From Donbass to Chicago: Stop the U.S. war on children

The U.S. government is once again pushing the world to the brink of war. Just a few months ago, Donald Trump pushed us to the brink of war with Iran. Now Joe Biden is risking a war with Russia. We say no! People in this country need universal health care and vaccine equality. We need to cancel rent. We need to end racist police killings and anti-Asian violence. We don’t need another war.

On April 3, 5-year-old Vladik Shihkov was killed by a Ukrainian military drone in the independent republic of Donetsk in eastern Europe. Why does that matter to us in the United States? Because for the last seven years the U.S. government has used Ukraine to fight a proxy war against the people of Donetsk and Lugansk. It’s all about expanding NATO’s military power to the border of Russia. At least 14,000 people have died in that war, and most people here don’t even know about it. But the government we pay taxes to is responsible.

When I think of little Vladik being blown up by a drone strike, I also think of Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old boy killed by Chicago Police March 30. I think of the children in Flint, Michigan, poisoned by lead in their drinking water, and the thousands of migrant children in cages at the U.S.-Mexico border — first under Trump, and still today! I think of the kids as young as 2 months old deported back to Haiti under the Biden administration while that country is in turmoil because of decades and centuries of racist U.S. policy. I think of the kids in Yemen and Palestine who are dying in other U.S. proxy wars.

The U.S. system, the capitalist system, is waging war on children all over the world and in our own streets. Why? For profits. To protect the loot of Wall Street and Big Oil and the landlords. 

Why was Vladik Shikhov killed in Donetsk? Why is Washington sending money and weapons to a Ukrainian government infested with neo-Nazis? Because the government of Ukraine, the one the U.S. helped to install in 2014, is selling off the country to U.S. and European businesses. They are selling off the land, the factories, and the skilled labor of Ukrainian workers at rock-bottom prices.

And something else: Trump and now Biden are desperate to stop the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that would allow Russia to sell gas directly to Germany and other countries in Europe. Big Oil doesn’t want that. Trump’s friends in the fracking industry don’t want that. Biden’s pals at the big banks don’t want that. 

Trying to provoke an armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia is a means to an end to keep oil and gas profits under U.S. control. And they don’t care how many children, or seniors, or mothers and fathers, or soldiers on either side die. 

We’re taking to the streets to share this information that’s been hidden from the public in the U.S. We want workers to think about it, research it, ask questions. Is war with Russia, is killing civilians on the other side of the world, really in our interests? Or is it in the interests of the same wealthy class that thrives on racism, bigotry and inequality right here — like the Amazon bosses that sabotaged the union election in Bessemer, Ala.?

Read, endorse and share the statement, “Justice for Vladik! No U.S.-Ukraine war on Donbass and Russia.” Follow Solidarity with Novorossiya & Antifascists in Ukraine on Facebook. Sign up and get involved. Let’s build a movement to stop the U.S. war on children — not just in Donetsk and Lugansk, but everywhere.