By International Workers’ Unity–Fourth International
22 February 2025. On the eve of the third year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops have the initiative and are advancing slowly. Lacking weapons and with difficulties in recruiting to enable rotation at the front, Ukraine is experiencing difficulties. In this situation, with Trump in the White House, the US, and Russia started negotiations regarding Ukraine.
American imperialism’s support of Israel enables Zionist atrocities; similarly, Ukraine is an imperialist pawn. European and US imperialism aimed for a favourable negotiation, not Russia’s defeat, explaining past and present weapons delays. And Trump believes it’s time for negotiations. Their content is not to achieve a fair peace, but to divide Ukraine between Russia and the USA. Putin keeps the occupied lands, and the USA keeps the wealth in “rare earths”. An imperialist division like so many others in history at the expense of the people.
To cover up the attempt to colonise Ukraine and its people, the two powers excluded the Zelensky government from the negotiations. Trump sided with Putin, attacking Zelensky’s role in the war.
Since 22 February 2022, the only aggressor has been Russian imperialism headed by Putin, which invaded Ukraine with its tanks and troops. The attacked nation has been Ukraine. The just cause is on the side of the Ukrainian people who resist the invasion. From day one, we revolutionary socialists supported the Ukrainian people, opposing Zelensky and NATO.
The US and Russia exclude European imperialisms from the table, a retreat in the world imperialist concert. Far-right and pro-Moscow influence is increasingly obvious in countries like Hungary, France, and Germany.
Trump’s criticism of Zelensky delaying elections is insulting, especially considering Putin’s suppression of opposition. With Trump, imperialism takes off its mask and at its side, Elon Musk, and other great magnates of capital rub their hands to steal Ukrainian wealth.
Imperialism, trusted by Zelensky’s government, failed to free the people. The Ukrainian government pleases imperialism, leaving open the possibility of negotiations with the United States on the percentage of its mineral wealth that it could give them. The government favours oligarchs and privatisation, burdening workers fighting the war.
There was and is another policy demanded by the Ukrainian political and trade union left, while fighting on the front line against the Russian invasion. The Ukrainian left demanded the government to use great fortunes of the oligarchy associated with multinationals to fund the war effort and help the masses, who are the ones who have endured the defence of Ukraine with death and suffering. A tremendous responsibility lies on most of the world reformist left. They have sided with the imperialist aggressor, Putin. By isolating the struggle of the resistance of the Ukrainian workers and people and that of their political and trade union left. They have accused the Ukrainian people of being an instrument of NATO, of being far-right, and so many other fabrications. They even denounce the revolutionary left as “NATO agents”.
Now it is grotesque that, to the chorus of Castro-Chavism, of the Stalinism of the communist parties or sectors of the centre-left such as Podemos, among others, who have been giving their support to Putin as a supposed “anti-imperialist”, they have been joined by none other than Trump, the current head of imperialism.
It is now grotesque that the chorus of Castro-Chavism, Stalinism of the Communist Party or centre-left sectors such as Podemos, among others, who have been supporting Putin as a supposed “anti-imperialist”, have been joined by none other than Trump and the current head of imperialism. The most fascist wing of US imperialism and the head of NATO. The same Trump who launches a criminal operation against migrants, who threatens the rights of women and the LGBT community, who wants to turn Gaza into a resort through ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. Trump, justifying Putin’s expansionist ambitions, seeks to reaffirm his own in Panama, in Greenland or those of Zionism in Israel in its genocide against the Palestinian people.
Trump’s plans and those of imperialism in Ukraine and Palestine must be defeated. The International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International sent aid to the anti-authoritarian left and the Ukrainian trade unions, who are facing the invasion and the plans of the Zelensky government. We call for further development of solidarity with the struggle for freedom of the Ukrainian people, from an independent working-class and popular position, against the invasion of Russian imperialism and against the plans of Trump and NATO. We also call for support for the resistance of the Russian left, which is opposed to the invasion and is being harshly repressed by Putin and his ally, the dictator Lukashenko of Belarus.
Solidarity with the resistance of the Ukrainian people. Russian troops out of Ukraine.
No to Trump and Putin’s imperialist plan to divide Ukraine
Solidarity against the repression of the left in Russia and Belarus
International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI)
22 February 2025
