti-Ukraine

The Morning Star these days is increasingly open in its desire to see Ukraine defeated. While denouncing, and not without some reason, the new inclusion of cluster bombs in US military aid to Ukraine, it is actually much more excited about signs of backtracking within the US ruling class (“Cluster bombs grab the headlines, but backtracking may be underway too”, editorial, 10 July 2023). “It is a sign of the difficulties the Nato strategy is encountering in Ukraine that a top-level US delegation of foreign policy figures recently met with senior Russian figures including Foreign Minister Sergei...

The US left, Ukraine, and Biden

While Republican politicians are queuing up to take on Donald Trump for the party’s nomination next year, there’s hardly anything going on in the other camp. Unless he falls ill or changes his mind, Joe Biden will undoubtedly be the Democratic Party candidate. Only three people with any name recognition have challenged him inside the Democratic Party or to its left. They are a diverse crowd, but one thing unites them — and it’s not what you’d expect. To the left of the Democrats, Cornel West has announced he’s running for president. It’s unclear which party will support him as he initially...

Four days in west Ukraine

The vehicle USC took to Ukraine, its back full of protective gear and other equipment Between 2 and 5 July I was in western Ukraine (Lviv, Novovolynsk and nearby), delivering trade union aid and meeting labour movement and left activists with the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (USC). (For more see the report on the USC website .) What I saw and the conversations and discussions we had underscored the urgency of defending Ukraine against Russian imperialism and defending its working class and labour movement against both Russia and the Zelenskyy government. At the same time, some things surprised...

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