Balkan Witness: Ukraine

The Ukraine War: Misperceptions on the Left

Introduction
1. The present situation
2. The Left
3. Voices from Ukraine, and Russian dissidents
4. Historical background
    The role of NATO expansion
5. Ivan Ilyin, Putin’s ideological hero
6. How you can support Ukraine

2. The Left

Balkan Witness deplores the hypocrisy of Leftists who essentially advise the Ukrainians to surrender and who blame NATO for Putin's invasion. Russia attacked, Russia conquered territory, Russia has engaged in massive war crimes, not NATO. International law matters.

Why Ukrainians should prefer a neo-liberal capitalist EU to Putin’s neo-liberal capitalist Eurasian Union Many leftists think Putin’s Russian bandit-capitalism preferable to American neoliberal capitalism. Such people seem to think that the rapacious and destructive greed of big bankers and corporate owners/managers in Russia is somehow preferable to that of their European and American counterparts, even though the former enjoy a degree of independence from governmental regulation that some of the latter can only envy. They see no similarity between Putin and his Eurasianists and George W. Bush and his Neo-cons. They condemn Wolfowitz Cheney and Rumsfield, but not Dugin or Surkov or Glazeev. Accordingly, in no European capital have their been mass liberal-left demonstrations against Putin’s violation of Ukrainian borders. The world’s Noam Chomskys have not condemned Putin for turning Russia into an autocracy or labeled as imperialism his expansion west and south. By Stephen Velychenko, April 18, 2014. The author is chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto.

The Strange Case of Foreign pro-Kremlin Leftists Part 1 Part 2 Leftists are among those who support the Russian ruling class and its decidedly capitalist and imperialist government. By Stephen Velychenko, Krytyka, September and October 2014.

Leftists, Liberals, and Ukraine: A Tale of Double Standards [PDF] By Stephen Velychenko, Krytyka, February 2015. Originally published here.
Anti-Americanism is a set of beliefs that classifies imperialism as a singular specific American rather than global phenomenon and discounts or ignores competition between imperialists and intra-capitalist rivalries. Anti-Americanism bears little relation to Lenin's concept of many rival imperialist ruling classes divided within and engaged in an unending struggle with one another. Instead, anti-Americanists restrict "imperialism to a single US domiated bloc without fundamental intra-ruling-class differences.
Such a perspective leads some leftists and liberals to see the world as a stage for a duel between a capitalist USA and NATO on one side, and capitalist Russia on the other. On this Manichean stage, Ukraine must remain Russian, so the US and NATO do not get stronger. Middle or working class Ukrainians who see benefit in the EU, the massive support for the Maidan and the prospect of support from Ukrainian leftists and liberals in the fight against neo liberal capitalism within the EU have no place on this stage. According to this script, those who support EU membership for Ukraine are dupes in a fascist plot, run by the USA and NATO and its new puppet Kyiv "junta" government. Ukrainian national ambitions and independence are synonymous with what these leftists, liberals, and Russian rulers call fascism.
This article covers the positions of people like Paul Craig Roberts, John Pilger, Oliver Stone, John Helmer, Thomas Hartmann, and Anatol Lieven, who echo the Kremlin’s anti-Ukrainian propaganda on websites like Counterpunch.org, Marxist.com, Greenleft.org, World Socialist Website, Naked Capitalism, Stopimperialism.com, Canadian Dimension, and Globalresearch.ca.

Internationalism, Anti-Imperialism, And the Origins of Campism By Dan La Botz, NewPolitics, Winter 2022
Some older political analysts and activists today, who still think of themselves as leftists, tend to subordinate all questions to U.S. imperialism, arguing that if a state opposes the United States, then it is by definition anti-imperialist, so that its government’s own political, economic, and social system is irrelevant to that principal world conflict, which is imperialism. Moreover, whatever the problems of any of the so-called anti-imperialist states, they should not be examined or criticized, because that might weaken support for the anti-imperialist camp and its struggle against the United States and its allies. So, today’s campists will not discuss the authoritarian and oppressive political powers or the exploitative economic systems of what they consider to be the “anti-imperialist nations,” such as Russia, China, or Cuba, or of Iran or Syria. The campists are even more hostile to the notion that one should examine the class character, governmental system, and economic regimes of beleaguered nations like Venezuela or Nicaragua. To question these governments, they argue, is to aid U.S. imperialism. So traditional Marxism, based on analyzing the political economy, social classes, class struggle and oppression in a country, as well as its international relations, is discarded.
Since in the eyes of these activists the United States is the only or by far the dominant imperial power everywhere, they then define nations that are opposed to the United States—such as Russia, China, Iran, or Syria—as anti-imperialist nations. And thus they often then become apologists for the governments of those nations, even though they are authoritarian governments ruling capitalist countries. They will even attribute to these nations “socialist” or “democratic” characteristics that their governments do not in fact have.
The logic is something like this: X is an enemy of the United States, therefore X is anti-imperialist, therefore we support it, and since it is anti-imperialist, it must be progressive. It follows that any criticism of country X is reactionary. People who criticize any anti-imperialist nation such as X must be on the side of imperialism. So then, those who criticize China for putting some 1.5 million Uyghurs in concentration camps or for its crushing of the democratic movement in Hong Kong must be allied with the United States government and are objectively pro-imperialist. This is the campist logic.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine: a response to David Harvey Harvey presents no explanations for what Russia is doing other than the way the West has treated Russia and Russian reaction to that treatment. He says nothing, most notably, about the way the characteristics of the Putin regime might have led to this war; indeed, his analysis of the Russian political economy seems to be stuck in the 1990s. Putin’s systematic crushing of all possible political opposition in Russia, the Russian state’s stranglehold over information, and Russia’s massive propaganda machine go unmentioned. No contrast is drawn between the way "millions of people all around the world took to the streets" against the Iraq War in 2003 and the fact that all Russian protesters against this war are immediately arrested.
Harvey lists many wars that have taken place around the world since 1945, but omits Russia’s invasions of Georgia in 2008 and of Ukraine in 2014-15 and the Russian proxy war in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Putin’s conservative ultra-nationalism, his denial of the existence of the Ukrainian nation, his ludicrous statements about the threat Ukraine poses to Russia, and his claims that Ukraine, a country with a Jewish President, is run by ‘neo-Nazis’ are all ignored. So is the fact that Russia’s repeated claims over the last year that it had no intention of invading Ukraine were clearly lies. By Derek Hall, Focaal Blog, February 28, 2022

