We will not forget Odessa!

by New Worker correspondent

Activists from International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) and members of the Workers Party of Britain held a vigil outside the Ukrainian Embassy in London on Saturday 2nd May to remember the Anti-Maidan heroes who died at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa on 2nd May 2014.
On 2nd May 2014 a fascist-led mob torched the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, preventing firefighters from intervening and attacking anyone who tried to escape. According to the Kiev regime, 42 people who were defending democratic rights and the rights of Russian speakers died on that day, but this figure is widely disbelieved. According to local investigators the true number of fatalities is well over 300.
For the first time since the formation of IUAFS in 2017, a pro-Zelensky counter-protest was held in front of the embassy, including people wearing fascist Azov emblems – one of whom held a sign saying "We killed the protesters in Odessa". However there were around three times as many anti-fascist protestors as the Ukrainian fascist Banderites. People came out of the embassy to join the Banderite protestors. So the embassy was was clearly involved, and that may be result of the repeated IUAFS protests there. 
There was a large police presence in order to avoid any conflict breaking out in front of the embassy, which is located in one of the most expensive areas in central London. Members of the IUAFS approached the Bandera supporters to tell them we wanted to lay flowers at the embassy gate but were told "it is forbidden". We consulted the police who advised that this may lead to trouble breaking out, so it was decided to lay flowers under a tree across the road. The policy of IUAFS is that its campaigns are purely political, firstly calling on the British government to end all support and collaboration with the Kiev junta, and secondly to extend solidarity and support to all Ukrainian democrats and anti-fascists in Ukraine or living in exile abroad.
The Ukrainian protestors, who were holding Ukrainian, Romanian and British flags, shouted to the anti-fascist protestors "are you Russian? Do your support Hamas terrorists?", and a man apparently from Ukrainian TV filmed the IUAFS activists and also asked "where are you from?".
IUAFS will continue its campaign until democracy, freedom of the media and the right for all peaceful, democratic political parties to operate freely in Ukraine are restored. We look forward to the day when Ukraine is free of NATO personnel and provocations and all the national communities in Ukraine can live side by side together peacefully.

Remember Ukraine's political prisoners!

 

by New Worker correspondent

Activists from International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) protested at the Ukrainian embassy in London last week against the ten year prison sentence for Anatoly Miruta for distributing humanitarian aid, along with thousands of Ukrainian citizens who have been prosecuted, or even some cases murdered, for allegedly co-operating with Russian forces in the past three and a half years.
Miruta and his mother had organised a makeshift shelter in Syniak, a village north of Kiev where locals collected water and charged their phones, when the town was occupied by Russian troops in March 2022. Miruta said at his trial that all the Ukrainian authorities, soldiers and police had fled from the village, “leaving the people to fend for themselves”.
This month he appealed against his sentence, claiming that the court had ignored statements supporting his case and allowed dubious testimonies from previously unknown witnesses.
The protestors also carried placards declaring “Gonzalo Lira – We haven’t forgotten you”, a reminder of the Chilean-American blogger living in Kharkov who was persecuted by the Kiev government and died in prison in January 2024. An envelope containing this sign was left at the embassy.

Free the Kononovich brothers!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other anti-fascist campaigners protesting outside the Ukrainian embassy on Monday 26th May against the continued detention of two communist activists who are now being press-ganged into the Ukrainian army.

International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), which called the picket, has long campaigned in defence of Mikhail Kononovich and his brother Alexander, leading activists of the Leninist Communist Youth of Ukraine, the youth wing of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
The Kononovich brothers were arrested on 2nd March 2022 on trumped up charges of being “propagandists” aiming to “destabilise” the internal situation in Ukraine. They were then
subjected to months of beatings, torture, abuse and sleep deprivation in solitary confinement in the dungeons of the secret police. International pressure eventually forced the Kiev regime to release them. They have only appeared in court for initial processing. They have never had the opportunity of a full trial for the political charges against them. Now the brothers are back in jail.
On 22nd May Mikhail and Alexander were held by the police while on their way to a hospital. They were then taken to a military recruitment centre for allegedly evading military service. When they called their lawyer he too was arrested and taken to another military recruitment centre.
The brothers have issued this statement: "Comrades, we officially declare: Zelensky's regime wants to kill us! They want to send us to the front and then nothing needs to be proven, whether we are guilty or not, no one will care. They will kill us, no problem!
"The regime will now decide how to deliver us to the Volyn region, where we are registered and are on military registration. This is what is happening, comrades! They will not leave us alone, they have planned our murder".

Remember Odessa 2014!

by New Worker correspondent
 
On Saturday 3rd May members of International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity and several other organisations held a vigil in solidarity with the families of those who died in the Odessa massacre of 2014 outside the Ukrainian embassy in London.
They carried signs saying "Remember Odessa 02.02.2014" in English, Russian and Ukrainian. After the vigil they laid flowers at the gate of the embassy, and a letter addressed to ambassador Valery Zaluzhnyi was left by New Communist Party of Britain general secretary Andy Brooks.
Eleven years after the tragic events of 2nd May 2014 no-one has been brought to justice for these crimes, and no independent, local or international inquiry has ever been held. And according to the European Council an investigation by Ukrainian authorities in November 2015 “had lacked "institutional and practical independence".
On 13th March 2025 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Ukrainian authorities had failed to prevent or end the violence on that day or to “ensure timely rescue measures for those trapped in the fire,” and said that since 2014 the Ukrainian authorities had “failed to institute and conduct an effective investigation into the events”.
The court ruled that these failures were in violation of Article 2 (right to life/investigation) and Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
While the ruling was widely covered by the Russian and Ukrainian media it appears to have been totally ignored by leading Western media outlets, including the BBC, Reuters and CNN.
However the virulently pro-Ukrainian website EUvsDisinfo dismissed the ruling as "recurrent pro-Kremlin narrative about the Odessa tragedy and about Nazi Ukraine". EUvsDisinfo is run by "a team of experts" called the "East Stratcom Task Force", which operates under the EU High Representative. Kaja Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister.