Borotba (Struggle) is a revolutionary Marxist organization based in Ukraine and the Donbass people’s republics. It has been outlawed by the Kiev regime since the U.S.-backed coup in 2014.

Sept. 10 — Very disturbing news comes from the Kharkov region. Supporters of Borotba report that Ukrainian neo-Nazis have begun massacres of civilians.

From the city of Balakliya, which was occupied by Ukrainian troops yesterday, there are reports that people are being taken away in an unknown direction. We are talking about doctors, public utility employees, and other citizens who continued to interact with the Russian military-civilian administration.

There are eyewitness accounts that militants with neo-Nazi symbols simply grabbed people at their workplaces, and no one saw these people again.

We do not yet have the opportunity to double-check this information, but we have no reason not to trust our supporters.

We fear that Ukrainian neo-Nazis will organize another provocation, as they did in Bucha, and will try to blame the Russian military. Massacres are a common practice of neo-Nazis.

We ask you to spread this information as widely as possible. Perhaps it will save someone’s life.

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

Source

Sept. 1 — We regret to inform you that one of the founders of Borotba (Struggle), Evgeny Golyshkin, died as a result of a shell shock received during the hostilities. Evgeny was a staunch communist and participated in the anti-fascist struggle from a young age. The Komsomol and the Communist Party of Ukraine, the Lukyanovsky Antifa-Patrol, the Kotovsky Red Guard, and then Borotba – these are the stages of the political path that our comrade traveled.

Evgeny was a red skinhead and an ideological Marxist. Few could compete with him either in hand-to-hand combat or in the field of communist theory. His sense of humor and optimism always supported his comrades in the struggle, and younger comrades-in-arms envied Evgeny’s inexhaustible energy. 

We believe that the hundreds of mass protests organized by Evgeny Golyshkin will forever remain in the history of the left movement of Ukraine, and his armed struggle in the ranks of the Ukrainian Red Army, and then the 9th Regiment of the Donetsk People’s Republic Marine Corps, will go down in the history of the liberation of Donbass.

Evgeny had specific party assignments, which he carried out with honor, even after a bullet wound in Mariupol and a concussion near Avdiivka. One of them was the maintenance of party information resources, so in the near future some of our platforms may be intermittent. Also, Evgeny was responsible for Borotba cells in the still-occupied territories of Ukraine, which perform an important function in our struggle.

Evgeny will forever remain in our memory as a true friend and reliable comrade. However, he is alive not only in our memory, but also in his artistic work, to which he devoted a certain period of his life, writing and performing an informal anthem of the Communist Party, as well as compositions by the “Ebalance ” music group, revealing the acute social topics of modern Ukraine.             

We express our sincere condolences to Evgeny’s father and sister, as well as to all comrades and friends who are experiencing the pain of his loss today.

However, we promise that we will continue the work to which Comrade Golyshkin devoted his whole life.

The struggle continues!

No pasaran!

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

Source: Borotba.su

Based on remarks given at “Free the Kononovich Brothers: International Campaign Meeting” on Aug. 25. Mikhail and Alexander Kononovich are leaders of the Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine. They were among hundreds of political opponents of the Ukrainian regime jailed this year, and thousands since the 2014 U.S.-backed coup.

On July 18, Ukrainian political prisoner and ethnic Belarusian Mikhail Kononovich called out the Belarusian opposition and its leadership for talking about political prisoners in Belarus, but not mentioning Belarusians in prisons in Ukraine. 

That hypocrisy he exposes is very similar to those human rights advocates who selectively allege atrocities by any enemy of U.S. imperialism, but fail to mention a word about Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people, funded by the U.S., or the bombing of Somalia by the U.S. Not a care for those people, nor the political prisoners in the U.S. like Indigenous leader Leonard Peltier or Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Many of these political prisoners in the U.S., like the Kononovich brothers, endure daily torture and are there simply because they challenged the imperialist policies of the U.S. creating war, racism and poverty.

Almost all prisoners in the U.S. are political prisoners. Most wound up there due to economic desperation caused by capitalism and others for their political activism which threatens the hold of the capitalist ruling class over our working class.

And like the Kononovich brothers, they also face torture.

The United Nations states that solitary confinement for more than 13 days constitutes torture and is a violation of international law.

Almost 50,000 prisoners are being held in prolonged solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. They remain in cells the size of parking spaces. Six thousand prisoners were in isolation for over a year, and 1,000 of those have been in solitary confinement without the touch, smell or conversation with another human being for a decade or longer.

Where are the human rights advocates who so conveniently use their criticism against the latest country targeted by U.S. imperialism, yet never say a word about this torture and racism faced by so many in the U.S.?

There’s much talk by those so-called human rights advocates about the lack of democracy, they say, in Russia and China. The timing of those attacks against those countries also conveniently aligns with the U.S. drive towards World War III, using Ukraine and Taiwan as proxies.

Well, let’s talk about democracy as it relates to the situation with the Kononovich brothers’ imprisonment. How many in Ukraine are being imprisoned simply for being socialist or communist and how large has the prison population grown there? These human rights hypocrites do not inquire about that.

USA, a prison house of nations

The U.S. is supposed to be the greatest democracy, so its prison population must be the smallest – correct?

The fact is that the percentage of those in prison in the U.S. is five times the rate of that in China and twice the rate in Russia. It’s actually the highest number in the world, in both percentage of population and actual numbers – some 2.1 million in 2020.

Just as the budgets for Ukrainian security and military forces like the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) have increased exponentially due to U.S. aid, in the last 40 years police budgets in the U.S. have tripled and they are also the recipients of military weaponry, including artillery, to be used against local communities.

And, as in Ukraine today, who is targeted for incarceration in the U.S. is a reflection of the ideology of fascism and white supremacy.

The likelihood of a Black person born in 2001, for example, to be incarcerated in the U.S. is six times that of a white person. One in three Black men born in that year will be incarcerated in their lifetime.

This increased rate of incarceration was also driven by the lucrative contracts for private prisons, which incentivize judges to pass longer sentences and whose Wall Street stocks are seen as good investments.

The war in Ukraine is also driven by U.S. imperialism’s insatiable appetite for profit.

In just the first three months of 2022, the five biggest oil companies made $35 billion in profits.

U.S. imperialism is profiting off of the war, especially the private military contractors like Lockheed Martin.

In the May 2022 aid package for Ukraine, up to $20 billion was made available for U.S. weapons manufacturers.

How did that happen? Well, while the Congress was debating this package in April, military supplier Lockheed sent over $200,000 in donations, right then, to 150 members of Congress.

Undoubtedly, this allegiance to profit and the $30 trillion deficit the U.S. now holds will continue to eat into the social needs of working and poor people in the U.S. We, like the working and poor people in Europe, will be asked to sacrifice until we have no more to give.

But before that happens, people will, and are, beginning to revolt.

Sacrificed for profits

The economic situation for the people of Ukraine follows this path of an economy being sacrificed for oligarchs and the needs of U.S. imperialism. This requires repression by the ruling class to keep people from fighting back. 

That’s why the U.S. began supporting Nazis in Ukraine even before the Euromaiden coup in 2014 – to prepare the extralegal military forces.

The SBU kidnaps and assaults leftists in Ukraine with the participation of the Nazi Avov Battalion.

This is similar to how the U.S. security and police forces work hand in hand with white supremacist groups. The number of white supremacist gangs in police departments in the U.S. is well-documented. However, it doesn’t stop at the local level. 

The FBI and federal government collude with white supremacist groups by refusing to put them on the terrorist list, which could effectively shut down their activity in the U.S. Like the Ukrainian Nazis who are being paid well with U.S. weaponry, training and dollars, the U.S. is building its reserve extra-judicial army to meet the resistance of people in this country, who are getting extremely frustrated by the lack of food, gas, healthcare and housing they can afford.

The latest increase in the military aid to Ukraine that was announced yesterday – a $3-billion package that will push total U.S. aid well past the annual budgets of at least eight federal programs, including the entire judicial branch – exacerbates their desperation and poverty.

Working people of Europe are also frustrated as they watch their economic conditions deteriorate further due to their government leaders’ allegiance to U.S. imperialism.

This is why international solidarity is so important. Our movement should use that justified frustration and its exposure of the bankruptcy of aligning with U.S. imperialism. This exposure will help build solidarity with our international family of workers across the globe.

And we can use the example of the Kononovich brothers who, during one of their appearances at trial, wore shirts in solidarity with Cuba, which is also fighting the deadly sanctions and embargoes of U.S. imperialism.

This shows that we all have the same basic enemy – U.S. imperialism and its puppets in Europe and Ukraine – and we as a class, our working class, must come together and fight that enemy.

A big part of that battle is to build international solidarity for the Kononovich brothers. Every Ukrainian embassy in every country should hear our outrage. Every administrative building representing an imperialist country that is participating in this push towards WWIII should be protested until our brothers are released from the Nazi-hell that is now Ukraine.

Part One: Fact-finding trip to Donbass: A front-line shelter in Rubizhne

Part Two: Ukraine and Russia without the lens of Facebook & corporate media

Part Three: ‘Bitter Street’ in Lugansk – a battle line drawn with Nazi elements after 2014

From May 1 to May 12, I traveled to both Russia and the Lugansk People’s Republic, an independent republic in the Donbass region, formerly part of eastern Ukraine. The purpose of this fact-finding mission initiated by the Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La-Lucha.org was to report the suppressed information challenging the narrative of NATO and its member states, led by the U.S., in this proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. 

