The unjustified and atrocious Russian invasion of Ukraine decided by Putin on 24 February 2022 and the war it provoked have already caused over 100 000 deaths for each side, half of those in Ukraine of civilians. The suffering of those in Ukraine and Russia who have lost family members and friends is commensurably immense, through war crimes, rapes, kidnapping of children and continuing Russian bombing in civilian zones.
The first duty of internationalists is to support and solidarize with the resistance of the Ukrainian people in both their direct opposition to this bloody invasion and the self-organization of society in ways that help the population to survive, with particular support to those laying the basis for a future more just society by defending anti-capitalist policies, and the feminist and lgbt networks.
Left-Wing British Labour politician, John McDonnellMP was Labour’s Shadow Chancellor from 2015 to 2020, when Jeremy Corbyn was the party leader.
His policy is very clear :
So, with such a consistent track record of opposing illegal wars launched by imperial powers, it is completely understandable why I have opposed and condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and why I have supported arming Ukrainians fighting the invasion of their country.
On the question of Ukraine, we all come to it with a bit of history.
For me, I have a history of opposing, speaking against and voting against illegal invasions of countries from Iraq to the sending of troops into Afghanistan and the bombing of Libya and Syria.
So, with such a consistent track record of opposing illegal wars launched by imperial powers, it is completely understandable why I have opposed and condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and why I have supported arming Ukrainians fighting the invasion of their country.
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.
For us Russians who oppose Putin’s aggression and dictatorship, it has been a year of horror and shame over the war crimes committed daily in our name.
On the one-year anniversary of this war, we call all those who yearn for peace to turn out for demonstrations and rallies against Putin’s invasion. Unfortunately, not all the “peace” rallies taking place next weekend will be actions of solidarity with Ukraine. A large part of the left in the West does not understand the nature of this war and advocates compromise with Putinism. We have written this statement to help our comrades abroad understand the situation and take the right stand.
Copyright A spontaneous picket organised in the heart of Ekaterinburg, in 1905 Square, on 24 February, the day Russian troops entered Ukraine to carry out a so-called “special operation”
A counterrevolutionary war
Some Western writers attribute the war to causes like the collapse of the USSR, the “contradictory history of the Ukrainian nation’s creation,” and geopolitical confrontation between nuclear powers. Without denying the importance of these factors, we are surprised that these lists overlook the most important and obvious reason for what is happening: the Putin regime’s desire to suppress democratic protest movements throughout the former Soviet Union and in Russia itself.
Mick Antoniw, a Labour Party member of the Senedd (Assembly) in Wales, says that Jeremy Corbyn’s recent comments on Ukraine are “fundamentally wrong”. The Welsh Labour MS was a big supporter of the former Labour leader and is heading to the war zone to deliver aid.
EXCL: Mick Antoniw tells me Jeremy Corbyn’s comments to @lewis_goodall on @TheNewsAgents were “fundamentally wrong”.
John Lyons, am Independent Left Dublin City Councillor representing Artane/Whitehall, is supporting the Le Chéile Ireland for All Solidarity march at Dublin’s Parnell Square on February 18 at 1.30pm. John’ report is below. Irish Left With Ukraine is one of many organisations supporting this anti-racist mobilisation.
Over recent weeks there have been protests in the area targeting people seeking refuge in Ireland. It has been sad to see and it consequences can be traumatic for those directly targeted and can further disadvantage all our efforts to fight for a better Ireland for all as we can only secure housing for all, a better health service, more community, sports & social funding if we are united, not divided.
This country is extremely wealthy but we have a problem: the political class led by Fine Gael & Fianna Fail care only for the better off & wealthy.
They don’t care about our families, our communities.
Left-evasionist and tankie political activists everywhere are promoting a Seymour Hersh post claiming that the USA ruling class blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline which is designed to allow Russia to supply Germany with Natural Gas, by-passing Ukraine.
In Ireland, Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit [PBP], Dublin South-West) highlighted this story on the grounds that Seymour Hersh is “one of the world’s best journalists”. In December 2022 a pro-PBP publication, the Irish Marxist Review (a well-produced and often interesting journal published by the Socialist Workers’ Network) carried a Maurice Coakley article which stated “the US Navy were the only force likely to have carried out the attacks on the gas pipeline”. (Maurice Coakley’s article is here : https://irishmarxistreview.net/index.php/imr/article/view/479/464)
Seymour Hersh, decades ago, was a credible journalist. Today he is a conspiracy nut. One correspondent on Paul Murphy’s facebook page, James Doyle, observes “This is all nonsense. For example, Why would the US use a Norwegian aircraft rather than a fake fishing boat in a supposedly covert operation. For those who refer to Hersh as a “respected journalist”, you should know that he thinks the Osama Bin Laden operation was fake and Assad never used chemical weapons in Syria. A good journalist in his day, but sadly has gone off the rails into a rabbit warren of attention seeking conspiracy theories.”
