A myth is doing the rounds on the left in Ireland and other parts of the globe that small countries are powerless when they have to fight against imperialist invaders. We suggest readers consult this fine passionate article written by Joxe Iriarte, Bikila, a revolutionary socialist activist from the Basque region (Euskadi) situated in the northern part of the Spanish state.
Ukraine, an invaded country, has managed to defend its independence in this terrible three-year war with great sacrifices against the formidable army of the imperialist aggressor. Of course, this would not have been possible without the supply of weapons from the West, but the main factor has been the courage and great motivation of the Ukrainian people. This is how the Russian left-wing intellectual Ilya Budaitskis refers to Ukraine’s sacrifice.
Economist Michael Roberts states: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused a terrible impact on the Ukrainian people. 46,000 civilians and perhaps 500,000 soldiers have died. Millions have fled abroad and millions more have been forced to leave their homes. Kyiv has lost 50,000 workers. Ukraine’s GDP has fallen by 25% and 7.1 million Ukrainians currently live in poverty”.
We, representatives of [Ukrainian] civil society and human rights organizations, decisively condemn the negotiations between the delegations of the Russian Federation and the United States regarding Ukraine, which took place in Saudi Arabia, as well as the plans to create negotiating groups without the participation of Ukraine. Any agreements about Ukraine without its direct participation are not only unacceptable, but also contradict the fundamental principles of international law, the sovereignty of states, and the right of the people of Ukraine to independently determine their future.
Such agreements are fundamentally incapable of accomplishing sustainable peace and international security, creating additional security, economic, and other threats to states that will support them. This path repeats the fatal mistake the international community made during the Munich Agreement of 1938, which, as was discovered later, did not satisfy the encroachment of the aggressor state and led to an even more destructive war.
Ukraine is not an object, but a sovereign state affected by aggression
Russia continues waging a full-scale war against Ukraine in violation of the fundamental principles of international law, including the prohibition to use force against the territorial integrity and political independence of any state enshrined in the UN Charter. This has been recognized not only by numerous decisions of international organizations, but also supported by the majority of countries in the world. The aggression committed by the Russian Federation has already resulted in numerous war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the likely genocide of the Ukrainian people.
And here we are. This is one outcome of arguing that one imperialism is less bad than another, that some people are oppressed while others either don’t exist (,Putin’s original playbook) or don’t really matter. Palestinians good, Ukrainians, Kurds? Not so much.
Clare Daly (ex MEP; a twice defeated Irish election candidate in 2024) was on the RTÉ 1 TV “Upfront with Katie Hannon” programme on February 17 2025, supporting the Trump-Putin stab in the back of Ukraine. She is like the peace activists who backed the Hitler-Chamberlain 1938 agreement selling out Czechoslovakia. A year later this “peace in our time” deal, promoted by a British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain famously waving a piece of paper, paved the way for World War 2 in Europe and Nazi occupation of France, Holland, Belgium, Poland plus many more.
We also saw the Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939, followed in 1941 by – guess what? – a Nazi invasion of Stalin’s Russia.
Let us recall the various Clare Dalys, spiritual daughters of Stalin – one of whom claimed in 2022 that predictions Putin intended to invade Russia were “insane”.
Pro-Ukraine anti-war activists got it right, for example Donnacha Ó Beacháin :
3 years ago today I was in a TV studio expressing scepticism about Putin’s claim he was withdrawing troops from Ukraine’s borders On the same program Russia’s ambassador said anybody who suggested Russia would invade Ukraine was “insane”. Russia launched its full-scale invasion the very next week
Here is an account of the warnings Stalin ignored prior to the Hitler invasion in 1941.
Unlike the Germans, who saw the Non-Aggression Pact as necessary but temporary, Stalin had illusions that it might be lasting. Owen Matthews quotes from a 1966 interview with Marshal Zhukov, conducted by Lev Bezymensky, a Soviet historian and war veteran. In January 1941, Zhukov and others had warned Stalin of ominous German troop movements. Stalin wrote to Hitler, asking politely whether these reports were true. Hitler replied that they were, but he swore ‘on my honour as a head of state that my troops are deployed … for other purposes. The territories of Western and Central Germany are subject to heavy English bombing and are easily observed from the air by the English. Therefore I found it necessary to move large contingents of troops to the east where they can secretly reorganise and rearm.’ Stalin believed him.
Source : Winston Churchill : His Times, His Crimes, Tariq Ali, Verso Books,
The 2025 Trump-Putin partition policy is a spiritual daughter of the 1922 Treaty which peace politicians used to stab Northern Nationalists in the back by implementing the partition of Ireland. This gave us, in the prophetic words of James Connolly, “A Carnival of Reaction” – 2 sectarian counter-revolutionary states on one small island.
Like James Connolly, Grace Plunkett (widow of 1916 Easter Rising martyr Joseph Plunkett) understood that partition, pretending to be peace, meant a sham freedom for Ireland.
So, today, it should be obvious to all on the left : oppose a peace and partition plan promoted by 2 violent untrustworthy sociopaths.
Ask the people of Canada, of Mexico, of Greenland. Ask the people of Ukraine, of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, of Poland , of Finland.
A dictatorship hosting another dictatorship to negotiate with an aspiring dictatorship about the future of a democracy that’s not represented.
