Struggling for the future of Ukraine!

John Maxted speaking

by New Worker correspondent

A successful 'hybrid' meeting took place in central London and on Zoom on Sunday 12 November on the topic 'The struggle against Banderite fascism and the future of Ukraine', with speakers from Britain, Ireland, Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Poland. The event was organised by International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity.
The speakers taking part were Bill O'Brien of the Truth and Neutrality Alliance (Ireland), Larissa Schessler from the Union of Ukrainian Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners, Dmitry Vasilets, Chair of Representative Office of the Ukrainian People and leader of the Ukrainian Derzhava Party, Boris Litvinov of the Donetsk District Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), Denis Zomer of the United Communist Party of Russia, Tatiana Desyatova – CPRF Moscow Region, John Maxted from No2Nato-No2war (Britain), Paul Atkin, a UK blogger and political commentator, and Konrad Rekas, a Polish journalist and political commentator.
Messages of support were received from Alexey Albu, the Borotba (Struggle) representative (the leading Ukrainian anti-fascist organisation), together with Tony Greenstein from the Socialist Labour Network, Gedrus Grabauskas, the leader of the Communist Party of Lithuania, Urij Khokhlov from the Russian Communist Workers Party, Chris Helali (PCUSA)  and Dave Clennon from Struggle-La Lucha (USA).
The speakers and discussion covered the background to the tragic conflict in Ukraine since 2014, the countless crimes and brutal repression meted out by the Banderite Hitler-admiring armed gangs, and how the imperialist countries will approach a future democratic Ukraine - with continued support for Banderite terrorism, subversion attempts and outrageous lies. The speakers also drew parallels and connections between Ukraine and Gaza, and the common roles of NATO and US-led Western colonialism-imperialism in both of these tragic conflicts.

Fascism will be defeated!

Alexei Albu

by New Worker correspondent

A very successful online meeting to mobilise international support for the Free the Kononovich Brothers campaign took place on Thursday 25th August, with 50 participants from Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the USA, England and Scotland. Organised by the London-based International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity campaign (IUAFS), the seminar called for the release of the Kononovich brothers and all Ukrainian political prisoners, and for the restoration of all political and media freedoms.
    Chaired by Theo Russell, the key speakers were: Chris Williamson, former Labour MP; Alexey Albu from Borotba (Struggle), a survivor of the 2014 Odessa Trade Union House Fire massacre; Steve Sweeney, Moscow-based investigative journalist and former Morning Star international editor; John Parker from Solidarity with Donbass and Antifascists in Ukraine (joining from Los Angeles); Phil Wilayto, Odessa Solidarity Campaign (Virginia USA); and members of the Young Communist League of the Russian Federation and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Speakers from Ukraine and the Donbas were unable to take part due to interrupted internet connections.
    Chris Williamson said that: "The imprisonment of the Kononovich brothers should have caused an outcry from the British left, but it has been met with a stony silence. We know the Zelensky regime is corrupt regime that came to power in a US-backed coup.” Speaking about the energy payments crisis currently shaking Britain, he commented that "most people aren’t making the connection between the sanctions on Russia and the soaring price of energy".
    In a video message from Eastern Ukraine, Alexey Albu spoke of the large-scale persecution of dissidents in Ukraine and said "tens of thousands have been arrested by the SBU (Ukrainian secret service)”. He said that many were not as well-known as the Kononovich brothers, Alexander Matyushenko of the left Livitstya movement or the Vasily Volga of the Union of Left Forces, all of whom have been beaten and tortured by Nazis. He added that in newly liberated areas the graves of those murdered by Nazis since 2014 are being exhumed. He said: "I believe that we will win and that fascism will be defeated, but I would be very happy if you comrades could help us in this process. No Pasaran!"
    Speaking from Moscow, Steve Sweeney spoke about the brutal crackdown on the opposition in Ukraine and said: "The entire Ukrainian left are either in prison, they’re dead or they’re in hiding.” He added that people in Moscow were "still reeling from the murder of Darya Dugina, who was killed in a cowardly attack" and compared the gloating in the western media over her assassination with their reaction to what they termed the "terrorist attack" on Salman Rushdie.

The IUAFS is a united front supported by the NCP, Socialist Fight, Consistent Democrats and the British Posadists as well as individual labour movement activists.Videos of the key speakers are now up on the new IUAFS YouTube Channel

Solidarity with Ukrainian and Donbass anti-fascists

The following letter was sent on the 3rd April  2020

We send solidarity greetings from the UK to all those living under a fascist-infested illegitimate government in Ukraine, defending and building the anti-fascist people’s republics in the Donbas, and to the hundreds of thousands forced into exile by political repression, attacks by fascist gangs and economic austerity.

Although we have had no recent Ukraine anti-fascist solidarity actions, we have by no means forgotten your struggle and the sacrifices you are making.

We were intending to begin organising another Ukraine anti-fascist solidarity protest in London in the near future, but unfortunately events in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic have overtaken us.

All of us have been working hard on other political issues, including helping to organise a very successful meeting attended by 400 people in central London on March 3^rd  which exposed the lies, tampered and falsified evidence being presented at the current MH17 trial in The Hague.

Ever since the February 22 2014 Ukraine coup we have been aware of the illiegal nature of that regime change, the open involvement of actual fascists in the government, police and armed forces, the complete suppression of democratic rights and freedoms in Ukraine, and the physical attacks on political parties, trade unions and even the courts.

We have not forgotten the heinous crime at the Odessa Trade Union House on 2^nd  May 2014 and the many other outrages perpetrated by the fascist bands, and we have not forgotten the criminal, barbaric ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ launched in April 2014, unleashing all-out war against civilian anti-fascist protestors in Donetsk and Lugansk.

