Ukraine
Nuclear disaster at Chernobyl: reality and unreality
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By Don Fitz
May 19, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — With the escalating doom of climate change hovering over us, it is tempting to push nuclear horror to the back of our minds. To those of us who grew up in the 1950s, it was omnipresent. Nuclear war could not exist without nuclear power and on April 26, 1986 the world experienced a form of nuclear horror it will never forget.
Why did Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear plant explode on that day? Did operator error cause it? Was design flaw the reason? Should we look deeper into the Soviet system for the cause? Or should we look deeper still into the very existence of nuclear power?
Elections in Russia, 2018: Managed Democracy?
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By David Mandel
March 25, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Project — This article examines the bases of popular support for recently re-elected Russian president Vladimir Putin. Although this support is strenuously “cultivated” by the regime by various illicit means, it nevertheless has a genuine basis that needs to be understood by people on the left who are trying to develop an enlightened position in the escalating confrontation between the “West” and Russia.
Stephen F. Cohen on Ukraine: Meeting shows 'Kiev, not Moscow, blocking peace deal'
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August 26, 2015 -- New Cold War.org, posted by Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Stephen F. Cohen, contributing editor to The Nation, was interviewed on the the John Batchelor Show, WABC radio in New York City. They discuss the news of a ceasefire agreement in eastern Ukraine for a cessation of hostilities beginning September 1, 2015, and the recent meeting in Berlin on August 24 of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, France's President François Hollande and Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko.
Volodymyr Ishchenko: Ukraine's Maidan mythologies
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Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published various left viewpoints on the political situation in Ukraine. For more by Volodymyr Ishchenko.
July 9, 2015 -- First published in the June 2015 New Left Review, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- Andrew Wilson’s earlier publications on Ukraine won him a reputation as a serious historian. [1] His first books—notably Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s (1997), The Ukrainians (2002) and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (2005)—were distinguished by three signal features.
First, Wilson argued strongly that while Ukrainian nationalism was a force in the west of the country—where, bred under Austrian and Polish rule, it had mostly possessed a strong right-wing bent—it had only limited appeal in the country as a whole, due to the existence of deep regional, linguistic and ethnic historical divisions. Ukrainian “national identity”, Wilson insisted in The Ukrainians, was essentially a product of the Soviet era.
Neoliberal Ukraine’s labour 'reforms' threaten workers' rights
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The oligarchs have joined forces to railroad a new labour code that strips Ukrainian workers of their already modest rights.
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By Vitaly Dudin
June 4, 2015 -- Open Democracy via The New Cold War, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Neoliberal modernisation in Ukraine is nothing new. The processes and forces pushing it forward long predate the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych last February. But since the events of 2014, this process has been expedited and has arrived at a key issue: the laws governing the way people work.
Boris Kagarlitsky: 'The killing of Novorossiya'
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US Secretary of State John Kerry with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, May 15, 2015.
For more on the political situation in Ukraine. For more by Boris Kagarlitsky, click HERE.
By Boris Kagarlitsky, translated by Renfrey Clarke
June 4, 2015 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- On May 23, 2015, Aleksey Mozgovoy, the most popular, authoritative and independent of the Novorossiya militia commanders, was assassinated. Together with the “Spectre” Brigade which he led, Mozgovoy a few days earlier had taken part in an Antifascist Forum with left organisations from a number of European countries.
Mozgovoy was killed by an unknown group of assassins, but it is obvious that his removal from the scene differs little from the revenge meted out recently to another Novorossiya field commander, who went under the nom-de-guerre of Batman. In this earlier case, responsibility for the killing was openly assumed by the official Lugansk authorities.
Eyewitness Donetsk: War and displaced persons in Ukraine and Haiti
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"Pioneer" camp director Svetlana and Dr. Yuriy in discussion on April 14, 2015. Photo by Roger Annis.
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By Roger Annis
Ukraine: 'Before Maidan, Ukraine was more democratic', says Volodymyr Ishchenko
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A toppled statue of Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine.
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Volodymyr Ishchenko interviewed by Javier Morales
April 27, 2015 -- LeftEast, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Javier Morales: How do you think that Ukrainian society is assessing the consequences of the Euromaidan revolution? Has there been any change in their attitudes in the past year?
Ukraine: Eyewitness to the war zone of eastern Ukraine
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Residents of "October" district of Donetsk city hard hit by Ukraine army shelling speak to visiting media group on April 16, 2015. Photo Roger Annis.
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By Roger Annis, Donetsk
April 20, 2015 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, a version of this article was first published at CounterPunch -- -- I have just returned from participating in a four-day reporting tour to the city of Donetsk and the countryside that lies between Donetsk and the Russian city of Rostov to the south and east.
Interview with SYRIZA leader: 'The aim is a truly united Europe'
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Greece's parliament.
For more discussion on SYRIZA's struggle against austerity, click HERE
Antonis Markopoulos interviewed by Chris Spannos
March 21, 2015 -- TeleSUR English, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Since the Greek political party SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left, formed a government with the rightist Independent Greeks party on January 25, 2015, it has faced many challenges.
Ukraine: IMF package foreshadows a permanent 'winter'
March 17, 2015 -- Michael Roberts Blog, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced a new bailout package for Ukraine. It will disburse up to $17.5 billion over the next three years, subject to all the usual conditions for fiscal austerity and neoliberal reforms conducted by the Ukraine government (see https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/ukraine-a-grim- winter-ahead/).
The bailout package is a joke. As a former IMF economist Robert Kahn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, put it, “The odds of this program surviving intact for four years, or even through the end of 2015, are not much higher than for the original 2014 program."
