Stop arming Ukrainian fascists!

In London...

by Theo Russell

Activists protested last week in London, Glasgow and Dublin, calling on Britain and NATO to stop sending weapons to the illegitimate Banderite junta in Kiev. They demanded “No More British Challengers, Storm Shadows and Depleted Uranium for Ukraine!”, “No More British Weapons for Ukrainian Nazis”, and “Zelensky - Your mandate expired on 29th  March 2024 - Step aside and stop blocking peace talks!” 
The protests on 15th August coincided with the Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Kursk province, where the British government has given permission to the Kiev junta to use British weapons on Russian territory, including Challenger 2 tanks which use depleted uranium shells. 
These shells don’t pose an immediate radiation threat, but the particles from their use go into the soil and water table, remaining radioactive for 4.5 billion years. They have led to a surge in cancer cases affecting people of all ages in Serbia and Iraq, and no-one knows how the DU can be removed from the environment.
But the biggest controversy concerns permission for Kiev to use its Storm Shadow missiles for long range strikes into Russia. Less than a week after Labour took power, Keir Starmer suggested that Britain would give Zelensky the green light, but the next day Downing Street changed its mind.

...Glasgow

The problem for the fanatical war lobby at the Daily Telegraph and at the top of the British military is that the Storm Shadow is a joint project and its use requires the permission of France, but also from the Americans as they are the dominant force in NATO’s military support for Ukraine.
The UK has repeatedly pressed Washington for permission for long range strikes, but last week a Pentagon spokesman told a briefing that the USA is concerned about the potential for escalation.
The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that such strikes would lead to NATO bases anywhere in the world becoming targets of the Russians and states and armed groups allied to Russia. 
Such NATO strikes would be incredibly reckless and another step towards a possible all out NATO-Russia conflict – and yet Britain continues to push for them!
Former UK ambassador to Moscow Tony Brenton said on BBC Radio last year that "Britain is the most aggressive of all the NATO members in Ukraine” and has “more special forces in Ukraine than any other NATO country”. 
A senior aide to President Putin, Nikolay Patrushev, says that NATO countries – primarily the USA and the UK – had masterminded the Ukrainian foray in Kursk province, which he said was “planned with the participation of NATO and Western special services".
In that operation a video has emerged of Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk wearing Second World War German helmets sporting the emblem of the Waffen SS and taunting a Russian prisoner.
The International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) campaign to expose the countless crimes of the Banderite Nazis in Ukraine – NATO’s proxies whose ancestors created their own fascist ideology in the 1930s – is operating in a very difficult and hostile environment in Britain. 
The murders, torture and imprisonment of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been totally hidden by the British media, which since the NATO coup in 2014 has reported only from one side of the war which started that year.

and Dublin...

But we know from ten years of protests on the streets, and our experience of working class communities, that very many people in Britain don’t believe the daily lies of the Banderite-London-Washington propaganda network, but they do know that Nazis are running wild in Ukraine. 
At every protest we have held the number of people showing support for our demands has been 20 to 30 higher than those who have attacked us.
At our London protest many people showed their support, some (including one who looked like a senior military officer) were very unhappy. The only person to launch an aggressive verbal attack was a Ukrainian Banderite, who is presumably on an extended holiday in Britain. He was met with an equally strong response and didn’t stick around for long.
Despite the difficulties we face we will continue our solidarity with all those resisting the return of Nazism to Ukraine, defending the rights of all of Ukraine’s national communities, and the millions living in exile.
Since 2014 we have warned that what is happening in Ukraine is “a warning to Europe and the world”. After recent events in Britain, it is now clear to everyone that the fascist threat is growing rapidly in the rich and powerful capitalist states on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dublin protesters say No to War!