Is this dispute important? It is. In the activist Revolutionary Marxist tradition, theory is needed as a guide to action.
John Meehan February 16 2023
“Left” organisations and personalities retail Hersh’s Nord Stream story uncritically, because it is what they want to hear. Dogma beats inquiry. Innuendo and false claims beat solidarity with the victims of Russia’s scorched-earth war on populations, in Syria in 2014 and 2017, and Ukraine in 2022-23.
Re-forming critical public spaces means challenging the “great men” of the “left” when they offer blinkered, one-sided and untruthful explanations for the dangerous, uncertain realities we face.
Simon Pirani, The Nord Stream Pipeline Explosions – Challenging False Narratives.
The claim that the Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up by U.S. special forces, made last week by the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, is being used to reinforce false narratives about Russia’s culpability for the war in Ukraine.
On 26 September last year, explosions damaged three of Nord Stream’s four pipelines, which run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, and sent a large cloud of methane into the atmosphere. Russia has blamed the United States; western media suspected Russia itself of sabotage.
A global week of action for solidarity with Ukraine – Stop the Russian war of aggression! Peace for Ukraine!
Friday February 24 will mark one year since the Russian army invaded Ukraine on the orders of Putin and his regime. A year of indescribable suffering and bloodshed for the Ukrainian people.
The completely unjustified invasion has already cost the lives of many tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and military personnel. Every day the Ukrainian people face brutality and violence. Millions of civilians have been forced to flee abroad, millions are internally displaced.
Entire towns and villages have been reduced to rubble by Russian bombing and airstrikes. Civilian infrastructure (electricity and heating networks, schools, hospitals, railroads, ports, etc.) is being systematically destroyed, making the country unliveable.
Calendar of Events
February 21-26 2023 Events Supported or Organised by ILWU
Tuesday February 21, 7pm
Why You Should Support Ukraine (via Zoom)
Speakers :
Vladyslav Starodubtsev (Sotisalniy Rukh); Vlad Dziuba (Ukrainian Action in Ireland)
Join us on Tuesday February 21 at 7pm to discuss Why you should support Ukraine – Hear two Ukrainian activists. Email irishleftwithukraine@gmail.com for zoom link
Friday February 24 2023 Dublin, GPO, 2pm.
Called by Ukrainian Action on Ireland : 1st Anniversary of Russian Invasion of Ukraine : “Fighting for Europe”
Immigrants Involved in Irish Radical Left/National Liberation Movements – Before, During and After the Easter 1916 Rising
A Maurice Casey Walking Tour – supported by Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU)
Saturday February 25 – 1-3pm – Portobello to the GPO
1pm to 3.00pm, starting at Portobello Square (at 1 Portobello Harbour, opposite BelloBar), finishing at the GPO.
The route and the stories Maurice Casey will be covering at each stop :
Portobello Place – Harry Kernoff
Harry Kernoff’s woodcut of James Connolly in the uniform of the Irish Citizen Army, whose flag is on the banner of the ILWU.
Lombard Street West – The Harmel Family
St Stephen´s Green – Casimir Dunin
Mansion House – Sidney Aronson and Rose McKenna, WILPF Ukraine delegates National Library of Ireland – Nora Dryhurst and Georgian Independence, Kropotkin
Peterson´s Pipe store – Conrad Peterson, Helen Lena Yeates
Trinity College Dublin – Russian Department – Daisy McMackin
GPO – The Bolshevik delegation to Dublin – Point up to the Mater Hospital – End with story of the Finn and the Swede in 1916
A Homeless migrant camp in Ashtown was brutally attacked on January 28 2023 in Dublin. Ruth Coppinger, a former member of the Dáil (TD) for the Dublin West constituency circulated the report below. Directions at this link : https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/station/ashtown
Infamous Racist Attack at Ashtown Station, Dublin 15
Earlier today there was a brutal racist attack in Ashtown at a site where a group of migrant workers, made homeless by unaffordable rents, have been living in tents for months.
A gang of 5 or 6 men with dogs, armed with sticks and baseball bats descended on the camp and violently attacked and injured at least one person. They would have done more damage, only that witnesses disturbed them.
is about 
not hate.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 