When Western anti-imperialism supports imperialism David Harvey's analysis is in fact a pro-imperialist argument, one that supports Russian irredentism and the restoration of empire under the guise of a “sphere of influence.” Russian imperialism has always worked on different principles than Western imperialism, given that it has been largely non-capitalist, but it is imperialism nonetheless, in cultural, political and economic senses of that term. Blaming the West for “humiliating” Russia occludes Russia’s own expansionist ideologies and desires for restoration of empire, and justifies the violent military domination of people who can and should decide their own destinies. By Elizabeth Cullen Dunn, Focaal Blog, March 3, 2022

Putin Is Attempting to Center Russia as a Hub of the Global Right Wing For much of the left, exclusive opposition to U.S. imperialism is equivalent to being on the “right side” of history. This is frequently articulated in terms of the notion that the priority for the U.S. left must be opposition to U.S. imperialism. The problem here is that, first, it ignores that the U.S. is not the sole source of global violence and oppression on this planet and, second, that there have been times when the U.S. left has had to focus elsewhere, e.g., support for the Spanish Republic in 1936 in the face of a fascist uprising and the intervention of Italy and Germany. This reality coexists with the fact that the U.S. had not ceased to be imperialist. What our examination should remind us is that Putin is part of a global right-wing authoritarian movement that seeks to “overthrow” the 20th century. In Putin’s specific case, we are looking at a complete repudiation of the founding principles of the USSR, most particularly, the notion of the right to national self-determination. But what is also underway is the positioning of Putin-led Russia as a pole for the global right. Opposition to socialism, for sure, but also opposition to constitutional rule as a whole. A mistake made by several anti-imperialists, in the 1930s and early 1940s, was to see in Imperial Japan a savior from Western colonialism and imperialism. It is to the credit of communists such as those of the Viet Minh in Vietnam, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Communist Party of China that they could see through the alleged anti-imperialism of Japan and recognize that what was being introduced through the so-called Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was not “co-prosperity” but capitalist domination under Japan and a racial subordination of entire populations. We should ponder this history as we reflect on Putin’s obsession with Eurasia and the white supremacist, homophobic, sexist, religious intolerant politics that rest behind that one term. By Carl Davidson and Bill Fletcher Jr., Truthout, March 28, 2022

Readers respond to the US Peace Council Statement on Russia's Military Intervention in Ukraine. Portside, March 28, 2022

The Bosnian Precedent ... anticipating Russia's Crimes Against Humanity in Ukraine. Just as a battle had to be waged among progressives to denounce those among us who tended to side with the Serbian forces committing genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo, similar issues have arisen regarding Russia's attack on Ukraine. By Jasmin Mujanovic, Byline Times, April 7, 2022

Ukraine and the Left Interview with Alex Gendler, who discusses the current Russian war against Ukraine, his former home, and critically examines left debates on the conflict. His talk addresses the sympathy some leftists have given Russia in the name of anti-imperialism, offering a perspective that points beyond simplistic cheerleading of various state actors. He also explores how left movements can best oppose the war without reinforcing the nationalist, statist, and capitalist assumptions reflected in most current discourse on the topic. See at 9 and 33 minutes. April 13, 2022

Whose side are we on? The war in Ukraine and the crisis of the Left That is the question anyone professing a commitment to anti-imperialism should be asking when a sovereign nation is invaded by a Great Power. Clearly, concisely, the authors argue that aggressive war is the first crime of war, from which all others flow. Putin has now committed this crime of war, and that is the premise from which we should analyze the Ukraine crisis. States large and small have one legitimate security interest, which is to have their sovereignty respected - not to be invaded, bombed, blockaded, or subverted. By Van Gosse and Bill Fletcher Jr., Portside, April 21, 2022