My visit to Lugansk was made possible with the assistance of Borotba (Struggle), a socialist political organization in Ukraine and Donbass that we have worked with for many years. Alexey Albu, one of the leaders of Borotba, also provided translation for me during interviews. This is the third part of my report.

 On May 8, two days after we visited the Rubizhne shelter, we made our way from Lugansk city to the villages of Sokilnyky and Krymske. Both had recently been taken over by the joint forces of the Lugansk People’s Militia (LPM) and the Russian military. 

After the 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup in Ukraine that brought to power a pro-Washington, anti-Moscow regime partnering with fascist forces, the majority Russian-speaking people of the Donbass region decided they didn’t want any part of this backsliding of history. 

Dramatic evidence of the new coup government’s fascist leanings came in its support for the neo-Nazis who burned alive activists at Odessa’s House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014. To this day, none of the perpetrators have been charged with any crime. Given that incident, the people of the Donbass region declared themselves the independent Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR). They voted by 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Lugansk for that change.

Instead of honoring the wishes of the people of Donbass, Kiev labeled them terrorists and sent armed forces with heavy artillery and aircraft against civilians, threatening to wipe out the population. The Lugansk People’s Militia was organized to defend the area. 

When the Minsk II cease-fire agreements took effect in 2015, the opposing sides’ positions were drawn. Sokilnyky was controlled by the Lugansk People’s Republic. Krymske was occupied and controlled by the Ukrainian military.

If the cease-fire stipulations under the Minsk II agreements were adhered to by the Ukrainian military, it would have protected this community. Instead, the agreement was used by Ukraine to create a one-sided shooting range against civilians in Sokilnyky. Today no one lives there and the homes and buildings have been destroyed. 

The road that runs between Sokilnyky and Krymske is called Vulytsya Horkoho, named for the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky. Google also translates it as “Bitter Street.” The name is fitting since less than a quarter-mile north runs the Siverskyi Donets River – the border between two conflicting sides in a war.

When you travel along this road towards Sokilnyky, you see idle and broken-down Ukrainian tanks that were used against the villagers after 2014, when no military force was there to protect those communities.

Ukraine continued war after Minsk II

122-mm shells from the Ukrainian government’s arsenal rained down on villagers from the north of the river’s edge and west of Sokilnyky, aimed at anyone driving along this road or just relaxing at home. These shells are capable of stopping tanks, penetrating bunkers and taking down aircraft. And as we could see along the way, many homes were blown to bits or barely left standing. 

The 2015 Minsk II agreements were negotiated by Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France, and the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, allowing for some self-determination of the Donbass regions and the right to be protected by their own military forces – the Lugansk People’s Militia and the Donetsk People’s Militia.

By 2017, however, most residents on this road east of Krymske who survived left the area since it was too dangerous.

Although the Minsk agreements forbade attacks within this area, our guide told us that after 2015 the Lugansk militia forces began calling this street the “Road of Life,” where LPR forces had to travel fast to keep from being shot at. “For seven years Nazis violated the Minsk agreements … They attacked peaceful people who lived in this village during those Minsk violations,” explained our LPM guide, who led us to our next location further west towards Krymske. 

We saw further evidence of houses resembling Swiss cheese rather than safe spaces for families. We stopped on the edge of Zynamyanka village, where a monument commemorating fallen World War II soldiers was located. We had to follow the steps of the person in front since the area was filled with unexploded shells dropped by the Ukrainian forces. 

We reached an administrative building that was now more cinder block pieces than structure. Two wires strewn across our path warned us not to go any further since that area was not partially cleared of unexploded shells or mines. 

Against the advice of our guide, a very brave journalist from the news service Izvestia, continued walking and laying a path for us. Why would he take such a risk? Because, he said, he felt it was important for us to see up close the monument with the names of those from this and nearby villages of both Ukrainian and Russian Soviet soldiers killed fighting the Nazi threat during World War II – so we could appreciate the respect these residents had for their relatives who fought fascists. And to appreciate their suffering in being targeted by those who adhere to that same fascist ideology.

My comrades insisted they walk in front of me, following the soldier from the LPM. Then it hit me hard. From our friends in Borotba to the guides from the Lugansk People’s Militia and brave journalists dedicated to telling the truth – they were all here assisting me, putting their bodies on the line to keep me safe, because they believed the message I would relay back to the U.S. was that important.

I truly wish the U.S. anti-war movement that has so cynically and arrogantly dismissed any facts or testimony coming from the people in Lugansk and Donetsk, who refuse to acknowledge their experiences or even existence, could feel just one-tenth of what I felt in that moment.

When we reached the monument, carefully, the words with the hundreds of names of buried soldiers read: “Your Heroism is Immortal and Your Glory is Eternal.” 

[Video walking to the Monument in Zynam’yanka]

Sister towns separated by war

The once Ukrainian-held territory in and around Krymske, just west of us, included areas within eyeshot of the LPR-held Sokilnyky village. In 2014 almost 2,000 people lived in Krymske, and 1,000 lived in Sokilnyky. They lie about five minutes from each other by car. 

In fact, the communities were very close. One of the Izvestia reporters with us wrote: “If a guy from Krymske married a girl from Sokilnyky, the wedding was played in two villages at once.” But after the battles in 2014 and by 2015, the two communities remained separated with blocks of concrete and barbed wire.

After passing the town of Sokilnyky, we drove about a quarter mile to where the Ukrainian military installed bunkers and barracks to target that village, using these places to launch missiles and those 122 mm-shells against the LPR-held territories, even in the years when civilians were still there. 

The south side of this “Bitter Street” had been swept for mines but the north side was not, so to remain relatively safe we stayed on the south side. On the ground was strewn Kalashnikov 5.45 caliber bullets and casings leading into an eight-foot dugout to tunnels of dirt and darkness protected by sandbags from retaliatory fire. 

The Ukrainian forces were routed after the February operation by the Russians and the LPM, so undoubtedly gunfire was exchanged. But even if there was activity targeting this compound in response to shellings, it lies over a quarter-mile from 99% of the homes in the Krymske village.

In other words, the civilian population living in Krymske village was only victimized by the Azov, Aidar or Right Sector fascist regiments leading the Ukrainian military occupation there. This is according to the residents we spoke to, who also verified that those leading these soldiers were wearing Nazi regiment colors and fascist symbols.

Just about 100 feet down the road from the bunker, taking us into the eastern edge of Krymske, we observed on the side of the road a leftover decoy that had been used to frighten the Lugansk militia forces, mimicking a Swedish surface-to-air missile. The threat would have been believable since those real missiles and other military aid totaling $102 million was promised to Ukraine from Sweden on June 2 – this on top of the other anti-armor weaponry already delivered.

Nazi symbols

Due to the actual weapons present at that moment, the most common phrase I heard observing these sites was again, “Don’t step there” – not only because of the unexploded shells on this side of the river but also because the Ukrainian military would “sow” the area with mines that couldn’t be seen in the grass. 

We then drove a few feet further to a complex that was part of a tuberculosis clinic. The Ukrainian forces retrofitted this clinic for war by evicting the patients and healthcare staff. In one of the buildings, the Ukrainian soldiers felt comfortable enough to scrawl in large letters the word representing a fascist soccer team in Ukraine, the ULTRAS — a team, we were told by one of the journalists with us, that is owned by an oligarch who funds Nazi regiments. 

Something that seemd out of place, given the graffiti praising Nazi symbols and organizations, was a letter shaped as a heart with the colors of the Ukrainian flag from a child thanking these Nazi-led Ukrainian forces for keeping them safe. That is not surprising, since the Azov Battalion set up children’s “educational” facilities. According to a Time article from January 7, 2021, the battalion even has an entire building loaned to them by the Zelensky government in Kiev that serves such a purpose. 

In addition to general misinformation passed on in their libraries, this facility raises funds by selling key chains, t-shirts and other items adorned with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. Again, this building is on loan from the Ukrainian government, supporting what goes on there. 

In another building here, 122-mm shells were stacked on top of each other. Their presence in this room seemed to be a testament to the threat against humanity symbolically displayed over half of one of the walls with drawings of a swastika and a Black Sun or Sonnenrad.

[video of tuberculosis hospital complex]

It should be noted that this Azov identifier is the same symbol used by the white supremacist shooter who recently targeted Black shoppers in Buffalo, New York. He was inspired by a white supremacist in New Zealand who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers in two mosques there. That New Zealand killer said he was in contact with the Azov Battalion and planned to go to Ukraine for military training.

As shocking as this is, it shouldn’t be too surprising that young people are falling into the hands of these unchecked fascist movements. In the 2021 report “Like, Share, Recruit: How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members,” Time explains how Azov’s use of Facebook’s algorithm drives white supremacists and disaffected youth toward them, allowing Azov exponential visibility growth.

Just a few steps away, another building turned military bunker contained lookout holes punched through the walls, with coordinates written in pen giving targeting coordinates for the LPM positions and civilians when they lived there. On another wall the words “No One But Us” were written in Ukrainian in blue and yellow.

Military-industrial profits

We were accompanied by more than one camera crew with journalists representing various media from Ukraine and Russia. During our inspection of this site, one of the journalists from a Russian news agency found a container that once held explosive materials. This object, the journalist said, came from either the U.S. or a Western European country. 

Of course, this is not surprising given that U.S. military aid to Ukraine, as reported in the May 20 New York Times, amounts to more money than given in any kind of aid to any country in the last decade. “It is roughly two times the amount given in 2011 to Afghanistan, the largest U.S. foreign aid recipient until now,” reported the Times.

