Ukraine

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...

Polish farmers block Ukrainian grain

Reactionary mobilisations of Eastern European farmers to halt the movement and sale of Ukrainian grain products continue, especially on the Polish-Ukraine border. For the last two weeks Polish farmers have blocked the border. On Tuesday 13 February Polish farmers seized and dumped Ukrainian-produced grain on to the road at the Medyka-Shehyni border crossing. The nationalist-protectionist farmers chanted, “This is Poland, not Brussels. We do not support Ukrainians.” Last week grain was destroyed by Polish protesters after a cargo train was stopped. 2,900 trucks were backed-up on the Polish...

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...

Solidarity with Ukraine!

Ukraine is the victim of Putin’s murderous, Russian-imperialist aggression. Ukraine is right to fight to defend its democracy and its right to self-determination. The international left and labour movement has an obligation to make solidarity with Ukraine. The full-scale war which began two years ago, on 24 February 2022, has led to 22,000 civilian deaths. 5.1mn people are internally displaced. 6.2mn have fled Ukraine. The US suggested that by summer 2023 the total number of deaths, on both sides, amounted to around 500,000. A staggering waste of life. 18% of Ukraine is still occupied by...

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...

Ukraine on the back foot

On 8 February President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sacked armed forces commander Valerii Zaluzhnyy. Although Zelenskyy and Zaluzhnyy have had disputes on battlefield tactics, the sacking is essentially a destructive political move by Zelenskyy to remove a potential political rival. Zaluzhnyy’s removal will have an impact on the morale of Ukrainian troops. Zaluzhnyy is very popular amongst the army’s rank and file. Zelenskyy is concerned that opinion polls conducted at the end of last year showed that the only potential candidate who might defeat him in a future Presidential election was Zaluzhnyy...

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...

Using Gaza to undermine Ukraine

The Morning Star carries claims, some veiled, some shameless, that support for Ukraine is somehow incompatible with support for the Palestinian cause

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