When Should We Stop Excusing the Russian Invasion? It is time to speak out against a misconstruing of what has been unfolding in Ukraine and an inclination to either excuse Russian aggression or to advance a position of neutrality. As individuals who are socialists and have been integrally involved in our respective people’s struggles for democracy and self-determination, we simply cannot remain silent, even though this puts us at odds with some comrades we have known, respected, and loved for years. By Bill Fletcher Jr., Bill Gallegos, and Jamala Rogers, Portside, May 11, 2022

Why Ukraine Matters for the Left Supporting the defense of Ukraine is the right thing for the global left to do, even if our own government is doing it. By Matthew Duss, a foreign policy advisor for Sen. Bernie Sanders. The New Republic, June 2, 2022

Response to "Left Internationalism in the Heart of Empire" Putin’s rise was not the consequence of U.S. policies; it emerged from internal Russian politics and history—forces that it would behoove us to understand. In the past two decades, Russia has waged five wars: Chechnya, Syria, Georgia, Crimea and the Donbas, and Ukraine (again). This ain’t about NATO. By Susie Linfield. Dissent Magazine, June 2022

Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine Today, one cannot be a leftist if one does not unequivocally stand behind Ukraine. To be a leftist who “shows understanding” for Russia is like to be one of those leftists who, before Germany attacked the Soviet Union, took seriously German “anti-imperialist” rhetoric directed at the UK and advocated neutrality in the war of Germany against France and the UK. If the left will fail here, the game is over for it. By Slavoj Žižek, The Guardian, June 21, 2022

Ukraine and the Peace Movement It is urgent to end the war in Ukraine. But to achieve this goal, "Russia Out Now" is a better slogan than "Diplomacy Now." The peace movement has a standard position in favor of diplomacy over war. But think about the Vietnam war. While many liberal opponents of the war called for “Negotiations Now,” the demand of the radical anti-war movement—made up of millions who marched in the streets—was “Out Now.” The point was that the United States had no moral rights in Vietnam and therefore there was nothing for it to negotiate. It needed simply to withdraw its troops. So while we wanted peace, we supported Vietnam’s struggle for independence against the United States. The same is true in Ukraine today. Justice demands immediate and unconditional Russian withdrawal from all of Ukraine. Russian anti-war activists have also taken this position. We say to Russia as we once said to the United States: “Out Now!” By Steven R. Shalom and Dan La Botz, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 19, 2022

Nazis, Nukes, and NATO Putin's three "N"s from the beginning of the war. His three propaganda slogans have their origins in Soviet or Russian trauma. They emerge as excuses for the war not because they have anything to do with Putin's motives or Russia's interests, but because they summon Russian fears that can be usefully directed outward, against the rest of the world. Russian propaganda reaches us for much the same reasons it reaches Russians.
The three "N"s give us no analytical purchase on what is actually going on; we cling to them for the reasons that Russians do, which is that they touch deeper emotions. If your default inclination is guilt about the world, and you are inclined to believe that America is responsible for all evil, then your "N" is NATO. If you are fearful and looking for a reason to do nothing, then you are best served by "nukes." And if you like to look down on others as barbarians, or have the urge to be seen as the most radical person in your pack, you will be susceptible to Putin's characterization of his chosen enemies as "Nazis." By Timothy Snyder, July 21, 2022

Russia’s Brutal Honesty Has Destroyed the West’s Appeasers Yet plenty of Western intellectuals and politicians still ignore what Moscow is saying loud and clear. Some pundits insist that there is a “peaceful” solution - which usually translates to stopping weapons deliveries to Ukraine and leaving the country to Russian leader Vladimir Putin to pick apart - or that the conflict is about the Kremlin’s “interests” or “security concerns.” All the while, the evidence of Russia’s actual goals and war crimes in Ukraine has become ever more overwhelming.
If, like the political scientist John Mearsheimer, your arguments are being used by Russian state television to prop up the regime’s ridiculous claims that Kyiv and Washington are to blame for this war, you should probably reconsider the intellectual journey that led you to this point. If, like many of the Western leftists obsessed with the NATO war cause theory, you reject imperialism and colonialism as a matter of principle (rather than only its U.S. or British versions), you couldn’t have missed the Kremlin’s detailed public plans for dismantling Ukraine’s sovereignty, Russia’s plundering of faraway lands like Sudan to fund a war of conquest and annihilation, and the Kremlin’s use of ethnic minorities as cannon fodder for the war.
If you think Ukraine has a problem with a nationalist far right, then you might have noticed the unapologetic Hitler worshippers in the ranks of the Russian forces. If, like the British Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn, you promote peace through diplomacy - appeasement-speak for stopping military aid to Ukraine and giving Putin what he wants - you should be aware by now of the realities in the Russian-occupied areas and ask yourself if this is really the fate you are willing to condemn millions of Ukrainians to. You might take it as a sign that you’re on the wrong side of history -- and just about anyone’s understanding of ethics, including the right to self-defense -- when you have to say out loud that you’re not a Putin puppet. By Alexey Kovalev, Foreign Policy, August 12, 2022. The writer is an investigative editor at Meduza.