The U.S. had already surpassed the entire defense budget of Russia back in May. Perhaps the reason for this unprecedented funding, in addition to world domination, also has to do with profits. Business Insider reported May 23: “One of the largest defense contractors in the nation donated to nearly 150 members of Congress as they debated Ukraine military aid.” 

On May 3, President Joe Biden went to Lockheed Martin’s Pike County Operations facility in Troy, Alabama, and did a photo op at the Javelin missile production facility. And the top member of Congress in charge of the military budget, Democrat Adam Smith from Washington state, is also the top recipient of money from the weapons makers. 

In its 2010 Citizens United decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations can spend unlimited amounts on elections. When the selfish ambitions of the bought-and-paid-for politicians coincide with the goals of the ruling class, the sky isn’t even the limit. The death and fear created are of no consequence to them.

Speaking of fear, while exploring this hospital complex I heard a constant buzzing, sounding like a flying bee with a megaphone. When I asked what that sound was, I was told it was from a drone overhead. This caused me some concern, knowing that in April the U.S. had been training Ukrainian soldiers in the use of a very advanced drone called the Switchblade Drone 600. 

By that month, two of the lethal aid packages for Ukraine of over $1 billion included those drones, capable of flying 24 miles. That distance was well within the area between us and the current Ukrainian positions. In fact, I could see with my naked eyes the plume of smoke from recent targets hit by either the Ukrainian or Russian and Lugansk forces. And these drones carry warheads that can take out tanks.

With the recent memory of Ukrainian forces bombing an apartment building near the shelter where we were conducting interviews in Rubizhne, I felt a bit uneasy about that noise overhead and was therefore happy when we later returned to the cars to continue on our way.

As we continued to Krymske, the sight of almost all of the homes intact was a startling comparison to Sokilnyky. Although a relatively small percentage of those homes are damaged, according to our LPM guide, it was due to fighting that occurred in 2014, when they were also being shelled by the Ukrainian military. 

Even if those homes destroyed in 2014 were mistakenly said to come from the more recent hostilities, the comparison of the two villages makes it clear that neither the LPM forces during the Minsk Agreements to the present time, nor the Russian military that came in February, carried out any bombing campaigns against Krymske. 

[comparison video of Krymske vs Sokilnyky]

‘Everything Zelensky says is a lie’

When we arrived in Krymske there were a few children running around and playing — finally.

A stark difference from the situation at the Rubizhne shelter, where kids could not play for any significant length of time due to their proximity to the front lines and therefore within reach of the Ukrainian delivery of shells. 

Now, the only deliveries being made are that of food and other humanitarian aid coming from the city of Lugansk. It is received at the former village council building.

With the exception of one person, all the residents I interviewed were very glad about the presence of Russian soldiers and the Lugansk People’s Militia and the absence of the Ukrainian military. 

Local resident Irina said: “In 2014, the Nazi Aidar and Right Sector battalions came to us. They entered houses and fired over our heads.”

One person did complain about the military presence. He was upset with the sentencing of his son by the Lugansk People’s Militia. His son was accused of collaborating with the Ukrainian troops. In spite of that, he still desired the protection of the military forces here now. 

I was able to catch up to one of those children running around the overgrown playground, whose grass had not been cut during the Ukrainian occupation. 

Eleven-year-old Ivan told me his family left in 2014 when the Ukrainian military began attacking civilians here. “The windows in our house shattered, but I stayed asleep and my mom had to wake me up. Then we left.” As he spoke I saw him looking at a dog nearby. When I told him about my dogs and asked him if he had any pets, he sadly said his dog had to be left behind. 

On this day, however, he seemed happy. He said he was glad to be back since this is where his grandparents live as well. I asked him what he studies in school and he said math and science, but now school is only open two days per week. 

After talking about his favorite exercise and sports – basketball and football (soccer) — I moved on to more serious topics. I told him how the newspapers and TV news in the U.S. describe the Russians as hurting the people of Ukraine and that the Ukrainian government and its military are protecting people. “What do you think?” I asked. 

He told me he strongly disagreed. “It is completely untrue that Russia attacks peaceful people. Russia protects civilians and their interests. Everything Zelensky says is a lie because when he says that this is a Russian occupation it is completely untrue, it is completely a lie, Russia protects civilians.” 

I figured that was enough war talk for a child and I’d give him a break and go back to my previous challenge to race him to the edge of the building. But instead of wanting to lighten the conversation or go play like most children his age in the U.S., he wanted to give some advice to the Ukrainian military and Zelensky: “Now the Ukrainian forces hide in Donetsk, but it will be better if they give up, because the peace will come sooner and we can repair our cities.” 

After thanking him for helping me get the message to people in the U.S., he said, “Yes, I told you because I understand that my speech can make a little influence on people in the world and maybe peace will come more quickly here.”

Although they may run around in a playground when war is present children are forced to ponder things they should not have to. But when war comes knocking at their door – or shattering their windows – they have no choice.

[Video of 11-yr-old Ivan]

Laughter and solidarity

I then approached a few elderly women sitting on a bench. I asked about the situation here under Ukrainian military occupation. They all described the military as being led by the Aidar Battalion, which they could tell by the colors of their patches and Nazi symbols they wore. 

They said that, although not all of the soldiers were Nazis, their leadership was. “They would make them get down on their knees and hit and humiliate them,” said one of the women about the treatment of rank-and-file soldiers who weren’t Nazis by their superior officers. They all assumed this was designed to indoctrinate them. 

When I asked one woman what it was like during the occupation, her eyes quickly darted down and her head gestured “no.” This made me wonder how horrible an experience she may have had, given the documented war crimes of the Aidar Battalion during this conflict, especially against women. So out of compassion for her I dared not ask again. If they humiliated their own troops, what might they have done to these civilians? 

When I asked the women what they thought about people in the U.S. who send money to the Ukrainian government in the belief that they are protecting them from the Russians, one exclaimed: “Duratskiy!” A few of the definitions for that Russian word are “foolish,” “fatuous”  and “idiotic.” 

When Alexey told me it meant “stupid” and I repeated it in Russian, they all started laughing – first shyly, then out loud when they saw I joined them. I was glad our shared laughter communicated better than words my solidarity with their struggles here today. 

[video of Krymske residents]

The last interview in Krymske was with a member of the Communist Party. He explained the situation in 2014, when the people here demanded their governor reject the coup government in Kiev. But, he said, the governor sided with the coup and left. 

After we talked, he walked me to an area where two monuments commemorated all of the people from the village who were killed fighting the Nazis during World War II and another honoring the soldiers who were not from that village, but died there fighting the German fascist military. This individual said he was very thankful that the Ukrainian occupiers did not destroy these two monuments as they had done in other parts of the Lugansk region.

 [video of WWII memorial in Krymske]

This visit to Krymske was very inspiring. From the determination and wit of the women on the bench, to the 11-year-old willing to take time out from the playground for important matters, to the passion of the communist who was so proud of the monuments with names of his own family members inscribed on one of them — and all of this community’s unceasing commitment to fight fascism if it rises here once again. 

It is also clear that here the military that is despised is the Ukrainian one. When we first arrived, we noticed people walking around as if life was normal – although it is not. But now, for the remaining residents in Krymske — no longer threatened by the Ukrainian soldiers – the cessation of the worst horrors of war and occupation allows them to take a breath.

Fire in the sky

The day before we visited Krymske, Alexey Albu and Evgeniy Miroshnichenko, a member of the Youth Parliament under the State Duma of Russia, invited me on a tour of Lugansk, the capital city of the LPR. We observed the monuments and also met with officials from the Lugansk city administration. We were, however, momentarily interrupted by the sight of smoke in the sky, coming from either a drone or rocket that had been intercepted by a Russian missile.

As we walked further I saw a playground and happier thoughts took over.

Playgrounds are wonderful. They are a place where children go to socialize and spend their energy with such excitement and joy. However, given the proximity of shellings or the very recent liberation of areas once occupied by the Ukrainian military, the priorities of food and shelter forced a lack of maintenance in those areas. 

However, there in the city of Lugansk, which had been mostly free of attack for some time, I saw a beautiful playground full of children on the swings and slides and varied apparatus designed for the sole purpose of making joyful noises.

… But what I had just seen threatening the skies above this well-attended and most precious sanctuary was a killer of children — thankfully destroyed, this time. What would have happened to this playground had the Ukrainian military, now armed with even more sophisticated weaponry thanks to the Biden Administration and every other complicit politician, been successful?

The new reality we face as activists and members of organizations promoting social justice and peace is that the propaganda of the ruling class has become so capable, so well-funded, so fluid in its use of social media and Hollywood, that most, including many in the movement for social justice, are not even aware of its effects in molding our own opinions and distorting our sense of reality.

This three-part series began solely as an attempt to expose the fact that the war in Ukraine was manufactured to further the expansion of U.S.-led NATO, targeting Russia and China. But perhaps the more important story is how the State Department and its right hand – the corporate media – are today able to so effectively use false information manufactured in such a consistent and frequent manner and build on those past prejudices against Russian people.

The political left movement in the U.S. and Europe has a big problem that comes from a cultural disease developed especially by U.S. capitalism’s history of racism. Not only is there class bias, but the added dehumanization with all its arrogant trappings intrinsic to the system of racism carries over to anyone deemed as “the other.” 