By Theo Russell

Irish campaigners stood by the people of the Donbas last Saturday in a demonstration outside the British embassy in Dublin to protest against Britain's role in Ukraine.
    They accused the UK government of sabotaging the peace negotiations last year, prolonging the war with massive arms deliveries, the active involvement of British military personnel in the fighting in Ukraine, and years of training and arming Banderite Nazi battalions and covering up their horrific crimes against civilians in the Donbas and other Russian speaking parts of Ukraine.
    The action was organised by the Truth and Neutrality Alliance with support from the Social Democracy movement and a number of Irish republicans, members of Ireland’s Russian community and other anti-war activists including two who had travelled from England in order to take part in the action.
    In a blatant act of political interference, six members of Ireland’s secretive Special Detective Unit demanded the names and addresses of some of those in attendance. Undeterred, the protesters remained outside the Embassy for an hour, highlighting the thousands killed in Kiev’s eight-year war on the Donbas and the western media censorship of the conflict.
    The Truth and Neutrality Alliance, said in a statement: "The war has been going on now for almost a year. The war is the direct and deliberate result of the failure to implement the Minsk agreement and the eastward expansion of NATO.
    "Britain and NATO played a key role in that and has continued to up the ante ever since encouraging greater involvement in the conflict, arming one side in it and sabotaging any efforts at peace negotiations, ratcheting up the tension and risking outright nuclear war which will see us all burn, not just Kiev or Moscow.
    "Ireland is complicit in this. We have called this protest at the British Embassy due to the ongoing escalation of the war in Ukraine and Britain’s role in this as evidenced by the recent decision to send more Challenger tanks to the extreme right-wing regime in Ukraine.
    "Since the start of the war the Irish government has moved us closer to being full members of NATO, imposing sanctions and engaging in the training of troops involved in the war. Irish neutrality was already violated with the use of Shannon Airport by US troops.
    "Now the Irish government wants us to participate in a foreign conflict. As part of its commitment to the war, the government has agreed to take in an unlimited number of Ukrainian refugees. We DO NOT OPPOSE refugees coming to Ireland, but the solution to their plight is peace, not more war. They are not to blame for the war, that lies with all the parties involved in it, which includes Britain, the USA and all the members of NATO.
    "Peace means respecting the people of Ukraine but also respecting the right of the people of Donbas and Crimea to decide their own future. Crimea was only incorporated into Ukraine in the latter half of the 20 th Century.
    "The people of Donbas initially wanted more autonomy and respect for their culture, under the Minsk Agreement. The failure to implement it, the sabotage by Britain and others of the accord alongside 8 years of attacks by Ukrainian forces pushed them towards calls for independence and that must be respected.
    "The push for us to join NATO has been accompanied by an unrelenting campaign in the Irish media, with journalists openly advocating war and even praising the Azov Battalion whilst overlooking all of their crimes. Coverage is one sided and dissenting voices are not given much if any space at all.
    "This occurs at a time when the Irish government is complicit in the blocking of media sources that are critical of their position. Whilst pro-war official media sources from European governments and the Ukrainian government have unfettered access to the airwaves, Russia Today is blocked in most European countries. Other non-governmental critical voices are censored on social media and through the use of algorithms to hide their articles from a wider public.
    "We call for the lifting of real and also de facto censorship in the media. We call upon the Irish government to cease its support for war and instead argue for peace talks now. We call for a clear withdrawal from our involvement in NATO and the war. There are no humanitarian training exercises. All military training is designed for war, even demining.
    "The Irish people are paying a costly price for involvement in the war and the people of Ukraine and Russia pay for that in blood. It is time for peace.
    "No to War, No to NATO!"

• South Front report

Standing by the Donbas in Dublin

by New Worker correspondent

The plight of the people of the Donbas was highlighted in the Irish capital last Saturday when people took to the streets of Dublin to show support for the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine. The protest, supported by Lawyers for Justice Ireland and a number of other movements including the Humanitarian Battalion of Ireland & England and the Russian ex-pats community’s For Our People campaign, denounced the expansion of NATO and condemned the genocide of the Donbas population by the puppet Zelensky regime. The demonstrators reminded the Irish political elite that Ireland is still a neutral country while calling for an end to the shelling of defenceless cities and the use of anti-personnel mines which kill civilians
    "We want the world to know that Ukraine is shelling its own citizens - the residents of Donbas, we want children to stop dying", said one of the participants, holding photographs of dead children in her hands.
    The protesters organised a direct connection with people in Donbas who sent their greetings straight from the front. Many with tears in their eyes thanked the participants of the protest for their support, because “someone in the world still cares and cared for last 8 years".