We know that the fighters of the people’s Donbas and Lugansk People's Militias are making daily sacrifices in the front-line trenches, and that civilians – women and men, children and the elderly – are being killed and injured every day in attacks by the Ukraine armed forces and the fascist brigades.

In our solidarity work for the anti-fascists in Ukraine we are also faced with confronting the lies and whipped up hysteria against the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin, which have continued for almost a decade.

We have no illusions about the capitalist, oligargic nature of the Russian Federation, but we reject the attempts to portray it as totally undemocratic, and we call for an end to the trade sanctions the constant western interference designed to economic instability and provoke protests. And this coming from governments which kiss the feet of the reactionary fuedal monarchs of the Middle East, and instigate coups and regime change from Brazil and Bolivia to Hong Kong.

Above all we are aware of the vital support given by the Russian Federation to the Donbas people’s republics, the generous hospitality extended to large numbers of Ukrainian exiles, and its open condemnation of the fascists in Ukraine.

We also applaud the the sacrifices made by the Russian volunteer fighters in the Donbas, by the Russian Federation’s armed forces to defend the popular front government in Syria, and the strong support the Russian Federation has extended to Cuba and Venezuela.

This anti-Russian hysteria has created a poisonous atmosphere in which anyone challenging the lies and false flag operations of of US-EU-NATO imperialism risks being labelled as a Russian asset, in a repeat of the anti-communiist witch-hunts of the 1950s.

Unfortunately many progressives, social democrats, trade unionists, and even the anti-fascist and anti-racist organisations on Britain, have fallen for this demonisation, even though it is clearly a repeat of the lies and fake news used against Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gadaffi and Hafez al Assad. This has prevented them from even discussing the most dangerous revival of fascism in the whole of Europe.

Once again we renew our support and solidarity with your organisations, which will continue as long as it takes until democracy has been restored throughout Ukraine, and communists, socialists and anti-fascists are allowed to operate freely again.

Andy Brooks

New Communist Party of Britain

Ian Donavan

Trotskyist Faction of Socialist Fight.

Gerry Downing

Socialist Fight

Bridget Dunne

Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU)

George Shaw

Posadists in Britain

As well as:

Frente Comunista Dos Trabalhadores (Brazil)

Tendencia Militante Bolchevique (Argentina)

Socialist Workers League (USA)

The letter was sent to the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic; Borotba, the underground Ukrainian anti-fascist resistance movement and the Union of Ukrainian Political Refugees

• Report in the Donbas communist media 
• Report by the Communist and Workers Front of Brazil
  

Freedom for Ukraine!

by Theo Russell

Protesters gathered on Saturday 23rd February opposite Theresa May’s residence in Downing Street to send a message of solidarity to anti-fascists in Ukraine and the Donbas who are resisting the illegitimate government in Kiev, which has unleashed a war in eastern Ukraine and a wave of fascist terror in the five years since the US-backed coup on 22 February, 2014.

Members of the New Communist Party, Socialist Fight, Posadists in Britain and Solidarity With the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine also demanded that the British government end its support for a government that continues to wage the war it launched against the Donbas people’s republics in 2014, and bring home the British troops sent to train Ukrainian army units.

Messages were read out from Borotba (Struggle), the most active anti-fascist resistance organisation in Ukraine, and from the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Alexey Albu from the Borotba (Struggle) Association said in his message:

“Dear comrades and friends!

“The current political regime is building a ‘new Ukrainian nation’ by falsifying history. Supporters of Nazi collaborators are openly encouraged, national policies are based on naked chauvinism, and even moderate alternative views on what is happening and the Ukraine’s future are being censored.

“The ruling class is suppressing any political opposition, even moderate conservatives, and Nazi gangs have been elevated to official status and integrated into the state structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the SBU (intelligence service).

“The war criminal Poroshenko, who has spurned the Minsk peace agreements and continued the war against the Donbas, constantly tries to increase the divisions between Ukrainians along political, religious, linguistic, ethnic and class lines.

“War is the only way Poroshenko knows to hang onto power, using militaristic populism to distract people from Ukraine’s problems.

“Unfortunately, the world community has closed its eyes to the continuing glaring examples of the dehumanisation of Ukrainian society, the killing of innocent people, and the existence of real Nazism not seen anywhere since 1945.

“Borotba has been banned, labelled ‘terrorist’ on national TV by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, and cannot conduct public political activities. Our activists have been forced underground, to organise in secret, aware that the country is in a state of civil war with the support of the Western imperialism.

“We are well aware of the true feelings of the Ukrainian people, and we know that this regime of marauders and war criminals can only continue with foreign support. We will never reconcile with the prepared destiny of the peoples of Ukraine and we will fight for liberation for as long as we have the strength – by all available means!

“Ukraine will be free! Ukraine will be socialist!”

The message from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic read:

“Dear comrades!

“On 14 April, 2014, the illegitimate Kiev regime, which came to power as a result of a coup d’état, launched an aggressive war against the people of Donbas, who had chosen the path of self-determination.

“This has led to huge civilian casualties in the region, and massive destruction of production facilities and infrastructure. The people’s republics of Donbas have been living in incessant hostilities for more than four years.

“The systematic violations of the truces by the Ukrainian side indicate that Kiev and the Western imperialists behind it are not interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

“We should respond to this with the strengthening of international workers’ solidarity and the strengthening of the co-operation of the world’s progressive forces.

“Long live peace between the nations! Long live anti-imperialist solidarity!”

• report in the Donetsk communist media 
• report from Vpered (Forward) the organ of the Donetsk communist party