How the Anti-war Camp Went Intellectually Bankrupt Critics of U.S. foreign policy from both ends of the ideological spectrum have found common cause in supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By James Kirchick, The Atlantic, September 28, 2022

Exiled Russian Activist Challenges Pacifist Approach to Ending War on Ukraine Interview with Russian anti-war activist Lolija Nordic:
It is absurd to demand that an occupied country stop fighting for its liberation and essentially give up its land for peace. It’s the same as telling a victim of violence to not resist a person who tries to abuse, rape or murder them. Why would we tell that to Ukrainians?
Our task is to stop the aggressor. That means first and foremost building solidarity with Ukraine and its people. They have been screaming for help for months. They don’t have enough weapons to fight against Russian aggression. They don’t have defensive weapons to protect their citizens from missile attacks. They deserve all the military and financial help to liberate their country.
Instead of putting demands on Ukraine to stop fighting, we should be focused on doing all we can to weaken Russia’s war machine. If we are disturbed by global militarization, we should be first of all focused not on the question of whether it’s good to provide weapons to Ukraine, but on how to demilitarize and weaken the Russian army, how to put pressure on those countries that have been providing weapons to Russian soldiers or equipment to Russian police to beat and arrest protesters. To begin with, countries should stop financing Putin’s war and reinforcing the Russian military by buying Russian fossil fuels. By Ashley Smith, Truthout, November 13, 2022

Navigating the Left's Ukraine Debate The principle of self-determination is important to understanding the conflict ... and more. By Bill Fletcher Jr and Elly Leary, November 15, 2022

Ukraine Solidarity Network The brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a litmus test for the Left. A principled and strategic commitment to the Ukrainian people, in their defense against Russian imperialism, offers the answer. The Ukraine Solidarity Network (U.S.) reaches out to unions, communities, and individuals from diverse backgrounds to build moral, political, and material support for the people of Ukraine in their resistance to Russia’s criminal invasion and their struggle for an independent, egalitarian, and democratic country. January 13, 2023

One year after the Russian invasion, what should solidarity with Ukraine look like?
* Some Left parties and intellectuals advocate for a value-free “multipolarity” to avoid substantive protests against crimes against humanity by Russia and China.
* They also limit their solidarity to Ukraine lest efforts to correct the rampant Putinist propaganda distract us from our “national priority” of fighting fascism.
* They also hold their members and supporters back from complete identification with and advocacy for the Ukraine resistance. They argue that an outright defeat might weaken Russia and thus be a setback for “multipolarity,” which they claim is important, “regardless of” whether these non-US Big Powers are despotic.
* But instead of being a “pole to keep US imperialism in check,” they are emerging as a lighting rod for anti-democratic forces all over the world.
* The sources where we sought moral leadership and intellectual, fact-based analysis in the past are now themselves victims or propagandists of untruths. We need to look at the changing world with humility, without the hubris that all the answers to today’s problems are to be found in outdated paradigms of the past, which are at best distorted, at worst dishonest – and always dangerous.
* Are we willing to say that “end the war” can only mean “an end to the Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine”?
By Kavita Krishnan, Scroll.in (India), February 25, 2023

What Are the Lessons of Vietnam for Ukraine Today? As the Left did in nearly all earlier cases of struggle for colonial liberation, so in this one too it should stand with the liberation movement. By Stephen R. Shalom and Dan La Botz, Foreign Policy In Focus, January 23, 2023

Reject the Left-Right Alliance Against Ukraine If American leftists take seriously their commitment to self-rule and loathing of foreign aggression, they should shed their ambivalence about supporting Ukraine. By Michael Kazin, Dissent Magazine, March 7, 2023

The Left Case Against the "Restraint" Policy on Ukraine "I have been a critic of disastrous foreign wars. This time is different." The author quotes a surprising ally, Marianne Williamson, who says, "It’s possible to believe that the undue influence of the U.S. war machine… is very real, and at the same time believe the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a criminal venture that cannot be tolerated by the world." By Joe Cirincione, March 13, 2023

Russia out! Solidarity with the Ukrainian Resistance A panel of activists and experts discusses the roots, nature, and politics of the war and Ukraine's resistance. One hour 42 minutes long, but see especially Bill Fletcher's remarks at 1:16:46. Presented by Ukraine Solidarity Network-U.S. March 2023

A Russian Disinformation Operation in Oak Harbor, Washington Donbas Devushka takes left-evasionists for a ride. One of the pro-Putinist left's favorite sources of Kremlinist propaganda from inside Ukraine was just revealed to actually be an American tropical-fish store owner from New Jersey, now podcasting from Oak Harbor, Washington. Her identity was traced by a Ukrainian anti-propagandist group when she sloppily edited and then shared the leaks propagated by right-winger, racist, and anti-Semite Putin fan and US Air National guardsman Jack Teixieira on her Telegram account, and since then she’s been exposed as (almost certainly) being at the very centre of a concentrated Russian disinformation campaign aimed at left-leaning or left-identifying Americans. By James Doyle, April 2023

The Surprising Pervasiveness of American Arrogance Advocates of "peace now" would do well to listen to what Ukrainian and Russian progressives have to say. These US activists have not bothered to consult the victims in this conflict? Isn't that what we're supposed to be about - in solidarity with the victims? By John Feffer, Foreign Policy In Focus, May 24, 2023
The Peace Movement and Ukraine Follow-on to the above article. By John Feffer, June 30, 2023