In the U.S., the other is usually anyone who is non-white and is therefore not taken as seriously, not as believable, not as legitimate and reliable a source of information, and definitely not due as much empathy. This is carried over even to other white people deemed as the other. And we are told by the U.S. government who the latest other is – sometimes it’s the Iraqis and their leaders, or it’s the Syrians and their leadership, or the Libyans and their leadership. In spite of the fact that information coming from the U.S. corporate media during a U.S. war drive is consistently false – from the Lusitania incident in 1915 or the Gulf of Tonkin lie pushing the U.S. into war with Vietnam or the lies pushing war in Iraq and Libya – we are supposed to accept it as gospel and reject all information coming from the official or unofficial sources from the latest target of U.S. imperialism.

This is why the sources of information coming directly from white supremacist neo-Nazi military organizations in Ukraine is more trusted than those in the Donbass region – because the people of Donbass, in Lugansk and Donetsk, are the other.

My friends from Borotba, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the United Communist Party – the other; the 82-year-old woman from the shelter in Rubizne, who was crying over the bombing of her home by Ukrainian tanks and the loss of all her belongings; and the women in Krymskoye who identified the Right Sector and Aidar Batallion as their occupiers and torturers; the entire political and religious leadership in Lugansk; the Lugansk People’s Militia members – all the other. 

And even to much of the “left” in the U.S. and Western Europe, who refused to even acknowledge their existence, they are deserving of neither an ear nor a heart for empathy.

Is the history of the Soviet Union or Russia before this current conflict filled with the intentional targeting of civilians in any degree close to that of the U.S. military and NATO?

Did the Soviet Union yesterday, or Russia today, participate in European and U.S. colonialism or neocolonialism, or have a worldwide troop deployment and military bases anywhere near that of the U.S. or NATO?

Some will say that Russia is not the Soviet Union and now it’s capitalist. Well, so are Finland and Sweden. But because years of Cold War propaganda did not target the integrity of the people of Finland and Sweden, folks see them in a different light – even though those governments said nothing about the NATO expansion for the past 20 years that caused this crisis and are now enabling and actively expanding the most belligerent military alliance in history at this critical and dangerous moment in time.

Accusations that are today thrown against Russia, if thrown against their people or soldiers, would not be so easily believed, even though the people of Sweden and Finland did not play the deciding role in defeating fascism in World War II that the people of Russia heroically played.

Hopefully, this information countering the lies of the ruling class will help in refocusing our attention on the reality that the U.S. and its imperialist allies are driving us not towards fighting runaway inflation that threatens to impoverish us all, and not towards solutions stopping life-threatening climate change, but are instead driving us towards World War III. And that’s a very bad thing. 

So let’s refocus, quickly.

President Joe Biden is planning to declare Ukraine an official U.S. military operation, the Aug. 24 Wall Street Journal reports, making it a separate command with its own general. Should Biden do that, it would put the Ukraine operation on par with the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The naming of the operation formally recognizes the U.S. effort within the military, akin to how the Pentagon dubbed the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. The naming of the training and assistance is significant bureaucratically, as it typically entails long-term, dedicated funding and the possibility of special pay, ribbons and awards for service members participating in the effort. 

“The selection of a general, expected to be a two- or three-star, reflects the creation of a command responsible to coordinate the effort, a shift from the largely ad hoc effort to provide training and assistance to the Ukrainians for years,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Biden and Congress are stepping up war spending and expansion, while workers have taken a pay cut of almost 4% this year. This is good old guns-not-butter politics. In the words of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Ukraine continues to fire internationally-banned anti-personnel mines on civilian areas of Donetsk and other cities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), in violation of international law and of the mine ban convention Ukraine signed in 1999 and ratified in 2005.

Since July 27, Ukraine has been firing rockets containing cluster munitions filled with banned PFM-1 “Petal” (or “Butterfly”) anti-personnel mines all over Donetsk and surrounding areas. Each rocket contains over 300 of the mines. Already by August 3, the DPR’s Ministry of Emergency Situations noted that Ukraine had fired several thousand of the prohibited mines on Donetsk.

As of August 15, 44 civilians, including two children, have suffered gruesome injuries. Another mine victim died in hospital.

Some days ago, such mines grotesquely maimed a 15 year old boy in Donetsk.

Younger children don’t know that the mines aren’t toys, and elderly often simply don’t see them, or likewise don’t understand the danger, as was the case with an elderly lady with dementia who, on August 8, lost a foot as a result of stepping on a mine while she was going to work in her garden plot.

Tiny but powerful, these insidious mines are designed not to kill but to tear off feet or hands. Their design allows them to float to the ground without exploding, where they easily blend in with most settings and generally lie dormant until stepped on or otherwise disturbed.

According to Konstantin Zhukov, Chief Medical Officer of Donetsk Ambulance Service, a weight of just 2 kg is enough to activate one of the mines. Sometimes, however, they explode spontaneously. An unspoken tragedy on top of the already tragic targeting of civilians is that dogs, cats, birds and other animals are also victims of these dirty mines.

In the grass, or surprisingly even on sidewalks and streets, it is very easy to overlook them or mistake them for a leaf. Even when I’ve seen such mines marked with warning signs or circled, it still took me quite a bit to actually see them.

In its relentless deploying of these mines, Ukraine has targeted all over Donetsk, as well as Makeevka to the east and Yasinovataya to the north. Ukraine has fired them elsewhere, including the hard-hit northern DPR city of Gorlovka, as well as regions in the Lugansk People’s Republic in previous months.

In fact, according to DPR authorities, Ukraine began using the mines in March, during battles for Mariupol, and in May was already firing them into DPR settlements. Also in early May, while in Rubiznhe in the Lugansk People’s Republic, I was warned that Ukraine had been littering nearby areas with the mines, something confirmed by locals when I went to nearby Sievierodonetsk on August 12.

Ukraine turns Donetsk into a minefield

I first saw the Ukrainian-fired mines on July 30, in Kirovskiy, western Donetsk, just days after Ukraine began showering the city with them.

Mine clearance sappers had isolated mines scattered in a field, to detonate after they had destroyed mines in the courtyard of an apartment complex. Amidst the tall grass, wild plants and garden plots, the mines would have been impossible for a non-sapper to spot, and very easy to disturb and lose a foot or hand in doing so.

Although I’d been assured that sappers had cleared the path, I still watched every step I took. And generally for the duration of my time in the DPR, I looked down while walking, watching for mines that could have been moved by wind or rain.

Behind a wall at one end of the apartment complex courtyard, sapper timer-detonated the eight mines they’d found scattered around the playground, lanes and walkways.

That evening, Ukraine fired more rockets with petal mines at Donetsk, this time targeting the centre of the city. People driving in the streets unknowingly set some off.

On a central Donetsk street the next morning, I saw a grouping of seven mines on a curbside, gathered either by sappers or some courageous local, with warnings to pedestrians and drivers of their presence.

They were so plentiful that marking them however possible was the only way to mitigate the immediate danger of someone randomly stepping or driving over them until they could be neutralized by the sappers.

Source: https://twitter.com/EvaKBartlett/status/1553972823399583745

Across the street, another group of mines curbside. A preliminary search in the nearby park found most of the mines, but I was warned to walk carefully as the park wasn’t officially mine-free. Having not been able to easily spot the circled and otherwise-identified mines on the street, I walked extremely carefully, wary of any object that could be covering a mine.

I saw mines on a lane behind an apartment building, on sidewalks nearby, and on leaf-strewn earth, and each time I couldn’t locate them immediately. I repeat this to emphasize how insidious Ukraine’s deploying of these mines is: if they are barely noticeable with warnings, it is all to easy without warnings to step on them and have your foot blown off.

After the mines were scattered on July 30, DPR authorities created an interactive map showing areas most contaminated by the mines, giving residents a general warning of which areas to avoid walking or driving in. Some days after, however, Donetsk experienced heavy rains, washing the mines from where they originally landed, rendering the initial demining efforts futile and the map irrelevant, and meaning sappers would have to re-clear areas they had deemed mine-free.

On August 6, I went to an orphanage in Makeevka, a city just east of Donetsk, where two days prior Ukraine had fired artillery containing the nefarious petal mines which Ukraine has been raining down all over Donetsk, and Gorlovka to the north. Thankfully, all of the children had been evacuated in February, due to the proximity to the frontline.

Emergency Services sappers were working for a second day, having found 25 of the mines so far, including in the playground, on a swing, on a merry-go-round, on the roof of the orphanage itself, and around the property. A sapper suited up and prepared to destroy one more mine, lying in the grass of the playground.

Whereas in Kirovsky, sappers had detonated a group of the mines using explosive material, in this case, sappers detonated the single mine with an electric charge. Standing tens of metres back and around the side of the building—to avoid any potential flying debris—the blast from the single mine alone was still powerful. The thought of stepping on one is a dread which one can’t fully understand if you haven’t walked in streets and on sidewalks littered with the mines.

Source: ttps://twitter.com/EvaKBartlett/status/1556892320397664256

Media claims Russia is laying the mines

As with most of its war crimes against the civilians of the Donbass, Ukraine and NATO media invert reality and claim Russia is the guilty party. They cry crocodile tears for the Donetsk children Ukraine has targeted, also disingenuously claiming the now-famous video of a DPR soldier detonating a mine by throwing a tire at it was a Ukrainian soldier demining Russian-fired mines.

