An internationalist warrior from Colombia, a member of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic (KPDPR), a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth of the DPR, Alexis Castillo (callsign Alfonso), died under shelling from shrapnel wounds. He fought off the offensive of the Ukrainian Nazis on the village of Peski.

Alexis Castillo was born in Colombia and lived in Spain for a long time. Eight years ago, he came to defend the inhabitants of Donbass from Ukrainian Nazism.

Our deceased comrade was a convinced communist, a decent and modest man. Until the end of his life, he remained faithful to his duty as an internationalist warrior.

In Donetsk, Alexis is survived by his wife and son. We extend our condolences to his family and friends.

Everlasting memory!

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic
October 28, 2022

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

Source: Forward

From November 18 to December 3, 2021, a NATO maritime exercise was organized by the French Navy (Marine National) off the Mediterranean coast and along France’s Atlantic seafront.

Code-named POLARIS 21, the large-scale simulation aimed to “mobilize all components of the French Navy, including its latest-generation assets, land and air assets from the French Army and Air Force, as well as combat ships and aircraft from France’s partner nations: the United States, Spain, Greece, Italy and the United Kingdom.”

Billed as a “laboratory for tomorrow’s warfare,” POLARIS 21 was to be conducted around what was termed “high-spectrum” military actions, corresponding to the future missions of the French Navy in a hardened strategic context. It in turn completed the preparation of the naval air group before its next operational deployment, which began in February 2022.^[1]

The technical file for POLARIS 21 described “Mercure” (the Russian Federation) as the main threat in this war-game simulation.

“Mercure is a huge country straddling North Asia and Europe that forms a federation of 16 autonomous regions with no direct access to the Mediterranean. The legislative power is represented by a parliament of 400 deputies elected by direct universal suffrage for 5 years. There are several political parties all represented in parliament. The executive branch headed by the head of government appointed by the president. The president elected for 6 years. Current president Virgo Medvetine has managed to stay in power for 20 years and has silenced his main opponents. He advocates a strong Mercure and exacerbates the nationalist feeling of the Catharist people…

… Mercure’s foreign policy is expansionist. Leader Mercure seeks to reaffirm his country as a major player on the world stage, after years of self-effacement from the U.S. superpower. Moskulova (capital of Mercure) is today essential in the resolution of the crisis of Mercmania, which could lead to a civil war at any time. The President of Mercure does not hesitate to challenge the Western countries to which he blames the overthrow of the VIOLETA regime in 2011 and the support for OTSOE against the independence of MERCMANIA in 2015. Moskulova could intervene militarily to support the independence of this separatist territory. The ambition of President Virgo Medvetine is to restore the unity of the ‘Catharist world’”^[2]

The file goes on to describe MERCMANIA (Crimea) as:

“almost autonomous and the government of Otsoe (UKRAINE) does not really care because there is hardly any exchange with the rest of the country because of the Catharist community. The latter, completely infiltrated, by the mafias who take advantage of its geographical location outside the direct control of Mercure. The secret services of Mercure also use the enclave to settle a few miscellaneous cases outside of any jurisdiction. During the 2015 Mercmania crisis, Otsoe sought diplomatic and military support from Akitania, but with no real success. It was ultimately from the UN and the threat of action by a few members of the Security Council that restrained the ardor of Mercure, which obtained a status quo. It is now an autonomous enclave recognized only by Mercure since 2015. The Septime inhabitants driven out of almost the entire enclave and kept around the edges with Otsoe. As early as 2013, Catharist militias appeared, demanded autonomy, and refused to recognize Otsoe as an official language. The young Catharists refuse their incorporation into the army and join the self-defense forces set up by Mercure’s military secret service. In 2014, the Otsoe government attempted to negotiate a rapprochement with the Catharist majority. The self-appointed parliament of Montluqon (capital of Mercmania) refuses any discussion and officially calls for its attachment to Mercure. In 2015, Mercure paramilitary troops sent by 12 NATO UNCLASS RELEASABLE TO EXERCISE POLARIS 21 plane to Mercmania and established barbed-wire borders. Europe is sending observers who stationed in a sort of buffer zone near Saint-Yorre. Under international pressure, Mercure returns half of its troops and maintains a contingent of 500 men. Mercmania is the cradle of the Catharist royalty of the 9th century and of the orthodox Catharist religion.”

