IRSP Reiterate Support for Democracy in Ukraine and an end to NATO Expansionism.
In 2015, a party delegation travelled to Moscow for a anti-globalisation conference and there, we arranged and met with representatives of the Donbass and Luhansk independence movements, and made close contacts with the Donbass trade union movement.
The IRSP and our comrades from Donbass and Luhansk discussed the ongoing abuses of separatist political prisoners by the far-right Ukranian regime, the indiscriminate bombing and military onslaught against civilians in the regions. In 2014 we were also made aware of the Ukrainian government sanctioning, arming and endorsing an open neo-nazi battalion called the Above battalion whose sole purpose was to engage in a war of terror against the civilians of Donbass and Luhansk. We supported the legitimacy of the democratic independence referendums held in the regions on 11 May 2014.
The conflict in Ukraine today did not start in 2022, it started in 2014 and can be traced directly to NATO expansionism in Eastern Europe. NATO have a murderous history of upholding the Western imperialist hegemony with brutal force, we witnessed this in Yugoslavia and subsequent invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen, and the continuing propping up of fascist regimes across the world such as Israel.
The IRSP position since 2014, is that we want to see a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Eastern Europe. We want to see a resolution that benefits the workers of that region and not abused by capitalist governments.
Since the NATO backed Fascist coup, supported by the Ukrainian far right during the so called “Euromaiden” counter revolution, Neo-Nazis from Western Europe have travelled to Ukraine to engage in weapons training, these details were subsequently covered by the western media. These Ukrainian neo-nazis have and continue to return back to their western European homes including Ireland.
One thing can be certain, it won’t be the trendy left who will be opposing these people in the streets, it will be Republican Socialists who will be forced to face them down.
Since 1974 the IRSP have opposed NATO, and in 1982, in an act of solidarity with our socialist comrades across the world, volunteers from the Irish National Liberation Army bombed the Mt Gabrial Radar Domes used by NATO during the “Cold War”.
We also can’t ignore the clear hypocrisy that we are witnessing in global politics. While the western media are broadcasting around the clock on Ukraine, with governments calling on action, support and sanctions against Russia. NATO and western governments continue to back the Israel apartheid regime who continue to commit war crimes, supporting both financially and physically the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Yemen, while also engaged in an ongoing blockade against Cuba. The war mongering of the EU and the banning of media outlets who broadcast a different viewpoint is a worrying development in the direction the EU is going and is nothing short of fascism.
Make no mistake, NATO are the biggest threat to world peace. The conflict in Ukraine is not simply black & white, it is a conflict that can be traced back nearly 20 years with NATO expansionism in the east, providing a major catalyst and confrontation that threatens the very existence of humanity.
We reiterate our calls for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, we call on military restraint to avoid the unnecessary civilian casualty of war in the region and we send our ongoing support to our comrades in Donbass and Luhansk.