Ukraine: Kyiv, Russia sign shakey ceasefire
Most civilian casualties have been caused by the land and air bombardment of populated areas in the east by Kyiv government forces.
More on the political situation in Ukraine.
By Tony Iltis
February 14, 2015 -- Green Left Weekly, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France emerged from negotiations in Minsk, Belarus on the morning of February 12, after 16 hours of talks, and announced that agreement had been reached for a ceasefire in Ukraine's civil war.
The conflict has divided Ukraine since the overthrow of the unpopular, but democratically elected, president Viktor Yanukovich in February last year.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin told journalists that “despite all the difficulties of the negotiation process, we have managed to agree on the main issues”, the February 12 Moscow Times reported.
Ukraine: US/NATO pushes to arm Kyiv's bloody war in the east
February 3 interview on Democracy Now! with Professor Stephen Cohen of New York University and Princeton University.
More on the political situation in Ukraine.
By Roger Annis
February 6, 2015 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The Kyiv and NATO-driven civil war in Ukraine is taking new and dangerous turns. The United States is threatening to significantly increase its military support to Kyiv's army and the extreme-right militias allied with it, notably in the form of advanced heavy weapons, including artillery systems and anti-tank weaponry. The NATO countries as a whole are increasing their military presence in eastern Europe, including creating rapid-deployment infantry bases.
Increased sanctions against Russia are also on the agenda, although Russia's capacity to withstand sanctions as well as the harmful consequences of sanctions on European countries are cooling the enthusiasm for more sanctions and propelling parallel, military options.
The propaganda war over Crimea’s break from Ukraine
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Celebrations in Lenin Square, in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, after the Crimean people voted to make the peninsula a part of Russia. More pictures at http://mashable.com/2014/03/16/crimea-votes-the-day-in-pictures/.
More on the political situation in Ukraine.
By Roger Annis
December 17, 2014 -- submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by the author, first published on Truthout, December 10, 2014 -- In the propaganda campaign being waged by the NATO countries and the government of Ukraine against Russia and in support of Kiev’s war in the east of the country, the events in Crimea of the past nine months occupy a pivotal place.
The secession from Ukraine that followed the March 16 referendum vote in Crimea is the number one pretext to justify the war as well as NATO’s rising aggression in Eastern Europe.
Ukraine: A year after Maidan, 'nothing has changed for the better'
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US vice-president Joe Biden (right) sees eye to eye with Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko during his visit to Kyiv on the Maidan anniversary, November 21, 2014.
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published various left viewpoints from the region on the political situation in Ukraine.
By Andriy Manchuk, translated by Renfrey Clarke
New website for Ukraine news and analysis
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By Roger Annis
November 26, 2014 -- Following several months of preparatory work, a new website providing information and analysis of the war and political crisis in Ukraine is now online. The website is titled The New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond. You can read it and subscribe to it at this link. Please "like" our Facebook page.
The New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond is a project of the international delegates who attended the antiiwar, anti-fascist conference that took place in Yalta, Crimea on July 6 and 7, 2014. That conference adopted an anti-war declaration that serves as a guide to the information assembled and presented on the new website.
The website already contains a vast storehouse of information and analysis. The content is expanding daily. One feature designed to assist readers is "Editors’ picks", a selection by our editors of the items posted to the website that are varied and that we consider particularly informative.
Ukraine: 'Without peace, humanitarian crisis will be uncontrollable', warns European Left
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More on the political situation in Ukraine.
Statement of a delegation of the Party of the European Left just returned from Kiev
November 17, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- A delegation of the Party of the European Left (EL), headed by two of its vice-presidents, Margarita Mileva and Maite Mola, returned on November 16, after a four-day visit to Kiev.
The aim of the trip was to learn about the situation of the conflict in Ukraine on the ground, in such difficult moments in which the tension increases dangerously and threatens to put an end to the ceasefire, the Minsk agreements and to restart large-scale combats in the province of Donbas.
During these days, the delegation met with activists of social movements, non-governmental organisations, organisations in defence of civil and human rights of Kiev and Donbas, with independent journalists and media activists as well as the Communist Party of Ukraine.
Volodymyr Ishchenko on Ukraine: Maidan, the far right and civil war
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published various left viewpoints from the region on the political situation in Ukraine. Another video is below. For more by
Volodymyr Ishchenko.
By Volodymyr Ishchenko
November 4, 2014 -- Danyliw Research Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine -- How significant was the participation of the far right in Maidan? Unfortunately, this question quickly falls victim to extreme politicisation due to two phenomena: first, active propaganda aimed at discrediting Maidan by its opponents, including the Russian media, and second, by whitewashing attempts by Maidan's (left-) liberal or moderate nationalist supporters.
Ukraine: Election confirms right-wing government and its austerity and war aims
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Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine, with the new modernised main battle tank T-72B for the Ukrainian National Guard.
More on the political situation in Ukraine.
By Roger Annis
November 11, 2014 – A version of this first appeared at Truthout, submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by the author -- The general election to Ukraine’s parliament (the Verkhovna Rada, or Supreme Council) on October 26 was another step by the country’s wealthy power brokers to consolidate their pro-Europe, pro-austerity economic course and related war against the rebellious population in the east of the country. A large, neo-conservative and far-right majority now controls the Rada.
Boris Kagarlitsky: Rebel eastern Ukraine republics between war and elections
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Polling station inside a rebel military base during elections in the city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published various left viewpoints from the region on the political situation in Ukraine.
For more by Boris Kagarlitsky, click HERE.
By Boris Kagarlitsky, Moscow; translated by Renfrey Clarke
November 10, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In the elections that took place in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics on November 2, 2014, the winner was the Russian presidential administration. This, and only this, was the political point of the voting. But the victory remains precarious and conditional.