At this point, it is of interest for the reader to recall three notable elements:

a) The first involves the Western refusal to ever recognize the result of the referendum held in Crimea in 2014, which saw the local population vote overwhelmingly in favor of rejoining Russia.

b) The second deals with a naval agreement between Ukraine and the UK that was signed on June 21, 2021, which calls for the United Kingdom “to sell two refurbished Sandown-class mine-hunters to Ukraine and produce eight small missile warships for the country. The Agreement also calls on the United Kingdom to construct a new naval base on the Black Sea as the primary fleet base for the Ukrainian Navy and a base on the Sea of Azov. The agreement [further] provided for the sale of missiles to Ukraine, and for training and support for these.”^[3]

c) The last is an incident involving UK warship “HMS Defender” in the Black Sea on June 23, 2021 (two days after the signing of the above-mentioned naval agreement).

Wikipedia recalls the latter incident as follows:

“On 23 June 2021, the United Kingdom’s HMS Defender undertook a freedom of navigation patrol through the disputed waters around the Crimean Peninsula.[6]

In an account partially contradicted by the UK government, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation and border guards said they fired warning shots from coast guard patrol ships and dropped bombs from a Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft in the path of Defender after, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, it had allegedly strayed for about 20 minutes as far as 3 km (2 miles) into waters off the coast of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move mostly unrecognised internationally. The UK military denied any warning shots were fired and said the ship was in innocent passage in Ukraine’s territorial sea, later clarifying that heavy guns were fired three miles astern and could not be considered to be warning shots….

On 27 June, secret documents relating to the passage of HMS Defender through Ukraine’s territorial waters were discovered at a bus stop in Kent. These documents revealed that the Royal Navy considered different hypothetical reactions from Russia in response to the ship’s passage and was prepared for the possibility that Russia may respond in an aggressive manner.” ^[4]

What are the implications of these events when viewed through the prism of the Russian Federation’s initiating of the Special Military Operation?

The West never recognized the reattachment of Crimea to Russia. It was therefore likely that, not unlike what is transpiring on a regular basis off the western coast of Syria, American Poseidon reconnaissance flights would have gained in frequency in order to probe the coast off the peninsula and supervise the movements of ships based in Sevastopol.

The naval agreement between Ukraine and the United Kingdom was to act as a tripwire. These “Ukrainian” naval bases in the Black and Azov Seas were likely going to be used as hubs for NATO ships to prepare an amphibious assault on the port cities of Odessa and Mariupol while Kyiv was massing ground troops on the western front lines of these regions.

Had Moscow ignored the quickly developing situation, it would have been forced to confront a situation which would have impeded its ability not only to prevent a genocide on its doorstep but also to preserve its own territorial integrity. With NATO warships allowed to roam in the area, time was of the essence and Moscow could not afford not to act.

The POLARIS 21 simulation under these circumstances was likely designed to prepare to engage the Russian fleet before it got the chance (as it did in Syria) to create a buffer zone in order to confront the incoming NATO fleet and thwart its amphibious operation.

This could help explain POLARIS 21’s stated goal of “winning the war before the war.”^[5]

1. Martin Manaranche, ”French Navy to Kick Off ‘POLARIS’: Its Largest Ever Exercise,” Naval News, November 16, 2021, https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/11/french-navy-to-kick-off-polaris-largest-exercise/ ↑
2. http://eurasia-sever.by/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/nato-unclass-releasable-to-exercise-polaris-21-1.pdf↑
3. Alan Tovey, “Ukraine navy deal to boost British shipbuilding,” June 23, 2021, The [London] Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/06/23/ukraine-navy-deal-boost-british-shipbuilding/; Dan Sabbagh, “UK-Russian naval dispute: both sides will claim victory,” The Guardian, June 23, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/23/londons-recent-naval-deal-with-kyiv-will-add-to-russias-concerns; https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-signs-agreement-to-support-enhancement-of-ukrainian-naval-capabilities ↑
4. Lucy Fisher, “Exclusive: Dominic Raab warned MoD about Royal Navy’s Crimea plans,” The Telegraph, June 24, 2021, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/24/exclusive-dominic-raab-warned-mod-royal-navys-crimea-plans/; Paul Adams, “Classified Ministry of Defence documents found at bus stop,” BBC News, June 27, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57624942 ↑
5. Paul Adams, ”Classified Ministry of Defence documents found at bus stop,” BBC News, June 27, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57624942 ↑

Arnaud Develay is an international lawyer and participated in the defense of former President Saddam Hussein along with Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. In the wake of the Caesar Act, he documented the illegal sanction regime imposed on Syria while living in Damascus. Arnaud is now based in Moscow and can be reached at international.lawyer75@yahoo.com.