Russia falsely claims to be the victim of Ukraine The salient factor in the Russo-Ukrainian war is not that from “Russia's perspective” NATO is perceived as a threat. The salient factor is that Russia has formed a perspective in which other countries do not exist or do not matter. Russia's moral failure - its descent into solipsism - is the salient *causal* factor in this story. Some people think that moral concepts interfere with causal understanding. The truth is the opposite. Causal understanding requires the intelligent use of moral concepts. By Jamie Mayerfeld, University of Washington, July 18, 2023

James Connolly and Ukraine The Irish socialist opposed inter-imperialist wars; he supported smaller nations fighting to achieve or maintain their independence, even if their leadership was pro-capitalist. His support did not cease if the independence movements sought arms from other imperial powers. He thought movements should take advantage of divisions among imperial powers to get arms. By Conor Kostick, Independent Left (Ireland), July 20, 2023

How Russian colonialism took the Western anti-imperialist Left for a ride Blindness to Russian colonialism distorts Westerners' view of the war. For example, Cornel West continues to accommodate Russia. In a July 13 CNN interview, West called Russia's invasion "criminal" but insisted it was "provoked by the expansion of NATO" and is a "proxy war between the American Empire and the Russian Federation," adding Neville Chamberlain-esque icing on the appeasement cake by proposing Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia. By Alaric Dearment, Salon, July 29, 2023

Spinning Illusions: The Anti-American Left and the Ukraine War In recent decades, a segment of the global Left has looked upon the U.S. government as the Great Satan in international affairs, responsible for the world’s major ills. Thus, on those occasions when countries at odds with the United States behaved like brutal imperialist powers, these “Campists” (as they were called thanks to their division of the world into an evil U.S. imperialist camp and its benign opponents) either ignored the action or blamed it on the U.S. government and U.S. allies. This warped vision became particularly apparent during the Russian government’s military invasion, occupation, and annexation of Ukraine, when major organizations on the anti-American Left, although supposedly Antiwar and Anti-Imperialist, focused their criticism solely on the U.S. government, NATO, and Ukraine. By Lawrence S. Wittner, PeaceVoice, August 4, 2023

The anti-imperialism of fools The German socialist August Bebel once commented that anti-semitism is the “socialism of fools” because the anti-semites recognized capitalist exploitation only if the exploiter happened to be Jewish but who would otherwise turn a blind eye to exploitation emanating from other quarters. Over a century later, such socialism of fools has been resurrected by a self-declared “anti-imperialist” left that condemns capitalist exploitation and repression around the world when it is practiced by the U.S. and other Western powers or the governments they support, yet turns a blind eye to, or even defends repressive, authoritarian, and dictatorial states simply because these states face hostility from Washington. By William Robinson, U.C. Santa Barbara, August 7, 2023

The Socialist Case for Supporting Ukraine Debunks the claim that NATO expansion caused the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Also, cites Marx's position on the Crimean War. By Ryan Cooper, August 21, 2023

NEW What is Left? It should be a modest request that "left" not mean supporters of authoritarian regimes. By Rebecca Solnit, Portside, March 1, 2024

Noam Chomsky

Click to enlarge

Chomsky on Ukraine Chomsky is an “anti-imperialist” who recognizes only one empire across the entirety of the last 150 years or so. But the world has moved on. The US is no longer the world’s uncontested global hegemon. It may try to be, but it is not likely to recover that status. Its economic superiority has declined, and with global geopolitics being what they are in the late fossil fuel (becoming early green-energy) era, the economic world is clearly more scrambled and multi-polar. Chomsky is aware of these things, but he tends to relegate them to the sidelines. This means that he misses the ways in which new alliances, and potential new hegemonies, are emerging. By Adrian Ivakhiv, UKR-TAZ, University of Vermont, March 6, 2022

Harsh critique of Chomsky on Ukraine The author fully dissects Bill Fletcher's Real News interview with Chomsky, who blames the Kosovo intervention for a downturn in US-Russia relations, which is simplistic and anachronistic. In 1998-99, Russia had not even come into its period of resurgence yet. By Stanley Heller, NewPolitics, April 18, 2022

In the Fletcher interview, Chomsky repeats his long-running falsehood about the beginnings of the Kosovo war:

In the case of Kosovo, NATO aggression (meaning U.S. aggression) was claimed to be "illegal but justified" (for example, by the International Commission on Kosovo chaired by Richard Goldstone) on grounds that the bombing was undertaken to terminate ongoing atrocities. That judgment required reversal of the chronology. The evidence is overwhelming that the flood of atrocities was the consequence of the invasion: predictable, predicted, anticipated. Furthermore, diplomatic options were available [but] as usual, ignored in favor of violence.

That position of Chomsky's on Kosovo has been long-since refuted extensively. He ignores the months of Serbian attacks on the people of Kosovo that preceded NATO involvement.

