Russia

Transnistria, Moldova, and Putin

Transnistria is a long, thin strip of territory, formally part of Moldova, sandwiched between the Dniester river and the Ukrainian border. The area forms about 12 percent of Moldovan territory.

Morning Star lurches further "Red-Brown"

Over at the Communist Party of Britain and their mouthpiece, the Morning Star , there have been some celebrations. At last, things seem to be going their way both domestically and internationally. Ukraine seems to be in difficulty and Russia has been making some small but significant gains. The CPB and the Morning Star in theory condemn the Russian invasion, but many of the paper’s writers have made little secret of their hope that it will succeed. Leading CPBer and regular contributor Nick Wright, for instance, has always cheered on the invaders and, early on, gloated that anyone joining the...

Two years later, anguish, anger, acceptance

It’s been over two years now that troops arrived and tanks rolled into Ukraine: the country, and the world, awoke to a full-scale Russian invasion. Two years ago we spoke with several Russians to hear their thoughts on the war, and a year ago, we caught up with them to see how their lives had changed. In what has become a grim tradition, we today once again: what’s changed, what hasn’t, what’s next? Challenges & Change For Kirill, who relocated to Italy after the start of the war, things have settled. “I have more or less adapted. I began to understand Italian culture and the country as a...

Russia turns Ukraine's occupied areas into an armed camp

After ten years of war, and two years of all-out invasion, Russia is turning the parts of Ukraine it has occupied into a giant military buffer zone, from which further assaults may be launched, the Eastern Human Rights Group (EHRG) has warned. The expansion of military combat, training and transport infrastructure, and the forced mobilisation of local men, was documented in a recent report by the group, which champions labour and civil rights in the occupied areas. While military institutions multiply, industry across the occupied territories stagnates. Russian passports are forced on young...

After Putin murders Navalny

Alexey Navalny, erstwhile leader of the anti-Putin opposition in Russia, died in prison on 16 Feb, long before his 20-year sentence was up.

"Putin has murdered Navalny”

When I studied at university, I had access to reprinted editions of many American left publications. Among them was Labor Action , the weekly newspaper of Max Shachtman’s Workers Party. I have never forgotten the headline from an edition in late August 1940. The headline was “Stalin has murdered our comrade Trotsky”. Those first three words are still relevant today: “Stalin has murdered”. Because we now know, decades later, that the assassin was in fact an agent of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. But back then in August 1940, we did not really know. The assassin had pretended to be someone...

2014: how Russia seized Crimea

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...

Stalin and the Angels

Keke would have been so proud. When her son Joseph was growing up in the small, dusty town of Gori, she dreamed that one day he would be a priest. He did eventually study at the Tbilisi Theological Seminary, but like so many others, he spent more time secretly reading banned books than studying for the priesthood. He was eventually thrown out of the seminary, and according to stories that made the rounds, he told the authorities about all the other students at the seminary who shared his radical views — who were then expelled as well. Joseph went on to become a revolutionary, and took on the...

Support Ukraine, criticise Belgorod bombing

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...

Millions in Russia disagree with war and Putin

From a speech at a local Workers’ Liberty meeting by an anti-war, anti-Putin Russian exile My name is Salavat Abylkalikov, and I come from Russia. My actions and speeches against Putin’s aggressive war on Ukraine have placed me and my family in a dangerous position. I sincerely thank... all of you for making sure my family is now safe. However, today I don’t wish to speak about myself. Often, Putin is portrayed as the embodiment of evil, but in reality, he’s just an ordinary person with certain personality traits. He lacks moral compass, principles, and beliefs. He thinks like a criminal...

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