Source: CovertAction Magazine

Remarks given by Melinda Butterfield, Struggle-La Lucha co-editor, at the “No to NATO, War and Racism” protest in the Bronx, New York, on Oct. 15.

I think it’s important to bring up the struggle of the people who are directly affected by the conflict in Ukraine – that is, the people of the Donbass region and Ukrainian anti-fascists who have been forced into exile for the last eight-and-a-half years. 

This summer, the people in the city of Donetsk, who have lived under Ukrainian bombs for more than eight years, have faced their toughest stretch ever surviving. The attacks have been constant and getting worse because of the infusion of more advanced U.S. and NATO weapons.

This war didn’t start last February, when Russia intervened. It started with a coup against the elected Ukrainian government, sponsored by the United States, in 2014. We know how that works – we’ve seen it many times in Latin America and other places around the world. 

The people in the eastern part of Ukraine said “No – we don’t want to live under a regime that’s filled with fascists. We don’t want to live under a regime that answers to Washington and NATO.” And they had a big struggle. 

Unfortunately, it was crushed in many parts of the country. But in Donetsk and Lugansk, in the Donbass region bordering Russia, they were able to declare independence, form a people’s militia, and defend their independence for the last eight-and-a-half years. 

When we talk about the struggle here, we use the slogan, “When people’s rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.” When trans rights, Black people’s rights, abortion rights, immigrant rights are under attack, we say: Stand up and fight back. In Donbass, they stood up and fought back! Just like they are doing now in Haiti. And in the same way, the people there have been demonized and discounted. 

Unfortunately, here in the United States, even in the anti-war movement and the left, there’s very little consciousness about the Donbass people’s struggle. But they are the ones on the front lines. They are the ones who have been taking the brunt of the Ukrainian attacks for almost a decade. It is imperative that we extend our solidarity to them, build bridges of unity with them, with our struggles, our communities and other liberation struggles from Palestine to Haiti to Puerto Rico.

There’s another development that could confuse the movement here, and we’ve got to be alert to it. That is the referendum held at the end of September in Donetsk, Lugansk and the Zaparozhye and Kherson regions to join the Russian Federation.

The reason that happened is not because Russia was trying to make a land grab against Ukraine. It’s something Russia has resisted for the last eight years, even as a movement to join Russia was building in those areas. It was an emergency measure of last resort. 

The people don’t want to live under Ukrainian bombs and fascists anymore. Now they have the constitutional protection of the Russian Federation, which gives Russia more power to protect them with their nuclear deterrent and other measures. 

The way the referendum is being presented here is just the U.S. projecting its land-grabbing imperialist policies onto Russia. It discounts the context and the wishes of the people there. It’s against self-determination. So it’s important that we not get confused about this or let it turn into another thing to divide and shut down the anti-war movement, like what happened last February. 

Solidarity with the people of Donbass! Let’s build a fighting anti-war movement. Let’s fight for what we need here at home, and take back that $70 billion the U.S. has committed so far this year for war in Ukraine. 

Oct. 15 – A rally in the Bronx, New York, today demanded “No to NATO, War and Racism!” The action, which drew more than a hundred, was organized by the Bronx Anti-War Coalition as part of the United National Antiwar Coalition’s call for opponents of wars and sanctions to get “back to the streets” from Oct. 15-23 against U.S. war moves toward Russia and China. 

At an opening rally in Fordham Plaza, community organizers, speaking in both Spanish and English, decried the $70 billion spent on the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine while residents of the Bronx – the city’s poorest borough – struggle with evictions, hunger, decrepit schools and racist police violence. 

Some community members said they were not surprised the U.S. government was spending a fortune to wage war on the other side of the world. But they were nonetheless shocked to learn Washington was arming and training neo-Nazi hate groups in Ukraine.

Protesters then marched through the busy Fordham Road shopping district, chanting, “Billions for the Bronx, not for war” and “Not another nickel, not another dime for imperialist crimes!”

Outside the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station on the Grand Concourse, Bronx Anti-War Coalition founder Ritchie Moreno condemned the poverty draft. He talked about how military recruiters prey on poor and oppressed youth in underfunded schools.

Speakers included Margaret Kimberley, Black Alliance for Peace; Nieves Ayress, La Peña del Bronx; Wildman of TBS/New Direction; Metichen of United We Stand, United We Stronger; Joe Lombardo, UNAC; Larry Holmes, Workers World Party; Rev. Annie Chambers, Socialist Unity Party and Baltimore People’s Power Assembly; Lorraine Liriano, Puerto Rico Not For Sale; Kim Ives, Haiti Liberté; Jason Corley and Yhamir Chabur, Cuba Sí Coalition; and Melinda Butterfield, Struggle-La Lucha newspaper.