Open letter to Chomsky and other like-minded intellectuals on the Russia-Ukraine war The letter takes Chomsky to task for the following recurring fallacies in Chomsky's statements:
   1. Denying Ukraine's sovereign integrity
   2. Treating Ukraine as an American pawn on a geo-political chessboard
   3. Suggesting that Russia was threatened by NATO
   4. Stating that the U.S. isn't any better than Russia
   5. Whitewashing Putin's goals for invading Ukraine
   6. Assuming that Putin is interested in a diplomatic solution
   7. Advocating that yielding to Russian demands is the way to avert a nuclear war
By Yuriy Gorodnichenko, professor of economics, University of California at Berkeley (with other academic economists), May 19, 2022

How to critique Chomsky on Ukraine This talk by an ex-pat Russian philosopher and linguist deconstructs Chomsky's positions. The analysis is perceptive but more deferential to Chomsky than appropriate. 25 minutes. By Vlad Vexler, May 15, 2022
Comment on Vexler's critique, by Roger Lippman, September 26, 2022

Critique of Chomsky and pacifists on Ukraine, with reference to George Orwell (Audio Episode 124) This commentary runs from 44:10 to 46:40. For more on Orwell and Chomsky, start at the beginning. By Bill Weinberg, CounterVortex, June 2022

Chomsky has no proposal for ending Russia's war on Ukraine In an interview, Chomsky has nothing to say about the position of Ukrainians; Ukraine's need for weapons to defend itself; Russian imperial ambitions; and the Russian anti-war movement. By Dick Nichols, greenleft, June 30, 2022

Democratic Socialists of America

What the DSA International Committee's Ukraine statement gets wrong NewPolitics, February 9, 2022

The Left Has Half-Baked Answers on Ukraine A review of the positions of the DSA International Committee and some other groups. By Eric Levitz, New York Magazine, March 20, 2022

DSA and the Russian War on Ukraine: Political Paralysis DSA is in an anomalous position: a political organization with no useful position on the central foreign policy question of the day. Several Stalinist types won election to DSA’s top leadership body, the National Political Committee, where they faced opposition from an equal number of internationalists, making it impossible for DSA to pass a meaningful position on the Russian war on Ukraine. By Dan La Botz, NewPolitics, May 24, 2022

Ukraine: Which side are you on? Left-wing Democrats need to stand up for international law. Imagine an alt-history of the Spanish Civil War where, after some initial reversals, the anti-fascist side starts winning. They drive back Franco’s armies largely because France, Britain and the USA reject “non-intervention” and send in heavy weapons, offsetting the support coming from Hitler and Mussolini. By Paul Mason, The Medium, December 18, 2022
DSA and Russia’s War on Ukraine: Toward a Mass Movement of Solidarity with Ukraine In its response to the Russian invasion, the DSA International Committee (IC) has not spoken out strongly against the violence that has killed thousands of civilians and displaced more than ten million and forcing five million or so to seek refuge abroad. Nor against the bombings that have destroyed infrastructure and residential housing, and the many documented human rights violations such as the atrocities in Bucha, Izium, and cities across eastern Ukraine. Nor against Putin’s imperialist ideology that denies the existence of a Ukrainian people and the nation of Ukraine and makes the false claims that Russia is de-Nazifying Ukraine. Dalbon too doesn’t mention these. The IC has joined with those sectors of the “peace movement” that place blame for what’s happening on the United States, the European Union, and NATO, rather than on the Russian aggressor. By Dan La Botz and Stephen R. Shalom, December 26, 2022
Green Party USA The party passed a resolution calling for an end to US military aid to Ukraine. But the vote was 48-44, with 54 abstentions - not exactly a resounding decision. The resolution calls for negotiations, failing to note that Putin, in also calling for negotiations, declared his takeover of portions of eastern Ukraine non-negotiable.
This article discusses in detail the struggle within the party. It also notes that Jill Stein, their 2016 presidential candidate, appears at rallies flanked by the Russian flag, or sometimes the Chinese flag.
Green parties around the world have been unhesitating in their solidarity with Ukraine, but the US Greens are another case of American exceptionalism. It is the only Green Party in the world that is so divided on Ukraine.
By Howie Hawkins, Green Party 2020 presidential nominee, July 2023

Party for Socialism and Liberation
and its front group ANSWER

Leans toward Russia and reserves its strongest condemnation on Russia's Ukraine invasion for the US government.

Calls for an end to US military aid to Ukraine, leaving the country at the mercy of the Russian invaders. [Per leaflets distributed at other groups' demonstrations.]

Laments the fall of the Soviet Union.

Admires North Korea. Not a word about the murderous policies of Kim Jong Un, who, unlike Trump, actually has gotten away with the local equivalent of shooting someone dead on Fifth Avenue.

