alanjjohnstone
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422,000 people have fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries.
And again another article highlighting the double-standards
The Latest
Ukraine belongs in the European Union and the bloc would like to see the country join it in time, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Euronews on Sunday.
“Indeed over time, they belong to us. They are one of us and we want them in,” she said.The Russian rouble DOWN nearly 30%,
CPAC for is usually a good way to gauge the mood of grass-roots activists within the Republican Party in the US. If the event is any indication, the conservative base of the party is much more interested in the upcoming congressional mid-term elections in November and defeating Democrats than they are about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Top Republicans in office like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Senator Rick Scott, didn’t mention Ukraine at all in their speeches.
If RT is banned should Fox TV be as well?
Russian TV Uses Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard to Sell Putin’s War
Our blogs are still explaining our position and apologies if they appear repetitive or not sufficiently specific or fail to express the case as you would yourself. But it is a work in progress and more posts will appear.
We welcome contributions if anybody seeks to offer their socialist analysis
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-love-for-land-of-your-birth-is.html
https://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2022/02/nationalism-divides-workers.html
Russia’s war on Ukraine risks displacing “over seven million people”, the EU commissioner for crisis management said.
“We are witnessing what could become the largest humanitarian crisis on our European continent in many, many years,” Janez Lenarcic told a media conference.
But let us not forget how opposed Fortress Europe has been to other refugees and one factor is the ethnicity of the refugees
This article describes the double-standards
An article on religion
There have been appeals to religious nationalism in both Russia and Ukraine
US talked tough on Nord Stream 2 but this article reveals how Biden’s sanctions exclude any serious ban on Russia’s energy export.
Biden defended his decision to preserve access to Russian energy in order “to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.”
BD, our weakness is not the clarity of our position but that it is not heard.
I would prefer something that references the current conflict.
I suggest that we translate a statement into Russian and Ukrainian which may widen our audience a little bit when it is posted on the internet.
Cde.Shenfield of the WSPUS can accomplish the former. Not sure if we have any Ukrainian speakers and Google translate can be flawed.
The Latest
Sweden announced it would give military aid to Ukraine, the first time it has sent weapons to a country in armed conflict since the Soviet Union’s 1939 invasion of Finland, said Magdalena Andersson, the prime minister.
The European Union will also supply weapons for Ukraine as it fights against Russia’s invasion, officials said
“For the first time ever, the European Union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said.
EU has announced it will ban Russian-state backed television channels RT and Sputnik
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund will divest its Russian assets
BP said it had decided to exit its 19.75 % stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft.A Russian anarchist in Ukraine interviewed
(once again Kurdistan is cited as a possible scenario of resistance)
And from a Russian anarchist group
(“…our decision to support Ukraine in this conflict—let’s call them geopolitical reasons. But they are not even the primary reasons. The most important reasons are internal moral ones: because the simple truth is that Russia is the aggressor…)
And from another anarchist group, same webpage
“…Ukrainian anarchists are joining in the territorial defense of their cities. It is now harder for them than for people in Russia, but this is one and the same defense. This is the defense of freedom against dictatorship, of will against bondage, of normal people against deranged presidents…”
These are talks about talks.
And as they are taking place with hopefully an accompanying reduction in the fighting, re-supply and digging into more secure defences will happen. The war will go on but at a lower intensity.
It is a painful reality call to realise just how impotent the existing workers’ movement really is, much less the socialist/anarchist sector. It exercises no influence whatsoever. It is an irrelevance in the decision-making of our rulers. It is given as a taken that we will all fall in line behind our respective governments.
How different it could all be.
Peace talks to begin
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-agrees-to-peace-talks-with-russia-live-updates/a-60931396
“We agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet with the Russian delegation without preconditions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, near the Pripyat River,” Zelenskyy said
It may, however, be a drawn-out situation until senior government officials are face to face.
Bluff.
Just because Russia will need to use middlemen for financial transactions doesn’t mean he will blow up the world. Iran survived being excluded from SWIFT.
I suggest that this move is to bring NATO and the EU to pressure Ukraine to the negotiation table and to make concessions.
We were wrong that diplomacy would work before the invasion, but with tanks and troops in Ukraine, he has raised the stakes in this high-risk poker game. Now he has shown the ace up his sleeve.
He still has ample and sufficient conventional forces to fend off any outside interference.
Rest easy in your bed, tonight.
(But I’m not living in any target area and the only threat would be the possible post-holocaust nuclear winter for me)
Further to my contribution on Discord, I recall when I was in the post office, I worked alongside an ex-RSM.
One conversation which I never forgot, we were talking about what would happen if the USSR occupied Britain and he said.
“For you and me the only thing that would change is that instead of a crown on our cap, it would be a red star. We both still be posties”
One thing that came out of our Discord talk is that we still are not sure of what the Russian objectives are.
We are still in the realm of speculation
I have read that the Russians have only deployed half their troops and the other half are being held in reserve.
For what?
I read the goal was to take Kiev and implement regime change while expanding the territory of the two breakaway republics into the remainder of the Donbas region.
Who knows other than Putin and he isn’t telling.
There is a military saying “no plan for battle survives contact with the enemy”
War is unpredictable.
The mobilisation of civilians is very much like the creation of the Home Guard – propaganda purposes rather than real strategic value. It shows that the Ukrainian government is prepared to send untrained civilians without any command structure to the slaughter for the benefit of foreign press corps television and YouTube footage.
All wars end, all we can hope for is a swift ceasefire but with every tom, dick and harry in Ukraine now issued with a gun, how can such be maintained?
The war will then become one of anti-terrorism as it was in Iraq post-invasion which means every Ukrainian not in uniform is the potential enemy.
The number of people fleeing Ukraine has now reached 368,000, according to the UNHCR. And recall that the government is forbidding men of fighting age from fleeing…they are expected to stay and fight.
Britain encourages volunteers to go fight for Ukraine
Germany injects 100 billion euros into its defence budget