The protest was notable not only for being held in the working class, primarily Black and Latinx South Bronx neighborhood, but for being the first street action by a coalition of antiwar groups in New York City since the latest phase of the military conflict in Ukraine began. Up until today, only the Socialist Unity Party had held street actions in the city calling for “No war on Donbass, Russia and China, U.S. out of Ukraine.”

Visit UNAC’s website for the full list of actions between Oct. 15-23 in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

In Detroit

About 40 people gathered today at a book signing at the General Baker Institute for Medea Benjamin’s new anti-war book. Afterward, they marched down the median of busy Livernois Avenue to the freeway overpass.

In Oakland, Calif.

The UNAC-initiated Oakland Federal Building October 15 protest, included speakers from 20 antiwar and social justice organizations.

The United States, the European Union, and other countries have so far “given” to Ukraine around 100 billion euros in military supplies. It’s money that comes out of our pockets directly or indirectly. This figure is increasing continuously. The European Union will train 15 thousand Ukrainian soldiers in two camps in Poland and another member state.

At the NATO summit of defense ministers, Secretary General Stoltenberg informs: “Following the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, we have doubled our presence in the Baltic and North Seas to more than 30 vessels.” The matrix of the attack is confirmed by the fact that the Russian company Gazprom, co-owner of the Nord Stream, was prevented from participating in the investigations of the underwater explosions.

Moscow has evidence that, in addition to sabotaging Nord Stream, an attempt was made to blow up the Turkstream pipeline, the only intact pipeline to transport Russian gas to Europe. Despite Stoltenberg’s assurance that “NATO is not a party involved in the conflict,” there is evidence that the more than 22 tons of explosives used for the Crimean bridge attack were shipped from Ukraine through Bulgaria, a NATO country.

While Russia declares itself ready for negotiations for a political solution, the G7 closes all negotiations by setting as a preliminary condition the “complete and unconditional withdrawal” of Russia from Ukraine. At the same time, NATO is carrying out the Steadfast Noon nuclear war maneuver on the edge of Russian territory in Europe from the week of October 17 to 23. Poland, which requests to have nuclear weapons from the United States on its own territory, is also participating.

The war is moving forward according to the plan drawn up in 2019 by the Rand Corporation on behalf of the Pentagon, “to attack Russia on its most vulnerable flank, that of its economy dependent on the export of gas and oil, to operate so that the European countries of NATO increase their own forces in an anti-Russia function, to deploy strategic bombers and nuclear missiles against Russia in Europe to provide lethal aid to Ukraine by exploiting Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability.”

See Ukraine: It was all written in the Rand Corp plan

Source: Internationalist 360°

On Oct. 17, NATO aircraft and personnel started a “practice” nuclear strike mission in Europe, code-named Steadfast Noon. Aircraft armed with “disabled” U.S.-made B61 tactical nuclear bombs — similar to the roughly 150 B61 nukes the U.S. currently has on bases in five European countries — are on a training mission to practice dropping these bombs over Europe. At the same time, President Joe Biden talks of a nuclear “Armageddon.”

On Oct. 6, Biden warned of a nuclear Armageddon, saying the risk of nuclear war is the greatest since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. NATO’s B61 nuclear bombs are 20 times more powerful than the atom bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1990 during the first U.S. invasion of Iraq, Gen. Colin Powell recalls in his memoir, he was ordered to draw up plans for a nuclear strike to “destroy a division of the Iraqi Republican Guard.” Dick Cheney, who was Secretary of Defense at that time, dismissed Powell’s expression of concern about a possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, saying the plan was never implemented.

The U.S. is the only country to use or even threaten to use nuclear weapons in warfare.

What Putin said

The reports that Vladimir Putin made nuclear threats are deliberate distortions and fear-mongering propaganda.

What President Putin said was in response to threats from Western politicians that they could use nuclear weapons against Russia:

“To the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.

“In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff. [To] those who are using nuclear blackmail against us.”

This is not a threat of a nuclear first strike and makes it clear that it is a response to a threatened strike on Russia.

Nuclear force ‘undergirds’ U.S. priorities

On Oct. 14, Biden released a National Security Strategy that directly targets China and Russia with “integrated deterrence.” That is an expanded military integrated across the U.S. economy — “Integration across domains … military (land, air, maritime, cyber, and space) and non-military (economic, technological, and information).”