Stephen F. Cohen

Deconstructing Stephen F. Cohen Counterpunch endorses the late Cohen's once plausible apologies for Putin (2018). The author wonders why the magazine would continue to recommend those apologies, already demolished by the facts of 2022. By Jonathan Gallant, professor emeritus, University of Washington Medical Center, May 8, 2022

Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs

Open letter to Nuclear Age Peace Foundation The words and deeds of Sachs with regard to Ukraine fuel misunderstanding, suspicion, and fear. September 17, 2023

Open letter to Jeffrey Sachs on his position regarding Russian war on Ukraine (It is not clear whether Sachs could be considered a progressive, but his arguments have been taken up by many on the Left.) This letter by a group of economists, including some Ukrainians, concisely takes on several key points in the anti-Ukrainian stance of Sachs:

Denying the agency of Ukraine

NATO provoked Russia

Denying Ukraine's sovereign integrity

Pushing forward Kremlin's peace plans

Presenting Ukraine as a divided country

By VoxUkraine Group of Authors, March 20, 2023

Max Blumenthal

Grayzone, Grifters, and the Cult of the Tank Blumenthal, of Grayzone a peripatetic pro-Russian commentator, is discussed in this article. By Joshua Collins, February 10, 2020

See also Enter the Grayzone: fringe leftists deny the scale of China's Uyghur oppression By Caitlin Thompson, July 30, 2020

How the Anti-war Camp Went Intellectually Bankrupt Although The GrayZone would characterize itself as an “anti-imperialist” news source, the opaquely financed publication is highly selective in the empires it chooses to scrutinize; it is difficult to find criticism of Russia or China—or any other American adversary—on its site. A more accurate descriptor of its ideological outlook is “campist,” denoting a segment of the sectarian far left that sees the world as divided into two camps: the imperialist West and the anti-imperialist rest. In that Manichaean domain—one that lacks, naturally, any shades of gray—no anti-Western tyrant is too brutal for fawning adulation. By James Kirchick, The Atlantic, September 28, 2022

Medea Benjamin

Making sense of the Ukraine war Benjamin's book "War in Ukraine" misinforms and distorts more than it informs and clarifies. It has done a tremendous disservice to the people of Ukraine resisting an invasion, the people of Russia living under (especially those resisting) a criminal regime, and the international Left as a whole. And in so doing, it provides left cover for Putin’s war machine. By Eric Draitser, Tempest, January 31, 2023

Review of Benjamin's book in detail (Transcript) By Bill Weinberg, CounterVortex, December 9, 2022

Leaflet distributed at Benjamin's NY State events. Ukraine Solidarity, April 2023

What is Left? It should be a modest request that "left" not mean supporters of authoritarian regimes. This article does not name Benjamin, but it applies to her. By Rebecca Solnit, Portside, March 1, 2024

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

On CounterSpin, the weekly radio show of FAIR on February 24, Bryce Greene stated, "This current escalation started because of the U.S. involvement in the Ukrainian government’s politics.” (Greene expressed a similar position in a FAIR article of January 28, 2022.)

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In Episode 131 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg critiques the ironically named "Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting" for openly spreading Russian disinformation.
FAIR serially portrays the 2014 Maidan Revolution as a US-instrumented, Nazi tainted, unconstitutional “coup.” FAIR commentators Luca Goldmansour , Gregory Shupak and Bryce Greene are all guilty of this.
They do not bother to consult voices of Ukrainian civil society—academics, media watchdogs, and human rights groups —that refute this notion.
Glomming onto the notorious Nuland phone call to dismiss a grassroots pro-democracy uprising as a Washington “regime change” intrigue reveals chauvinistic contempt for the Ukrainians. And hyping the supposed “Nazi” threat in Ukraine (while ignoring the Nazi-nostalgist and neo-fascist elements on the Russian side) abets Putin’s ultra-cynical propaganda stratagem of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism.
Rather than calling out Fox News for its propaganda service to Putin, FAIR instead joins them. How did a supposed progressive media watchdog become a de facto arm of Kremlin war propaganda?

John Mearsheimer

The greatest source of misinformation on Ukraine In a widely viewed 2015 YouTube video, Mearsheimer presents a hodgepodge of failed predictions. He states that there will be no “new Cold War” and claims “Nato is in serious trouble and will disappear as a functioning alliance over China.” He dismisses the idea that Putin is bent on “creating a greater Russia,” conveniently overlooking his annexation of territories from two separate states and his devastation of Syria. And he assures his audience that there is no way Putin is going to carry out a full scale invasion of Ukraine. By Theo Horesh, Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres, March 21, 2022

What's Missing from John Mearsheimer's Analysis of the Ukraine War The international relations scholar Mearsheimer focuses on US and NATO policies for causing the Ukraine war and its continuation. Mearsheimer's short disclaimer that he is against Putin's invasion is like a cancer warning slapped on a pack of cigarettes. These views are echoed by many on the far left, which makes it vital to understand the gaps in his analysis that produce such a flawed result. By Joe Cirincione, Russia Matters, July 29, 2022. The author is a national security expert who formerly served as president of the Ploughares Fund and directed the nonproliferation program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Various:

Chris Hedges
David Swanson (World Beyond War)
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
Glenn Greenwald
Margaret Flowers (Popular Resistance) Medea Benjamin (Code Pink)
Michael Nagler (Metta Center for Nonviolence)
Norman Solomon (Roots Action)
Veterans for Peace members

From Facts Over Ideology, Peace Over War, by Terry Burke and Andrew Berman, In These Times [ITT], March 21, 2022:

Well-known journalist Chris Hedges has been paid for several years by the Russian government for his show on RT (Russia Today). He claimed that the Ukraine crisis has been created by desperate Democrats. "When all else fails, when you are clueless about how to halt a 7.5% inflation rate, when your Build Back Better bill is gutted…then you must make the public afraid of enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Glenn Greenwald recently said that NATO is the only reason for the war.

