At the heart of the far-right Maidan agenda — the 2014 coup d’état supported by openly Nazi paramilitary groups and political organisations — is the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Kulturkampf against the Orthodox Church; a struggle with its roots in the country’s Nazi era past. … More Ukraine’s Unholy War
Over the past six months Socialists in every part of the EU have united with anti-war groups, dissenters, and the growing number of ordinary people who are becoming increasingly alarmed by the effects this war and the sanctions against Russia are having on their lives. The limitation of oil and gas in the global economy has driven costs up, accelerating an already developing cost of living crisis; threatening less-well-off people with a bitter winter in which they will be unable to afford the basics of food, heating, and rent. … More Is Europe Losing Patience with Zelenskyy?
It is an undeniable fact that Ukrainian forces are responsible for the artillery bombardment of the Zaporozhye NPP, and there are two reasons for this; one ideological and the other practical. The prevailing ideology of the Ukrainian forces on the southern front is, as has been well-documented even in the western media, National Socialist — or Nazi — in nature; a profoundly nihilistic and apocalyptic brand of palingenetic ultranationalism. … More Impending Nuclear Disaster at the Zaporozhye NPP
On Wednesday (27 July 2022), The Irish Times published a letter penned to the letters section of the newspaper by Sabina Coyne Higgins, the wife of the President of Ireland (Michael D. Higgins), in which she wrote: ‘Until the world persuades President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations, the long haul of terrible war will go on.’ She was perfectly correct. Without an end to the fighting and without peace talks, the war in Ukraine will continue and many more thousands of people will suffer and die. … More The Sabina Coyne Higgins Affair
Žižek’s recent comments on Ukraine have quite understandably bewildered and divided socialists around the world. Ukraine, he says, ‘risked the impossible, defying pragmatic calculations, and the least we owe them is full support, and to do this, we need a stronger Nato.’ But wait! Supporting Ukraine is to support a Nazi-captured state, post-Maidan, and to seek a stronger NATO is to desire a reinforced US unipolarity and the furtherance of American liberal and capitalist hegemony. To the socialist (qua a leftist who reads) this is simply anathema. … More Žižek on the War in Ukraine
And so as Russian soldiers closed in on the Azov Regiment in Mariupol, it can be seen that the Azov commanders and troops were truly important to the regime in Kyiv. They functioned as a paramilitary structure able to enforce the diktats of the regime in Kyiv with more fervor than those taking orders from regular Ukrainian general officers. … More The Azov Regiment, Mariupol, and Ideology
Without doubt, this was Mr Putin’s greatest public relations victory so far in this conflict. Not only were western audiences presented with Russia’s case for war, they were given it from the mouth of Vladimir Putin himself. In explaining why Russian soldiers were fighting in Ukraine… … More Putin’s Victory Day Parade
The notion that Putin has designs on invading Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, or anywhere else in eastern Europe is unsupported by the facts. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has largely stayed within its own borders. There has been no realistic indication or intelligence that Russia has been planning an assault on Europe. It is plain to see that, like the war in Georgia in 2008, Russia has no plans on annexing Ukraine. … More Parallel Realities on Russia
This is the nature of the information war being fought by the Ukrainian government — the side that is the righteous victim, the side that does not need to tell lies, the side that has innocence on its side. Yet, the multiplication of the entities of these stories — their details — point to them being fictitious; they push the boundaries of believability. … More Zelenskyy’s Dirty Propaganda War
NATO and the western media have made a great fuss about Russia’s revision of its nuclear strategy; suggesting that, by incorporating a particular nuclear option into its conventional military response, the Putin administration has adopted a fundamentally more aggressive and bullying strategy — and has leapt on this to accelerate the expansion of the anti-Russian nuclear alliance and the buildup of ‘defensive’ forces on the Russian border. Little if anything, however, has been said about why Russia made these revisions in the first place. … More Chekhov’s Nuclear War
Standpoint Zero 