“Our military power continues to grow,” the document says. The goal is to “modernize and strengthen our military so it is equipped for the era of strategic competition.”

The document declares: “We will modernize the [U.S. military] to be lethal, resilient, sustainable, survivable, agile and responsive, prioritizing operational concepts and updated warfighting capabilities. The war in Ukraine highlights the criticality of a vibrant Defense Industrial Base for the United States. … An effective nuclear force undergirds our defense priorities.”

For socialist workers and progressives to focus on a so-called nuclear threat from Russia is to be manipulated by the capitalist media. U.S. finance capital is based on an empire of oil and other resources. U.S. finance capital is totally committed to a military and political drive for global dominance.

The existence of a recession with increasing inflation is now openly discussed in the capitalist media. The hope of the military is that the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and the massive maneuvers against China will divert the oncoming economic crisis and set in motion a new upward phase in the capitalist cycle of development. But this ignores the entire history of wars and capitalist development.

The recession and inflation must be answered with organized resistance. Tens of thousands are marching in the streets of France in response to the “cost-of-living” crisis, demanding higher wages and an emergency freeze on the prices of groceries, rent and energy. France’s largest labor unions called for a one-day general strike on Oct. 17.

In Britain, Prime Minister Liz Truss’s proposed budget, which was a massive tax-cut giveaway to the rich, was met with mass protests over rising energy and living costs. Truss’s budget proposal has been stopped.

On Sept. 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions officially signed a treaty of accession uniting these areas with the Russian Federation. 

The accession of these regions, formerly part of Ukraine, came after a five-day referendum held from Sept. 23-27, in which the vast majority of voters who participated said “yes” to joining the Russian Federation: 98.72% in Donetsk, 97.87% in Lugansk, 97.80% in Zaporozhye and 96.75% in Kherson, reported teleSUR. Refugees from these regions now living in Russia also voted.

The Ukrainian government called on its supporters to boycott the vote.  

“We will definitely rebuild destroyed cities and towns, houses, schools, hospitals, theaters and museums” in these regions, Putin said. “We will restore and develop industrial enterprises, factories, infrastructure, social and pension systems, health care, and education.

“We call on the Kiev regime to immediately cease fire, all hostilities, to stop the war that it had unleashed back in 2014, and to return to the negotiating table.”

In the U.S. and other NATO countries, the referendum was condemned and dismissed as an act of annexation by Russia against Ukraine. They described the 2014 Crimean referendum, with over 95% supporting joining Russia, the same way.

Biden’s ‘Armageddon’ threat

Washington seized on this development to call for even more weapons and money for the regime in Kiev – above and beyond the $70 billion already committed by the U.S. to war in Ukraine so far this year.

At a big-money Democratic Party fundraising event on Oct. 7, U.S. President Joe Biden ramped up the threats, saying the danger of “nuclear Armageddon” was greater than at any time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Biden claimed that Russia’s president threatened to use “tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.” His remarks were widely reported.

In fact, Putin has not threatened those things. What Moscow officials have said is that the accession of the four regions extends the constitutional protections of the Russian Federation to these areas, including the country’s nuclear deterrent.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, took Biden’s remarks as an opportune moment to call on NATO to launch “preemptive strikes” on Russia. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov described it as “a call to start a world war.”

Lest Biden’s and Zelensky’s statements be taken for empty posturing, the U.S. attacked the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea Sept. 27, while the Security Service of Ukraine carried out a terror attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Crimea and the Russian mainland on Oct. 8.

Self-determination

Western governments claim that the referendum was illegitimate, explaining it as an imperial land grab by Russia. These claims are stripped of context or respect for the desires and concerns of the residents of these regions. 

Any election held under wartime conditions naturally faces difficulties and limitations. For example, in Donetsk, the capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic, residents voted under fire from daily Ukrainian artillery attacks and with the threat of miniature land mines scattered across the city by Kiev’s troops. 

But people refused to be intimated; there was no doubt that they would vote in favor of joining the Russian Federation, which has provided invaluable humanitarian aid and military support during Ukraine’s 8-year war against the Donbass mining region.

International election observers came on short notice, representing countries and movements around the world, and gave the thumbs-up to the conduct of the referendum. Invitations were extended to the official election commissions from 100 countries, though few of these bodies were willing to risk Washington’s wrath. 