On CounterSpin, the weekly radio show of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting on February 24, Bryce Greene stated, "This current escalation started because of the U.S. involvement in the Ukrainian government’s politics.” (Greene expressed a similar position in a FAIR article of January 28, 2022.)

Yes, we should question the mainstream narrative on Ukraine as these outlets and journalists do, but they rarely question Putin’s claims.

Two decades into its independence, the President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych was overthrown in massive popular protests. Those protests were met with government violence in which over 100 people were killed. In a time of economic difficulties in Ukraine, Yanukovych was seen as corrupt and subservient to Russia. He had rejected a pending trade agreement with the European Union that the Ukraine Parliament had endorsed. The significant economic benefits that would be gained by membership in the EU had wide appeal to Ukrainians. Yanukovych wanted instead to seek enhanced ties with Russia. Ukrainians, proud of their independence, saw improved relations with the EU as a road to a higher standard of living rather than returning to economic tutelage under Russia. Ukrainians call the massive protests that overthrew Yanukovych, the “Revolution of Dignity.” The Russian government and its apologists call it a "US/CIA coup."

[In] progressive media’s coverage of Putin and Russia, ... there is very little reporting of Putin’s mafia ties, his billionaire wealth, his support of the far right around the world, the poverty of the Russian populace, the repression of journalists and activists, his Christian nationalism, his persecution of the LGBTQ community, and his magical elections.
David Swanson (World Beyond War), Norman Solomon (Roots Action), Margaret Flowers (Popular Resistance), Michael Nagler (Metta Center for Nonviolence), and members of Veterans for Peace and Code Pink signed a statement in January 2016 promoting a “multi-polar world” that is led by China and Russia, with the United States playing a secondary role. The signers ignore Russia’s imperialist interventions in Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Georgia, and Moldova claiming that “Russia and China are the major world powers that support the concept of Multipolarity, and act as a global counterbalance to Western hegemony.” There are numerous articles by UNAC, Popular Resistance, World Beyond War, and Black Agenda Report that have a pro-Russia bias and do not criticize Putin. In placing Russia and China as the counterbalance to Western power, this view denies their imperialism and avoids examining their crimes.
Many U.S. peace activists are accustomed to opposing U.S. foreign policy. The horrors of the Vietnam War generated a visceral hatred of America in some anti-war activists of that era. U.S. government and media lies helped build support for the wars in Central America and the Middle East. Millions of people have died in these wars. We can’t ignore our history, but we also cannot assume that every conflict is framed by the U.S. government lying to lead us into war. This time it is clearly Russia that has lied and started a war. We have to recognize that Ukraine is different from Vietnam, from Iraq, from Afghanistan. [Actually, Russia in Ukraine has a strong resemblance to the US in Iraq. --ed.] We have to learn Ukraine’s history and listen to Ukrainians and anti-war Russians.

Our U.S. peace movement is less effective and less relevant when we are not well informed. Analysis based on ideology rather than facts is harmful. We are less able to advocate for intelligent, peaceful solutions when we don’t understand what is really happening. We isolate ourselves and cannot build a mass movement for peace and justice.

It is not pro-war to honestly critique both sides of a conflict. The argument that we are obliged to criticize only U.S. war crimes is a recipe for failure. As international peace and justice activists, we must open our eyes and speak out against war and aggression regardless of the perpetrator. All humanity is our constituency.
The Big Business of Uyghur Genocide Denial An investigation reveals a network of charities funneling millions into left-wing platforms that take Beijing's side on genocide allegations. Some of the same recipients show up as apologists for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including Medea Benjamin, of Code Pink. The title doesn’t begin to cover all of what’s in this article. New Lines Magazine, January 18, 2022
Follow-up: A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul A further investigation into the concerns raised by the New Lines article. The New York Times, August 5, 2023
Who is Roy Singham? What does his web consist of? Additional sources on where the multi-millionaire's money goes. Some of it goes to Code Pink, of which his wife, Jodie Evans, is a co-founder and member. August 22, 2023

How you can support Ukraine

Contribute to Ukraine TrustChain. Its teams provide urgent food, medical supplies, and rides to safety. See the group's Weekly Reports.

Donate to support humanitarian aid. If you can, consider supporting a group working to offer medical, material, and humanitarian aid to people in Ukraine, and to people fleeing the Russian invasion and seeking refuge in neighboring countries. Thirty verified ways to contribute financially are listed on this resource page by Global Citizen.
Come Back Alive, a Ukrainian NGO that supports soldiers on the battlefield and veterans
United 24, the Ukrainian state platform for donations, with many excellent projects

RAZOM, a US NGO, which cooperates with Ukrainian NGOs to support civilians; tax-deductible for US taxpayers

Documenting Ukraine, a project run by Timothy Snyder that helps to give Ukrainians a voice; tax-deductible for US taxpayers