The notion that Russia would explode mines over the city is not a reality-based idea. Most of the population are ethnic Russians, a significant number who now happily hold Russian citizenship. And further, it is Russian and DPR sappers putting themselves at risk to clear the streets, walks and fields of the mines.

In fact, a 21 year old DPR sapper lost a foot to such mine. Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Colonel Sergey Neka, told me of his injury: “After the cleansing of territories from explosive objects, returning back to the transport, a mine fell from the building, as a result of which it exploded under his feet and he lost his foot.”

In Makeevka, Igor Goncharov, the Chief Physician of the bombarded orphanage, spoke to me about his anger that Ukraine was targeting the property, insisting it had been deliberate, that since 2001 the orphanage was well-known to various international organizations, as well as Kiev, because, “It was the only one specialized in HIV.”

According to him, “American law allowed the adoption of HIV-positive children, so the United States was the only state that adopted HIV-infected children, so we were well known both within Ukraine and the Russian Federation and abroad. When they shoot, they know where they shoot,” he said of Ukraine.

“I think that this is not just inhumane, it is without morality, without conscience and without honour.”

I asked him to address Ukrainian and Western claims that it was Russia which deployed the mines, Russia which is shelling Donetsk and surrounding areas, knowing full well any average local resident could likewise easily debunk the claims.

“Even without being educated in military matters, it’s easy to localize the craters. Which way they are located indicates which side they were sent from. We know perfectly well where they shoot from. It’s all from Peski, Avdeevka, Nevelskoye. You can hear the crash and the whistle coming first. Ballistics can be defined. All the shelling comes from the Ukrainian side, it is unambiguous.”

Even without that logical thinking, let’s recall that Ukraine has been committing war crimes in the Donbass for over eight years, violating the Minsk Accords signed in 2014 and 2015. That Ukraine would use Petal mines from its enormous stockpile, after already shelling and sniping civilians, it not at all out of the question.

Ukrainian nationalists openly declare they view Russians as sub-human. School books teach this warped ideology. Videos show the extent of this mentality: teaching children not only to also hate Russians and see them as not humans, but also brainwashing them to believe killing Donbass residents is acceptable. The Ukrainian government itself funds Neo-Nazi-run indoctrination camps for youths.

As mentioned at the start, Ukraine signed the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, under which Ukraine was obliged to destroy its 6 million stock of the mines. However, reportedly, its stockpile remains over 3.3 million such mines.

The convention, “prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines (APLs).” Further, as outlined, Ukraine is, “in violation of Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty due to missing its 1 June 2016 clearance deadline without having requested and being granted an extension.”

Ukraine’s firing of rockets containing these mines is against international law and the Geneva Conventions. Ukraine is specifically targeting civilian areas with them. It is pure terrorism. And it is another Ukrainian war crime in a very long list of war crimes stretching back over eight years.

Eva Karene Bartlett is a Canadian-American journalist who has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). She was a recipient of the 2017 International Journalism Award for International Reporting, granted by the Mexican Journalists’ Press Club (founded in 1951), and was the first recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. See her extended bio on her blog In Gaza. She tweets from @EvaKBartlett and has the Telegram Channel, Reality Theories. Eva can also be reached at evabartlett@hotmail.com.

Source: CovertAction Magazine

Based on remarks at the Socialist Unity Party national plenum on Aug. 13.

For eight and a half years, people living in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics have endured shelling, bombings, landmines, drone attacks, sniper fire, and acts of terrorism by the Ukrainian regime on behalf of U.S. imperialism. For those living in the capital of Donetsk and other nearby cities, the siege has never been more intense and unrelenting than it has been in recent months.

Since July, Ukraine’s military has been raining antipersonnel mines called “petals” on the streets of Donetsk and other urban areas. These small mines are easily overlooked. Anyone who steps on one is guaranteed to be killed or maimed for life. Most of the victims have been seniors, children, rescue and repair workers. The use of these mines in residential areas is banned under international law. But you will not hear or read a word about it in Western media.

Every day Ukrainian fascists shell residential areas of Donetsk and nearby cities. The allied forces of Donetsk, Lugansk and the Russian Federation continue to make steady progress in liberating Ukrainian-occupied areas of Donbass. However, as they advance, the Ukrainian forces have been driven back to high ground in a well-defended area west of Donetsk. This has resulted in more and more enemy fire concentrated on the capital.

Residents of Donetsk post updates on social media when they can, as do journalists in the city. What they share is harrowing. For months there has been no running water; drinking water is carefully rationed by the authorities to keep the population alive. Electricity and internet are out much of the time. Deaths from the mines and rocket attacks are a daily occurrence. 

The population is incredibly determined and strong, but there is growing despair. There is no light at the end of the tunnel right now.

Adding to the fear is that Ukraine is now starting to deploy high-range and more powerful weapons recently received from the U.S. and other NATO powers. Alchevsk, a city in central Lugansk, has largely been shielded from Ukrainian attacks since the start of the current phase of the war in February. But in the past three weeks, Alchevsk has been hit twice by high-powered rockets. One of those rockets hit a residential apartment building, killing a civilian and wounding 19, including several children. Similarly, areas in the east of Donetsk have been hit recently with new high-powered rockets.  

Now Ukraine’s forces are targeting sites with dangerous chemicals (Donetsk, Gorlovka) and nuclear materials (Zaporozhye). They are toying with, if not actively trying to cause, a mass-death catastrophe.

Washington doesn’t care about the lives of Ukrainians. As a popular saying goes, “Biden will fight to the last Ukrainian” to advance Wall Street profits and U.S. global domination. The proxy war is not ending anytime soon.

The recent FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Florida enclave is said to be centered around classified documents illegally removed from the White House, possibly including information on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 

Whatever the truth behind this latest clash between two racist enemies of the working class, the groundwork is being laid with media speculation about “treason” for the Democratic administration to justify further aggression against Donbass and Russia. 

Democrats will use war mongering in the midterm elections, just as Republicans are campaigning by attacking the rights of women, trans people and people of color.

Unfortunately, the established anti-war organizations in the U.S. and Europe have abdicated their responsibility to oppose the U.S.-NATO proxy war against Donbass and Russia. We must continue to seek out and build cooperation with allies who take a genuinely anti-imperialist perspective, not just in words but in actions. 

What do the New York Times, Kiev Independent, Euromaidan Press, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, TikTok here in the U.S. have in common?

They are all funded by or staffed by Western and U.S. intelligence members pushing the U.S. narrative about the war in Ukraine. This is why Struggle-La-Lucha.org organized a fact-finding mission to Ukraine and Russia to report on the suppressed information that challenges the narrative of NATO and its member states, led by the U.S. This is the second part of my report. (Part 1: Fact-finding trip to Donbass: A front-line shelter in Rubizhne)

The social media outlets are an open door to organizations like NATO, military suppliers, and the Atlantic Council, with executives making decisions about what content is allowed to circulate widely on social media and what content is encouraged to support U.S. foreign policy goals. Some of these same organizations sold us the misinformation about weapons of mass destruction regarding Iraq — like the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, funded by the U.S. government and its defense industry contractors. They partner with Twitter and others to allegedly stop misinformation and provide “alternate” information that counters or eliminates views that don’t agree with the Pentagon’s narrative on Russia, China, or Ukraine.

In John Pilger’s 2016 documentary, “The Coming War on China,” he says: “ASPI has played a leading role — some would say, the leading role — in driving Australia’s mendacious and self-destructive and often absurd China-bashing campaign. The current Coalition government, perhaps the most right-wing and incompetent in Australia’s recent history, has relied upon the ASPI to disseminate Washington’s desperate strategic policies, into which much of the Australian political class, along with its intelligence and military structures, has been integrated.”

Russian stereotypes return

Thanks to the actual “big brother” watch dogs, Russian stereotypes that are as sophisticated as the 1960s cartoon characters Boris and Natasha are showing their ugly heads again. However, this time — in addition to pushing war and anti-communism despite the fall of the Soviet Union — the media is elevating fascism along with apologies for fascist organizations.

And, of course, Hollywood must get involved to help the lies go down smoothly with Hollywood movies like “Old Man” with Jeff Bridges or “Stranger Things” (third and fourth seasons), reinforcing those messages as we relax in front of the tube. 

In fact, in a video interview, novelist Stephen King thought he was talking to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, praising Stepan Bandera. Bandera, a Ukrainian fascist and war criminal, was the head of efforts to assist Nazi Germany in their genocide in Ukraine, killing tens of thousands of Polish and Jewish people. King also said during the video meeting that he would even consider screening a fake film passed off as authentic, praising the neo-Nazi Azov Batallion and vilifying Russians.

All this to make those who used to know better forget that the people of the Soviet Union and Russia were responsible for defeating one of the greatest threats to humanity — fascism — during World War II, losing 27 million of their people doing so.

Celebrating May 1 and May 9

I got reminded of the pride felt by the Russian people in defending humanity from fascism while making my way to the Lenin monument at October Square in Moscow on May 1 of this year. This was one of the many celebrations of International Workers Day leading up to the “Great Patriotic War” celebrations on May 9. Many shops along the way had posters proudly displaying the hammer-and-sickle flag of the Soviet Union to show that pride.

In addition to the activities by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the second largest Party in Parliament, other celebrations were being held by the Union of Communists — which my organization, the Socialist Unity Party, has worked with in the past — which I also attended. 