In the DPR alone, 133 observers from 28 countries worked during the five days of the referendum. On the final day of voting, observers from Britain, Germany, Syria, Togo, Spain, Colombia, South Africa, Ghana, Serbia, India, Iceland, and Latvia worked at polling stations in the cities of Donetsk and Makeyevka, Donetsk News Agency reported.

Observers came from places like Venezuela – a country whose election results have been frequently disregarded by the U.S. and NATO, despite a sterling record of election conduct ratified by international observers, including U.S. progressives.

Emergency measure

U.S. officials and media outlets argue that annexing Ukrainian territory was Russia’s goal all along. But this flies in the face of the facts. Every action Russia has taken since 2014 has been aimed at preventing this scenario. 

Moscow insisted on upholding the 2015 Minsk II agreements brokered by France and Germany, which provided a pathway for Donetsk and Lugansk to rejoin Ukraine with more autonomy. It did so even after it became painfully clear that Ukraine (under Washington’s orders) would never respect or live up to its side of the agreement. 

In fact, a movement to join the Russian Federation had been building in Donbass and eastern Ukraine since 2014, particularly after Ukraine launched its “Anti-Terrorist Operation” against the residents of Donetsk and Lugansk. Russian officials discouraged this, often to the frustration of residents living under the wartime conditions imposed by Kiev. 

Moreover, the accession of these war-torn areas at this time is a huge burden to the Russian Federation. U.S. and Western economic sanctions are being continuously tightened, and more resources must be spent defending the country from NATO. The need to institute a partial draft to strengthen the Special Military Operation further hampers Russia’s economy by removing people from the workforce.

The decision to hold the September referendums was an emergency measure of last resort – just like the Russian military intervention in February – to prevent a NATO-armed genocide against the people of the region.

Movement skeptics in the West should ask themselves: Why would the majority Russian-speaking population and other national minorities choose to remain under a Ukrainian regime that every worker understands to be in the pocket of Washington and the European imperialists? One that bans the use of their languages and their political parties? 

Why would residents of Donbass choose to stay in Ukraine when the “patriots” that fill the ranks of Kiev’s neo-Nazi military battalions speak of them as subhumans to be driven from their homes, at best, or slaughtered? When anti-fascists and other political opponents of the Kiev authorities have been killed, jailed, or forced into exile since 2014?

Language portraying residents of Donbass and Russia as subhuman “savages” has now entered the mainstream of Western media, especially in op-eds and think-pieces geared to prepare the population for open war against Russia.

Support Donbass resistance

Left and anti-war movements in the U.S. will not be able to mount an effective resistance to the growing crisis and the threat of world war until they grapple with a real understanding of the dynamics of the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine.

There was an outcry over the reported deaths of 12 civilians after massive Russian missile strikes on military and infrastructure targets in Western Ukraine Oct. 10. The strikes came in response to the Ukrainian terror attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge.

Any civilian death in wartime is tragic. But no mention was made of the fact that this many people are routinely killed on any given day by Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets in Donbass – and that this has been going on for nearly a decade.

Struggle-La Lucha has long argued that the anti-fascist liberation struggle of the Donbass people, through its deep historical resonance with the workers of Russia and other former Soviet countries, has compelled Russia’s government to aid their resistance. 

The official Western narrative, which unfortunately is shared by much of the U.S. left, stands reality on its head, depicting the people of Donbass as pawns of Russia, or simply beneath notice.

With three decades of growth of the NATO war alliance, the U.S. government has been tightening a noose around Russia since the early 1990s. The Donbass resistance since 2014 has helped to push the capitalist regime in Moscow to take measures for the survival of Russia’s sovereignty after decades of relying on diplomatic maneuvers and attempts to come to an understanding with the bandits in Washington and Western Europe.  

But U.S. imperialism has no interest in compromises or understandings with Russia, just as it has worked tirelessly to prevent Ukraine from negotiating an end to the current conflict. It wants to dismantle and dominate the Russian Federation as a stepping stone to dismembering the People’s Republic of China.

ILWU must stand in opposition to the U.S./NATO-provoked war!

We, members and retirees of the ILWU, are very concerned about the Coast Committee’s public statement of March 3, 2022, on the war in Ukraine. It diverges from the many anti-war positions that our union has taken even when it was unpopular to do so. The ILWU has always criticized NATO’s war moves. Since the end of World War II we’ve opposed U.S. wars and coups in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Serbia (former Yugoslavia), Cuba (Bay of Pigs Invasion), Chile (coup), El Salvador and Nicaragua. 

