Russia

There was a time when the River Thames was an open sewer. Contemporary diarists tell how the stench was great that it was impossible to walk by the side of the river and not choke. Today, the pollution has a different origin and it doesn’t smell. The “laundromat” of “Londongrad” processes the huge amount of Russian money sloshing around the capital and has turned it into a thief’s paradise, corrupting anything and everything it touches. In the (anonymous) words of one Russian financier, “In London money rules everything. Anyone and anything can be bought”. In 2002 the Blair government brought...

Please use in or adapt for your union branch, Labour Party, etc. If you want advice on putting the motion forward, or to send us the version your organisation has passed, email awl@workersliberty.org We oppose the Russian state’s invasion of Ukraine. We oppose Russia's war and demand Russian troops leave Ukraine. Ukraine has the right to self-determination and the right to defend itself. We oppose any attempts by Russia to force Ukraine to sign political agreements which would undermine Ukraine’s right to govern itself. We oppose NATO. But this war is not being waged by NATO. The war is being...

This was written before Russia attacked Ukraine on 24 February. But its basic line has, unfortunately, been confirmed. Ukraine, an impoverished country of 41 million people, faces an army massing at its borders, much larger and more technologically advanced than its own. On Tuesday 15 February Russia announced it was pulling back some of its troops. However, military units continued to pour forwards towards the border. Russian President Putin, a corrupt authoritarian, made the same lie last December. The Russian military has surrounded Ukraine on three sides. It has, apparently, over 150,000...

Until recently the Morning Star would occasionally criticise Vladimir Putin. The Russian Communist Party is the largest opposition group in the Duma and makes criticisms of Putin’s domestic policy. But when it comes to Ukraine, the Russian CP is a very loyal opposition and differs with Putin only by being more belligerent — for instance calling for formal recognition of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Morning Star ’s coverage of China (which the paper unhesitatingly describes as “socialist”) has long been no more than Chinese Communist Party (i.e. regime) propaganda...

Russia continues to mass troops on Ukraine’s borders, apparently moving attack and troop-carrying helicopters into position on Sunday 13 February, while continuing vast military mobilisations in Belarus. The US believes an attack is probably imminent and has removed almost all its diplomatic staff from Ukraine, calling on all US citizens to leave the country. Other Western states have done likewise. Should the Russian military invade, possibly following a manufactured excuse to do so, it will probably quickly overcome the Ukrainian armed forces, which gave up Crimea without resistance in 2014...

A few days ago the Guardian ran an article by Bernie Sanders entitled “We must do everything possible to avoid an enormously destructive war in Ukraine”. He’s certainly right about that — no reasonable person would disagree. And he correctly names the culprit in the current crisis: Vladimir Putin. But Bernie adds that he is worried about “the familiar drumbeats in Washington, the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war, demanding that we must ‘show strength, ‘get tough’ and not engage in ‘appeasement’.” I disagree. Showing strength and getting tough are not terrible strategies...

The US assesses that the Russian forces massing at the Eastern border of Ukraine are at about 70% of the strength needed for a full-scale invasion. Russia is estimated to have over 130 000 troops near the border with Ukraine. If Russia does send troops into Ukraine, their most likely objective will be to grab more territory to augment the areas already effectively under their control. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), where 2.3 million people live and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) which is home to a further 1.5 million, have been sustained with funds and military help by Russia. These...

The Socialist Workers’ Party are not apologists for Putin’s regime or its foreign policy. Yet in practice their stance on the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine will feed into such apologism on the left. The SWP website published three articles in the last week of January, sharing three key themes: That an important aspect of potential escalation in Ukraine is the rivalry and manoeuvring of big imperialist powers, primarily the US and Russia. That the left and labour movement should oppose all ruling classes in the name of working-class solidarity and internationalism. That we should seek...

Are the breakaway ”People’s Republics” in Donetsk and Lugansk an expression of the democratic rights of the local Russian population? No. The supposed “popular anti-fascist uprisings” in Donetsk and Lugansk in 2014 are a political myth. The creation of the “People’s Republics” was part of Putin’s response to the ousting of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Yanukovich by the mass protests of early 2014. The two “People’s Republics” could not have been created, and could not have survived, without Russian political, financial and military support, including Russian troops on the ground. Putin’s...

A Ukrainian soldier deepens a trench If Russia invades Ukraine — as looks increasingly likely — it will be a continuation and escalation of the regional-imperialist project pursued by Putin since he came to power in 2000. It will constitute an assault on Ukraine’s right to national self-determination. Over the past two decades Putin has coupled increasingly authoritarian domestic policies, aimed at stifling any display of internal opposition to his rule, with an expansionist and imperialist foreign policy, aimed at bringing neighbouring ex-USSR independent states back into Russia’s sphere of...