One of the Brazilian participants who is now in Moscow studying Russian said: “I am here because I think it is very important, the fight of workers in all the world who are working in difficulty in all countries. Many are without jobs or have low salaries and in my country, people are living in the roads. So, this is a very important moment to gather together to say we need a just world, we need better social conditions all over the world. There are people here who are communists and remember their conditions were better under the Soviet Union so it is important to celebrate here with Lenin.”

At home with organizer Olga

An organizer for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Olga, made her way to this celebration after participating in her organization’s parade earlier. She explained why May 1 is so important: “It’s a great day, the first of May. We remember that this was founded by Chicago workers who were the first to come on the street to fight for their rights in 1886. In this time people in many countries celebrate, including Russia too, because we know it should be free education, free medical care and we still have lots of problems that must be decided together.” Olga mentioned that the policies of the Soviet Union regarding free medicine continued in Russia after its fall and it helped the Russian people, including her mother, handle the COVID crisis better.

In Moscow, I was accompanied by Leonid Ilderkin, from the Union of Political Refugees and Political Prisoners of Ukraine. He is one of the many individuals forced to flee Ukraine due to the political persecution of communists or members of many labor or workers organizations. Leonid and members of the socialist organization Borotba helped us organize this trip and provided translation for me.

After the powerful speeches, we were invited to join Olga and her family for dinner to discuss the movement in the U.S. and my questions about Russia today. The type of hospitality we experienced reminded me of being down South in the U.S., and not fitting the stereotype of the cold Russians at all.

After leaving her family’s home and enjoying a great meal, we came away with a better understanding of the connections that people here have with people living in Ukraine. They are in solidarity with their friends and family, who are now targeted by the allies of U.S. imperialism. When discussing Ukraine with Olga’s mom, she cried, telling me about her friend who was caught in the violence by fascist forces there.

We are now being told that the Russian people are also bloodthirsty and are purposely targeting civilians and committing unspeakable war crimes in Ukraine. In part one of these articles, I mentioned the National Endowment for Democracy-sponsored Kiev Independent, published in Ukraine. That media’s reliance on unsubstantiated reports and videos given them by one of the fascist regiments, the Azov Batallion, is then passed on to Western media without any verification of its content.

Euromaidan Press — U.S. sponsored media

Another media source out of Ukraine also funded by Western intelligence sources — the Euromaidan Press — does a thorough job of keeping the U.S.-sponsored narrative alive.

For example, their accounts of what went on immediately after the Russian intervention on February 23 and the current situation in areas of Ukraine that I visited were completely different from my experience. 

During the first month after the Russian intervention in Ukraine, the Euromaidan Press reported “evidence” and videos indicating that the main targets of the Russian military were civilians.

However, in an exposé published by Newsweek, “Putin’s Holding Back,” analysts and advisers working for the Pentagon became unlikely whistleblowers. Covering most of the same period Euromaidan Press was referring to — the first 24 days after the Russian intervention on February 23 — Newsweek quotes U.S. military officers and analysts, all were surprised at how little civilian loss there was on the part of the Russian military. One of the quotes from an adviser who is also a U.S. Air Force officer makes clear their message and intentions: “I’m frustrated by the current narrative — that Russia is intentionally targeting civilians, that it is demolishing cities, and that Putin doesn’t care. Such a distorted view stands in the way of finding an end before true disaster or the war spreads to the rest of Europe.”

About two months before I arrived there, Euromaidan Press wrote about a village in the Lugansk region of Ukraine called Rubizhne. See what essential detail is twisted in this report. The article “How the Russian Invasion Destroyed My World,” by Orysia Hrudka, shares an account of someone who was in touch with relatives and friends in Rubizhne about two weeks after the Russian intervention in Ukraine:

“Since 8 March I have been unable to contact my close ones in Rubizhne. … My grandmother, together with many other people from Rubizhne in Luhansk Oblast, was brought to the town nearby. The town was not yet ready to place the refugees in one of the buildings. Food and mattresses were just being brought there. …

“On 11 March, at 10:56 pm, I learned that my friend’s husband’s parents had been shot at a checkpoint on the way from Rubizhne to Kreminna. Her husband’s parents were kind people and were bringing food from the village to Rubizhne because the city was cut off from food supplies. The mother died immediately, and the father was able to call his son and say his last words. The son talked with his father until his father’s heart stopped. We still can’t find the bodies of our friends’ parents. …

“On 25 March, my friend’s mother was killed in the Russian shelling. She came to bring the water to the South district in Rubizhne. Her body is still there.”

What I saw in Rubizhne

This is a heart-wrenching account of brutality and neglect, the lack of water and food, danger in leaving and coming to Rubizhne at that time. It generally corresponds with what I heard from the people of Lugansk at the shelter where there were 350 people who had escaped as their homes were bombed by tanks. They were left with nothing and totally dependent on the humanitarian aid of food and water to survive and the protection of the military to stay alive. However, they all said it was the Ukrainian military — not the Russian military — that shot into their homes with guns and tanks; that abandoned them with no food, water, or transportation. In fact, the residents of the shelter in Rubizhne I spoke to said if not for the protection of the Russian soldiers they would not have survived. See Part 1 for the full interviews of Rubizhne residents forced to flee their homes.

“Ukrainian soldiers did not help at all,” said a teary-eyed Larisa, who was in charge of the shelter and reflected on the hardship for the children there. “That is unacceptable. No one from the Ukrainian side asked us or visited us. I had supported Ukraine, but after I saw how they left these people I no longer supported them.”

The thunder heard around us while we were there was a constant reminder of how the area was still very dangerous. That thunder was not from lightning. It was the sound of exploding artillery shells that, like lightning, hit a nearby apartment building while we were there. And, to be clear, that artillery was fired from Ukrainian military positions.

When I arrived in Rubizhne on May 6, the area was under the control of the Russian military and the Lugansk Peoples Militia, which brought in humanitarian aid. In my short time in Lugansk, from the border to the shelter, I witnessed many trucks bringing water, grains, diapers, milk, etc. My clumsy attempt at helping to bring the supplies in, ending in an almost dropped box, confirmed these items were diapers and foodstuffs.

How residents got aid

The Euromaidan Press account also left the impression that the Russian forces were targeting civilians at checkpoints and on the dangerous roads they controlled. However, this area only came under Russian control a little over three weeks prior to our visit on May 6. According to Alexey Alba, an organizer with Borotba who accompanied me in Lugansk: “The roads here, although dangerous now, were even more dangerous during Ukrainian control, so leaving was not a safe option then. It became more possible after the area came under Russian control.” 

Larisa added: “We tell people it is not safe, but if they want to leave here, of course, they can. No one will stop them.”

Alexey, once a resident of Odessa who moved with his family to Lugansk, was an elected member of the Odessa Regional Council and a former member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Alexey barely escaped with his life in the violence of fascists after the 2014 coup, a coup financed by the U.S.

Instead of discouraging and shooting at civilians trying to bring food to Rubizhne, as the journalist from Euromaidan Press implied of the Russian soldiers, Alexey explained a different reality: “Because of the war, getting assistance to the shelter was difficult. The trade unions in charge of delivering food in Lugansk were unable to due to the area becoming a war zone. So, they had to hand over that task to the military.”

Despite the danger and the fact that the Ukrainian military still controlled the area, Alexey continued, “the Russian and Lugansk soldiers, at great risk to their own lives, were determined to get aid to the residents of the shelter even before the area was liberated.”

Why such a different view from Euromaidan Press, a view contradicted by U.S. military sources covered in Newsweek and my own live interviews and experience there?

Funded by U.S. National Endowment for Democracy

Euromaidan Press is an NGO partly funded by the National Democratic Institute, one of the four core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy. Euromaidan Press is also partly funded by the British Embassy in Kiev. And Euromaidan Press is partly funded by the International Renaissance Foundation subsidized by the Soros’ Open Society Foundation, which funds regime change efforts and was heavily involved in funding the anti-Russian opposition in Ukraine.

Alya Shandra, the editor-in-chief at Euromaidan Press, and Christine Chraibi, an editor, both state in their profiles their wish for European integration, especially, said Chraibi, in terms of NATO membership.

Orysia Hrudka, the writer of this particular piece in Euromaidan Press, is also employed at the Agents of Change School, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — a U.S. government agency— and the U.S. Embassy Democracy Fund, which, according to their website, “supports unique and promising projects that promote the capacity building and self-sufficiency of NGOs in Ukraine.”

Since the first U.S.-sponsored coup in 2004, those NGOs were how the U.S. government poured billions of dollars into regime-change efforts, culminating in the second undemocratic 2014 coup in Ukraine.

Euromaidan Press also ran stories pushing the allegations of rape by Russian soldiers, “confirmed” by former Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova who said that 25 teenage girls were kept in a basement in Bucha and gang-raped; nine of them are now pregnant. After evidence showed those claims were false, the accusations called into question the legitimacy of other Ukrainian government claims. The Ukrainian Parliament promptly fired Ombudsman Denisova with the advice: “Check the facts before publication” and “disclose only information for which there is sufficient evidence.” 

The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion

Another staff person at Euromaidan Press is Bohdan Ben. According to his description on the site, Ben is a researcher in the field of social and ethical philosophy and the field of local governance. He was among the winners of the program “Youth Will Change Ukraine” organized by the Bohdan Hawrylyshyn Foundation.

On November 4, 2019, Ben did a piece countering the letter circulated by 40 U.S. House members asking that the Azov Battalion be put on the terrorist list. In it, he characterizes the Azov Battalion as a mixture of various ideologies leaning towards far-right politics but stresses that they cannot be considered a neo-Nazi organization since they are an official part of the Ukrainian military.