On May Day 2008, ILWU shut down all West Coast ports to oppose the “imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” (as the Caucus resolution read). We have taken action at the point of production against U.S. wars and the apartheid government in South Africa. We refused to load military cargo to the anti-communist military juntas in Chile and El Salvador. We are proud of that legacy. The International Dockworkers Council (European Section) issued a declaration in February calling for an end to the Ukraine war. So must the ILWU.

We are faced with a class war at home and a war abroad between two capitalist governments. Unions are organizing to fight billionaire capitalists like Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and Oakland A’s owner John Fisher who’s scheming to build a ballpark in the busy port of Oakland. While ILWU is confronting PMA over automation and inflation in contract negotiations, people in Jackson, Mississippi and Flint, Michigan can’t get clean drinking water. Worse still black and brown communities face deadly terror from police and ICE daily. In 2003, police attacked anti-war demonstrators in the port of Oakland chanting “Wars are for profit, workers can stop it!” 

In 1967, during the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr. called the U.S. “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world”. After that speech, ILWU Local 10 invited him to speak at the union meeting where he was awarded “Honorary Member” status in our union. A year after his anti-war speech he was assassinated. The U.S. has been in a state of perpetual warfare since WWII. The Ukraine war, provoked by U.S./NATO aggression, is a dangerous preliminary war jeopardizing a massive nuclear contamination at Zaporozhye, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, and can lead to nuclear war against Russia and to WWIII with China.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Secretary of State James Baker promised not to threaten Russia’s security by moving NATO towards Russia’s border by adding countries of the former Eastern Bloc. That agreement has been broken time and again by the U.S. despite warnings by Russia. We believe there needs to be a position taken on the Ukraine war consistent with ILWU’s history. Dockworkers internationally can stop this bloody war. The reactionary, nationalist governments of Russia and Ukraine won’t.

In 2014, a U.S.-driven Maidan coup in Ukraine overthrew the elected government and burned down the trade union headquarters building in Odessa, killing 48 people. In opposition to the coup two Russian-speaking provinces of Eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, seceded. The democratic right to self-determination from the nationalist Kiev government which banned the Russian language must be recognized for the Eastern and Southern provinces. The neo-fascist Azov Brigade opened fire on the two newly-founded republics of the Donbas region, killing over 15,000 civilians. African immigrants in Ukraine attempting to flee the war were subjected to racial discrimination by the Zelensky government.

Furthermore, his neoliberal capitalist government just passed Law 5371 meaning 70% of Ukraine’s workers cannot have unions negotiate collective bargaining agreements or fight an employer’s firing of workers. This anti-union law is opposed by Ukraine’s Federation of Trade Unions. Zelensky’s martial law prevents workers from protesting anti-labor laws by striking.

The ILWU must call for an end to the war. Most importantly we must appeal for port actions to the International Dockworkers Council (IDC) and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) to refuse to handle military cargo by dockworkers around the world. They both opposed the Zionist massacre of Palestinians last year. They can call for an end to the Ukraine war now. International workers’ actions refusing to handle military cargo can stop it.

Angela Davis (Honorary Member, ILWU Local 10)
Brian McWilliams (#13303 past International President, ILWU)
Larry Wright (#8534 ret. Local 10 & 91)
Clarence Thomas (#8718 ret. Local 10 )
Dan Coffman (#92556 past President of Longview, WA Local 21)
Jack Heyman (#8780 ret. Local 10 and IBU)
David Newton (#101386 Local 10)
Michael Vawter (#8145 ret. Local 10)
Stephen Barlow (#8301 Local 10 and 34)
Leith Jasinowski-Kahl (#57956 Local 19)
James Curtis (#9639 ret. Local 10)
Jack Mulcahy (#82013 ret. Local 8)
Marcus Holder (#101355 ret. Local 10)
Keith Shanklin (#9146 past President of Local 34)
Michael O’Sullivan (#8985 ret. Local 10)
Russ Miyashiro (#13474 Local 34)
Aaron Wright (#8862 Local 10)
Kevin Gibbons (#8939 Local 19 and 34)

Following is a talk by John Parker, Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido, to the International Symposium of the Anti-Imperialist Front in Athens, Greece, on Oct. 8.

The recent pronouncement by Zelensky to refuse negotiations with Russia after calling on NATO to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against Russia makes it clear that the U.S. is aggressively driving the world towards World War III, and like its war crimes committed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki prove, it has no care about the killing of children and other civilians.