Two superpowers opening discussions on the future of a country which one of them is still invading, without that country
Are the international pro-solidarity left organising solidarity with Ukraine? Answer Yes
A physical and online conference in support of the Ukrainian people’s national and social rights
No to partition! Russian troops out!
This important conference will address the grave threat posed by the incoming Trump administration’s intention of imposing on the Ukrainian people a deal agreed with Putin’s Russia.
Violating international law, it would partition Ukraine and entrench the occupation of territory annexed since 2014 and expanded by Putin’s full-scale war since February 2022. It would produce a “peace” imposed through Western acquiescence in the dismembering of Ukraine, with parallels to the 1938 Munich Agreement that handed Nazi Germany 30 per cent of Czechoslovak territory.
The vulnerable position presently confronting Ukraine’s war of just resistance is a direct result of the failure to provide necessary aid by key states, despite their boasting that they “stand by Ukraine”.
The dire prospect of a partitioned Ukraine partly under Putin’s control would be the product of the appeasement policy of those sections of big business anxious to restore and develop their Russian commercial ties. In contrast, the Solidarity With Ukraine conference of progressive forces—of trade unions, socialists, social democrats, green, feminists and other social movements—will take place on the understanding that the partition of Ukraine cannot bring peace.
The only road to a just and lasting peace requires the complete withdrawal of Russian forces. While they remain in any part of Ukraine it will be impossible for Ukrainians to freely determine their own future.
Any peace negotiations should be with Ukraine as a main partner: the war should not and cannot be solved as a horse trade between the great powers at Ukraine’s expense.
Against the decline in aid and a possible Trump-Putin deal, the organisers and sponsors of the Solidarity With Ukraine conference advocate a surge in military support to strengthen Ukraine’s position in any negotiations, and to be able to continue its just resistance if no security guarantees acceptable to Ukraine are achieved.
That military aid must be accompanied with unconditional financial support for Ukraine’s reconstruction and the cancellation of its debt. We reject the corporations’ self-interested argument that solidarity with Ukraine’s armed and unarmed resistance must mean accepting the dismantling of social rights and services, either inside Ukraine or in the countries giving it support.
The struggles of Ukraine’s working people and their trade union organisations, and of the country’s feminist, environmental, LGBTIQ+ and human rights organisations have been indispensable to the country’s resistance, primarily against the Russian invasion but also against anti-social policies adopted by the Zelensky government. They are also the best guarantee that reconstruction will be in the interest of Ukraine’s social majority.
The message of representatives of such Ukrainian movements will be a central feature of the plenary sessions of the Solidarity With Ukraine conference.
They will also participate in workshop sessions that will provide an invaluable opportunity to increase understanding of Ukraine’s complex reality and develop practical solidarity initiatives with Ukrainian partners.
The conference will also adopt a final declaration, with the goal of giving as much publicity as possible to its position in favour of a just peace and just reconstruction for Ukraine and its people.
The final text and the Solidarity With Ukraine conference program will be published soon.
Neutrality is not an option as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues at the heart of the European continent. This writer explains “If a passerby saw a man relentlessly beating a child on a street corner, we would expect the witness to try to stop it. Neutrality is out of the question. On the contrary, we would deplore the moral turpitude of inaction.”
Neutrality is not an option as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues at the heart of the European continent. This writer explains “If a passerby saw a man relentlessly beating a child on a street corner, we would expect the witness to try to stop it. Neutrality is out of the question. On the contrary, we would deplore the moral turpitude of inaction.”
As an independent voice who follows Russian media very closely, I am well acquainted with what Putin and his propagandists “actually say.” The major TV channels are full of commentators recommending that countries like Poland, Germany, or the United Kingdom be nuked. The Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, one of Putin’s closes allies, now openly calls for “the fight against Satanism [to] continue throughout Europe and, first of all, on the territory of Poland.”
Indeed, the official Kremlin line describes the war as a “special operation” for the de-Nazification and de-demonization of Ukraine. Among Ukraine’s “provocations” is that it has permitted Pride parades and allowed LGBTQ+ rights to undermine traditional sexual norms and gender roles. Kremlin-aligned commentators speak of “liberal totalitarianism,” even going so far as to argue that George Orwell’s 1984 was a critique not of fascism or Stalinism but of liberalism.
In the year since Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine, large developing countries like Brazil, India, and South Africa have sought to remain above the fray. Yet, as with Western “pacifists,” these countries’ non-alignment amounts to tacit support for imperialism.
A very useful history lesson for Irish Justice & Defence Minister Alan Shatter; regrettably Fine Gael was not the only political or social organization in 1930’s Ireland that endorsed continental European fascism.
piece was deemed a potentially anti-monarchy satire and so was not promoted too much in the UK.
Update :
The Journal.ie writer did not mention regarding the brilliant sketch “Dinner For One”: Freddy Frinton was an anti-fascist who blocked the screening of his sketch in Germany for 30 years.
The attempt to make working people and the poor bear the costs of the crisis, while the very rich escape, will be opposed by those in the firing line. The people of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, but also Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, challenge the austerity policies of the EU and the IMF, oppose international financial power, and reject the slavery of debt. We call on people across the world to show solidarity with movements in these countries struggling against debt and the pernicious policies it brings in its wake.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 