However, his admissions in the article remarkably defeat his premises and lousy logic. In denying that the Azov Batallion has aided and abetted terrorists around the world he says, reflecting on the letter: “That the Azov Battalion ‘openly welcomes neo-Nazis into its ranks’ is true in some cases. Indeed, several radically far-right individuals were fighting or training in this detachment … several commanders of the Battalion previously belonged to right-wing Ukrainian NGOs or political parties. Naturally, volunteers with nationalist political backgrounds preferred serving in Azov rather than other detachments, to have like-minded people around. This is entirely within the legal framework.”

It should be noted that the “legal framework” has been radically changing since 2014 to favor fascist organizations and ban and criminalize their greatest opposition —  the communist parties.

He also states that the political entity most affiliated with the Azov Batallion, the National Corps, is a separate organization and cannot be assumed to represent the views of the Azov organization when they promote Nazism and terrorism. When he then mentions that the Corps is led by Andriy Biletskyi, who he admits is “a far-right nationalist who espoused white supremacist views.” He also forgets to say that Biletskyi founded the Azov militia group in 2014. Ben also quotes Biletskyi in 2010 saying the Ukrainian nation’s mission was to “lead the white race of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen.” Untermenschen is an unscientific term used by Nazi Germany, implying an ethnic designation. They are supposedly inferior people who fall into a category of basically anyone not “accepted” by the German Nazis.

Ben also admits:

“Azov Battalion and the National Corps Political Party indeed had contacts with persons who called for violence or committed crimes … Olena Semeniaka, for example, acknowledged contacts with the American Rise Above Movement (RAM) and said that RAM members came to Ukraine to ‘learn how to create youth forces in the ways Azov has’… However, there is little evidence of any calls for terrorism or violence by members of the Battalion.”

Azov and ‘Unite the Right’ riot in Charlottesville

After this meeting with RAM that Ben was referring to, three RAM members participated in and helped organize the August 11, 2017, Unite the Right riot of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, North Carolina, where Heather Heyer was killed by a white supremacist driving into the counter-protest she participated in. Those three were arrested in Virginia for inciting and organizing violence there, and sentenced to a little over two years in prison.

It’s especially clear how far from the truth Euromaidan Press is willing to go in allegiance to the Azov Battalion when comparing what Ben is saying to the 2019 report by TIME.com – which is no friend of Russia or the Donbass republics and is a supporter of the Ukrainian military. That report — “Like, Share, Recruit: How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members — contradicts Ben’s assertion that the Corps is not related to nor speaks for Azov.

TIME reporters Simon Shuster and Billy Perrigo expose that the National Corps, instead of being separate from Azov, is an integral part of an Azov recruitment center in Kyiv. They write: “The main recruitment center for Azov, known as the Cossack House, stands in the center of Kyiv, a four-story brick building on loan from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry [my emphasis -JP]. In the courtyard is a cinema and a boxing club. The top floor hosts a lecture hall and a library, full of books by authors who supported German fascism, like Ezra Pound and Martin Heidegger … On the ground floor is a shop called Militant Zone, which sells clothes and key chains with stylized swastikas and other neo-Nazi merchandise. [my emphasis -JP]

The reporters interviewed the person Ben mentioned, Olena Semeniaka, who has almost achieved celebrity status in the white supremacist world:

“It could be described as a small state within a state,” says Olena Semenyaka, the head of international outreach for the Azov movement. On a tour of the Cossack House in 2019, she told TIME that Azov’s mission was to form a coalition of far-right groups across the Western world, with the ultimate aim of taking power throughout Europe.

Semenyaka is speaking for the Azov organization. However, Ben said the National Corps she represents is separate. The TIME reporters also agree with Semenyaka regarding the direction of Azov. They write:

“Outside Ukraine, Azov occupies a central role in a network of extremist groups stretching from California across Europe to New Zealand, according to law enforcement officials on three continents. And it acts as a magnet for young men eager for combat experience. Ali Soufan, a security consultant and former FBI agent who has studied Azov, estimates that more than 17,000 foreign fighters have come to Ukraine over the past six years from 50 countries.”

Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims in March 2019 as they worshiped in a Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque wrote in his manifesto that he visited Ukraine. He also wore the emblem of the Battalion when he did the killing and featured the Azov emblem in his manifesto. By the way, the recent killing in Buffalo, New York, of 10 Black people in a supermarket was done by an 18-year-old white supremacist who said he was influenced by Tarrant — and the beat goes on.

The Facebook algorithm driving white supremacists

TIME explains how Azov grew such a wide and influential global presence — in a word, Facebook and other social media. However, it was Facebook’s algorithm driving white supremacists and disaffected youth toward them that allowed Azov exponential visibility growth.

In a simple experiment done while writing this article, I was able to get to an Azov Battalion recruiting video simply by searching the word “Azov,” on Facebook, which led me in about two clicks to the recruitment video on Youtube with the Azov logo, the Sonnenrad. You can find my search here: My_Search_for_Azov.  

Why have social media outlets in the U.S., that were quick to act when it was revealed that ISIS was successfully recruiting members through Facebook and Youtube and other social media, refused to act on white supremacist terrorism and recruitment?

Perhaps a former leader of the Atlantic Council, the NATO entity which regulates Facebook, can answer that.

Alina Polyakova, at the time working as Director of Research for Europe and Eurasia at the Atlantic Council, where she developed and led the institute’s work on disinformation and Russia, is quoted in an article in Jacobin on Stepan Bandera saying:

“The Russian government and its proxies in eastern Ukraine have consistently branded Kyiv’s government a fascist junta and accused it of having Nazi sympathizers. Moscow’s propaganda is outrageous and wrong.” Given Ukraine’s deepening economic woes, she continued, “should Ukraine watchers be concerned about the potential growth of extreme right-wing parties?” Her answer: “Absolutely not.”

Regarding the U.S. proxy war against Russia, the sole purpose of U.S. and Western European-sponsored media outlets like Euromaidan Press and Kiev Independent is to be a disseminator of Nazi propaganda about the war and handle international public relations for fascist organizations in Ukraine.

Their coverage of events around the same time I was in Lugansk as compared to what I saw and heard from residents there exposes the lies of their sponsors and puppet masters, especially those in the U.S.

2014 massacre at Odessa House of Trade Unions

What is scarcely covered, however, are horrors like that which occurred in the city of Odessa in Ukraine on May 2, 2014, at the House of Trade Unions, witnessed by those I interviewed here in Moscow at a memorial outside of the Kremlin. “Today is the second of May,” said a journalist covering the event. “Eight years ago my city of Odessa was full of beauty on the seashore, for artists, writers, musicians. We had the best architects who built the opera theater house. But those Ukrainian Nazis burned the Odessan people alive and shot them. They say there were 48 who died but that number is not correct since there were many more victims reported in the morgue. They burned alive people who were hiding, and those who escaped the building were beaten with sticks and iron pipes and shot at. None of the perpetrators were punished. Innocent people died for their right to speak their language by a Nazi regime. This was repeated in Mariupol on May 9, 2014, with killings in that Russian-speaking area. I was there in Mariupol as a journalist also. It’s been eight years, and nobody cared, and they continue to kill us using weapons originating in the USA and European Union. And any honest journalists reporting on this are being hidden there in Ukraine.”

He then introduced me to Vasilly, who had been trapped inside the House of Trade Unions. He took many photos of the situation then —  from the beginning of the incident until about 8:30 p.m. when people began to jump out of the windows of the burning building. “By 7 p.m. it started, before that, there was a fight outside … I have many photos and showed these to many journalists from the West but they did nothing with them,” he said.

I asked him what he thought about Zelensky appointing a governor of Odessa a few months ago who is affiliated with fascist organizations. “Zelensky is not only a comedian, he is also a clown. He is not an independent person, he works for Biden. What is there to think about a person who goes to Great Britain and first meets with the chief of MI6, his other boss? Our great regret is that there was a president Yushchenko in 2004 who also pushed to power oligarchs, and he began inviting Nazis and gave the highest honor to Bandera.”

Another commemorator who had just finished placing roses at the monument, then making the sign of the cross on his chest, showed me his cell phone with texts he had just received from someone also trying to commemorate the day, but unable to. His friend texting him at that moment was in Odessa, but a curfew was established to discourage such activity. This curfew was being enforced with bullets from the Ukrainian police, his friend who was witnessing the violence there told him. “One woman was injured and the police were ordered to shoot, with no warning, anyone holding public commemorations outside,” he read from his phone.

Here in Moscow, where that terror did not exist we visited another commemoration in another part of the city with mainly youth carrying signs with the words “Odessa May 2, 2014.” At the front of the thousands who were lined up to pay tribute by placing roses where the pictures of the dead victims were, another witness of the Odessa tragedy was playing Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor on a piano moved right there on the sidewalk. The intense piece she chose was fitting because in 1898, one of the many titles of that piece introduced to the west by a London publisher was called “The Burning of Moscow.”

Commemorations on May 9 for the victory over Nazi Germany are also outlawed in Ukraine. But, like the May 2 commemorations, here in Russia, celebrating the defeat of the Nazis is welcomed.

Coming in part 3: Two cities in Ukraine, two ideologies, two experiences of war.

 

On June 29, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met in Madrid, a “No to NATO” demonstration gathered and rallied in Detroit at the busy Nine Mile and Woodward intersection. The Michigan Peace Council initiative called on anti-imperialists to grow the movement against the U.S. provocative expansion of NATO and weapons deluge to fuel the anti-Russia war in Ukraine. 

Organizations speaking at the rally in the grassy roadway median included the Michigan Peace Council, Young Communist League, Green Party, Struggle-La Lucha newspaper, League of Revolutionaries for a New America, Communist Workers League and Party for Socialism and Liberation, among others. Car horns were  honked by supporters, with one driver stopped at a red light even donating cash. More united anti-imperialist actions are planned.

U.S. President Joe Biden and other heads of state of the NATO war alliance are preparing to meet in Madrid, Spain, from June 28-30 to plan the next phase of their proxy war against the Donbass republics and the Russian Federation. Meanwhile, their Ukrainian agents are raining terror daily on civilians in towns and villages in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR).

The Ukrainian regime is on a rampage, especially attacking civilians in Donetsk, capital of the DPR. Residential areas of the city that have been untouched since the worst days of 2014-2015 are now being targeted daily by NATO-supplied weapons. People in the city report a desperate situation.

“Thank you to NATO for the gifts,” activist and longtime Donetsk resident Katya A. wrote on June 15. “Now there are no safe areas left in the city. Every time you leave your house, it’s Russian roulette. You never know where the next shell will land. You can’t be sure you’ll make it home or not be left disabled.”

Since early June, daily attacks on civilian targets in the capital have steadily intensified. By mid-month, the city was under the heaviest attack since Ukraine’s war on Donbass began in 2014. 

Apartment buildings, hospitals, schools and public transit have been hit. Shopping areas have been especially targeted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

On June 13, the Donetsk News Agency (DAN) reported, “Three people have been killed and another four have been wounded in Ukrainian gunmen’s strike at Donetsk’s Budyonnovsky district, the DPR Territorial Defense Headquarters reported.”

The Ukrainian shelling targeted the Maisky market, a major shopping venue in Donetsk visited by thousands of residents daily for essential supplies. The victims included an 11-year-old girl and her mother. 

Earlier in the day, four civilians were wounded in the Kievsky district.

300 strikes in two hours

“Ukrainian gunmen fired more than 300 heavy artillery projectiles including MLRS [Multiple Launch Rocket System] missiles at Donetsk within two hours, the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) reported on Monday.

“‘The DPR capital has never come under such massive strikes in terms of fire amount, density and duration over the whole period of the armed conflict,’ the report said. ‘Nearly 300 MLRS missiles and artillery projectiles were fired in two hours.’

“The heaviest strikes were delivered at the Kuibyshevsky, Kievsky and Voroshilovsky districts in the west, north and center of the city. The enemy shelled them with BM-21 Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers and 155mm and 152mm artillery,” DAN reported.

Two days later – on June 15 – President Biden announced $1 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine, on top of $54 billion in aid already allocated this year, “a package that includes shipments of additional howitzers, ammunition and coastal defense systems,” according to CNN. NATO has promised to speed up the delivery of weapons to Ukraine.

“The enemy has literally crossed all the lines using prohibited methods of warfare, shooting at Donetsk’s residential and central areas and delivering fire at other DPR towns and settlements, ” DPR head Denis Pushilin said. “In this connection, an understanding has been reached that the allies, in the first place the Russian Federation, will use all necessary additional forces.”

DPR Commissioner for Human Rights Daria Morozova said: “At the moment, any provocations can be expected from Ukrainian militants who are in agony. Therefore, I urge citizens to leave the streets for shelters and take all security measures until the situation improves.

“I assure you, not a single bastard who is at war with the civilian population will escape punishment.”

Maternity hospital hit

Ukraine’s attacks on Donbass civilians have gone mostly unreported in the U.S. corporate media. Donetsk residents scoffed when they learned German media claimed the attacks were somehow caused by Donetsk ally Russia. Germany, like the U.S., has covered up Ukrainian war crimes for the past eight years.

Five medical facilities in Donetsk were hit on June 13, including a maternity hospital. All the patients and staff were evacuated to the basement – with one exception. “A baby was born prematurely and could not be disconnected from the ventilator,” Katya A. reported on her Telegram channel. “The head of department was there [with the infant] the whole time. Both survived, no one was hurt, although the blast blew out all the windows in the intensive care unit.”

Earlier, Western media raised a hue and cry over an alleged Russian attack on a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol before its liberation from Ukrainian neo-Nazis. The claim was refuted by Mariupol residents, including a patient of the hospital who had been portrayed in the West as a “victim of Russia.”

These same media, however, had nothing to say about Ukraine’s attack on pregnant people, new parents and infants in Donetsk.

Eyewitness accounts

A sampling of reports from local activists in Donetsk:

June 13: “Donetsk today: Indiscriminate shelling of residential areas. Eleven-year-old Misha and her mother Oksana are killed. Misha Bondarenko, 5th grader of school No. 135. (Oxana Chelysheva)

June 17: “I no longer count the whistles and screams. It’s surprising that the glass is still intact.

“Zasyadko mine has been sealed in Donetsk due to shelling by Ukrainian troops. Seventy-six miners are trapped underground.

“We hide in the entrance hall with some kids who took a car from their father and now don’t know what to do: drive it home under fire or hide, hoping that nothing will fall on the car. ‘Father will kill us if something happens to the car.’ When a parent’s anger is scarier than a shell.

“Still no electricity or water at home.” (Svetlana Licht, Aurora Women’s Club)

“As experience has shown, relative calmness in war is an illusion. Kievsky district has been under heavy shelling since the very early morning. Missiles arrive in Petrovsky and Kuibyshevsky districts. Also at the city center.

“Donetsk is covered in smoke. There are fires everywhere. They write that firefighters cannot start working because the firing does not stop. Makeevsky Metallurgical Plant came under fire. A civilian has been wounded.

“I remember how in 2014 I naively thought that the war would end by fall. It’s the ninth year of this horror without an end.” (Katya A.)

June 18: “Miners’ Square. You can hear the shells flying in. A grandmother and a middle-aged man had a political dispute nearby. It’s amazing that in such an environment people have the strength to quarrel.” (Svetlana Licht)

“I woke up because of the shelling. There is no electricity and internet. I listen to the shells whistle outside and fall nearby. They write that there are again NATO gifts. And how’s your good morning?

“The Ukrainian army attacked an important military object – a bus with people.

“We live under very harsh shelling. And I feel no anger, indignation or surprise at this situation. I wouldn’t expect anything different from an army of proud and shy Nazis. I just wish it would end sooner.

“I am not surprised by the stupidity and obscurantism of the hangers-on of the failed Ukrainian regime, who in their feeble mind cannot see beyond their noses and tell amazing fables about self-inflicted shelling.

“Yesterday and today they razed my neighborhood to the ground. Again the destruction, the dead and wounded. Ordinary civilians who are only guilty of living in the wrong place.

“It’s quiet now. But I’m sure it will start again tonight.” (Katya A.)

June 19: “My poor neighbors. Early in the morning, we ran into the store, while it was quiet.

“No water or electricity at home.” (Svetlana Licht)

June 20: “The center of Donetsk is ‘watered’ daily with heavy NATO weapons. And people are not going to leave, on the contrary, there are more inhabitants in the city than during the first hot phase of the conflict, which until 2022 was considered the most brutal of all. 

“And what do we see? Shops are open, people are still planting roses, public utilities are repairing damage, rescuers are putting out fires under shelling, public transport is moving under the whistle of shells. Moreover, even after a shell hit school No. 22 in the Voroshilovsky district of Donetsk, teachers continued to go to their workplaces, although the head of the DPR Pushilin recommended remote work in his appeal, but not all heeded this. 

“Many will not even believe what I am describing now, but this is the reality for Donbass. Even for Donetsk, which for a long time was already considered a safe place, although the likelihood of such strikes remained throughout the eight years of hostilities. But after a month of daily shelling of the city center, even the hyped ‘Donetsk Arbat’ – Pushkin Boulevard – was empty.” (Denis Grigoryuk, journalist)

Stop U.S.-NATO weapons! 

During the week of June 13-19, Ukrainian attacks killed at least 12 and wounded 93 residents of Donetsk, Mayor Alexey Kulemzin said.

Daily attacks on Donetsk and the nearby cities of Makeevka and Gorlovka mostly come from the Ukrainian-occupied town of Avdiivka and surrounding villages to the west of the capital. The area is heavily fortified and defended by the most battle-hardened, ideological neo-Nazis in the service of the Ukrainian regime and Western imperialism.

The strategy of allied anti-fascist forces – the People’s Militias of Donetsk and Lugansk and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation – has been to steadily liberate surrounding areas, encircling the Adiivka area. Since the point of the Special Operation is to liberate the occupied areas of the DPR and LPR, the allied forces have been advancing with care to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties.

At the same time, as more and more territory is freed from Ukrainian control and the occupation forces retreat, more troops and weaponry are concentrated in Avdiivka for attacks on civilians in and near the capital.

Another reason for serious concern is the infusion of higher-range missiles and artillery from NATO. While 95% of the LPR has now been liberated from Ukrainian troops, attacks on frontline areas like Kirovsk continue. And the new powerful weaponry from the West could allow the Zelensky regime to again target the capital of Lugansk.

Mass protests are planned in Madrid, across Europe and around the world during the NATO Summit. It is urgent for anti-war and anti-fascist forces to expose Ukraine’s ongoing terrorist attacks on Donetsk and demand: No more NATO weapons to Ukraine!