Instead of representing the people most hurt by this U.S.-led NATO war and bombing of desperately needed oil supplies, the puppets of U.S. imperialism in Europe continue to sacrifice working and poor people to remain in good favor with U.S. imperialism.

Instead of heeding the needs of the people in the U.S., drowning in price increases and suffering poverty and homelessness, President Biden spends $70 billion to prop up a fascist regime in Ukraine that inspires fascist white supremacists to kill Black people in supermarkets and Muslims praying in Mosques.

Instead of helping to fight global warming and new strains of the COVID virus, the two parties of the ruling class in the U.S. – the Democrats and Republicans – push us closer to a nuclear holocaust by provoking Russia in Ukraine and China in Taiwan.

Instead of fighting growing poverty in the world, the U.S. heaps more sanctions upon any country that dares to fight for its sovereignty and independence from U.S. imperialism, thus exacerbating the poverty of children and food insecurity. It is estimated that the freezing of Afghanistan’s assets by the U.S. will cause 1 million children to starve to death. And, while Cuba suffers from a hurricane disaster, instead of real assistance, the U.S. maintains its crippling and illegal economic sanctions against it.

These international war crimes by the U.S. are assisted by Western corporate media, which legitimizes and disseminates information that serves to justify U.S. imperialist wars. The New York Times, for example, which is considered the newspaper of record and influences world news, has been used from 1915 to the present to drive the U.S. into war: against Germany in World War I, with the Lusitania incident; to 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to push war against Vietnam; to the lies about WMDs to push war in Iraq and kill 500,000 children; to Libya, Syria and now Ukraine – using unverified information directly from neo-Nazi regiments leading the Ukrainian army.

I, for example, recently came back from Lugansk. And what I witnessed and the testimony I received from the people there made it crystal clear that the Ukrainian military is not only targeting the civilian population but is led by Nazis. Yet, this view is never presented in the corporate media.

It is of utmost importance for the international community to come together in providing the truth to the world and helping to build news sources that can be trusted to counter U.S.-led NATO’s war drives, like the current lies about the referendum in the Donbass region that was far more democratic and inclusive than the elections held in the U.S.

This hypocrisy is especially acute in the U.S., where now millions of Black and Brown voters are being denied their right to vote. In addition, exclusionary immigration policies, along with the greatest number of incarcerated people in the world, many of whom are unable to vote, and an electoral college system that denies the popular vote prove the undemocratic nature of U.S. elections and democracy in general.

Last month the openly Nazi Azov Batallion representatives met with politicians in Washington and at community centers here in the U.S., and no condemnation of those politicians was heard, showing the weak state of the anti-war and anti-imperialist movements in the U.S.

The growth of fascism and the push towards World War III by NATO and its puppets must be stopped.

Now more than ever, it is of utmost importance that international anti-imperialist organizations come together in international solidarity with unified strategies to fight against NATO wars. To do this, we must also build a unified working-class movement in our own countries by highlighting how these wars deny our right to health care, housing, and economic security and further expose how the contradictions of imperialist economic policies gravitate towards fascism, war and poverty.

We must expose the fact that our international working class, the class that produces the wealth of nations and is thus capable of tremendous power – if united can stop this current backsliding of history and defeat NATO and its drive towards human destruction.

A journalistic report by The Intercept has revealed that the CIA remains in Ukraine and that its operations, as well as the number of troops, have increased considerably since the middle of this year. Although the investigation is aimed at dismissing the Russian military operation, it has uncovered details regarding the actions of the US intelligence agency on Ukrainian soil.

One of those details is that the CIA has taken credit for Ukraine’s latest gains on the battlefield while downplaying its failures or poor predictions during the open war that began in February this year. For example, they had said that Russia would take Kiev and, in the face of such a defeat, Ukraine should prepare for guerrilla warfare.

Aware of the situation, President Biden himself ordered the withdrawal of part of the CIA assets at that time but, realizing the miscalculation, they not only returned to the enclave but have reinforced it and have continued to do so ever since.

“The secret operations of the United States inside Ukraine are carried out under a finding of presidential covert action,” read the report.

US intelligence personnel are not new to Ukraine, as they have been operating there since the Obama era after the Euromaidan coup. In March, Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, acknowledged during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that the CIA had not done well “in terms of predicting the military challenges that [Putin] has encountered with his own military.”

Wrong or not in his predictions, what is clear is the direct involvement of US intelligence in the conflict in Ukraine. Making available to Kiev not only its radar systems and the entire military apparatus but active personnel in the combat zones as well.

(Misión Verdad)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune