Melinda Butterfield: No War! U.S./NATO hands off Russia and Donbass

Image by Marienna Pope-Weidemann via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Melinda Butterfield

Struggle – La Lucha for Socialism por el Socialismo on Jan 29, 2022

Special Briefing from www.Struggle-La-Lucha.org

Tell Biden: No war! U.S./NATO hands off Russia and Donbass!

What is behind U.S. war threats in the region? Understand what is at stake for workers at home & abroad.

Struggle-La Lucha co-editor Melinda Butterfield is the coordinator of Solidarity with Novorossiya & Antifascists in Ukraine.

He has written extensively on developments in Ukraine and Donbass since 2014. In September 2014, he visited Crimea to meet with exiled Ukrainian activists; when he attempted to visit the city of Kharkov in eastern Ukraine, he was deported at gunpoint.

In 2016, he went to Donetsk and Lugansk, attending an anti-fascist conference and visiting the people’s militia near the front line. Many of his articles and translations can be found at Red Star Over Donbass.

National Days of Action Feb. 4-12, 2022: No War on Russia and Donbass! U.S./NATO out of Ukraine!

by Solidarity with Novorossiya & Antifascist in Ukraine
Struggle ★ La Lucha
January 29, 2022

The Biden administration has put 8,500 U.S. troops on standby for deployment, on top of 64,000 already stationed in Europe. Millions of dollars in U.S. “lethal aid” (weapons) is arriving daily in Ukraine. Biden claims that there is an imminent threat of a Russian invasion. But the real invasion threat stems from U.S.-allied Ukraine against the independent Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, near Russia’s western border.

Washington and its NATO partners have been pushing Ukraine’s government to invade Donbass, hoping to provoke a response from Russia that can cover further NATO expansion. Ukraine has deployed 125,000 troops to the ceasefire zone, including battalions of neo-Nazis, armed with NATO weapons. Donbass residents have already suffered eight years of Ukrainian war and Western blockade. More than 14,000 people have perished in that conflict.

Despite a U.S. promise not to expand NATO eastward at the end of the Cold War, the alliance has added 14 members since. Russia has made it clear that a NATO takeover of Ukraine – the largest country on its European border – is an unacceptable threat to its national security. Biden has continued Trump’s war drive worldwide, from Yemen to Syria, Venezuela to Palestine, Iraq to the South China Sea.

Why is Washington provoking Russia? The U.S. under both Democrats and Republicans has long sought to dominate and plunder the entire former Soviet Union economically, politically and militarily. Today U.S. Big Oil companies and banks urgently want to stop the flow of Russian gas and oil to Western Europe, including the new NordStream2 pipeline, so U.S. allies will be forced to buy from them. Biden, who has betrayed the urgent needs of workers and oppressed communities that elected him, is desperate to funnel people’s anger at a foreign enemy.

We say no! Poor and working people are wracked with crisis after crisis here at home: rampant spread of COVID; deliberate dismantling of public health measures to control the pandemic; wages slashed by inflation; capitalism’s climate destruction intensifying; the end of eviction moratoriums; racist police terror; bans on anti-racist education in schools; far-right attacks from the streets to the Supreme Court on people’s basic democratic rights.

We need a struggle to end racism and poverty at home, not another criminal war abroad!

We call for antiwar, workers’ and people’s organizations across the U.S. to hold rallies, pickets, mass leafleting, banner drops and other activities from Feb. 4-12. We must act now to stop another war before it starts.

Tell Biden and Congress:

• No war on Russia and Donbass
• Stop military aid to Ukraine – withdraw all U.S./NATO advisers, trainers and mercenaries
• Sign Russia’s draft statement on European security – end NATO’s eastward expansion.
• No new deployment of U.S. troops – bring all the troops home
• Disband NATO

Called by (list in formation):

Solidarity with Novorossiya & Antifascists in Ukraine
Women Against Military Madness (WAMM)
Alan Dale, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition*
Communist Workers League
Anti-War Committee
Socialist Unity Party / Struggle-La Lucha newspaper
Youth Against War & Racism
Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice (Los Angeles)
Peoples Power Assembly (Baltimore)
Workers Voice Socialist Movement (New Orleans)
Women in Struggle / Mujeres en Lucha

*For identification only

To endorse:

solidarityukraineantifa@gmail.com
Facebook: facebook.com/events/1257146674792435

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Struggle ★ La Lucha: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

From the archives:

Cracks Open Up In America’s Fragile Leadership Over Ukraine Crisis, by Finian Cunningham

4 Big Reasons Not To Go To War In Ukraine, by Rivera Sun

To Send Weapons and Troops to Ukraine You’d Have to Be a Stupid Son of a Biden, by David Swanson

What If U.S., NATO Talks Are Cover for More Aggression Towards Russia? by Finian Cunningham

No U.S. Boots – But Plenty of Arms – on the Ground in Ukraine, by Finian Cunningham

What Can Russia Do About NATO Hostility? by Finian Cunningham

Warning Sign to Anti-war Movement: Behind the Assassination of Donetsk Leader Alexander Zakharchenko, by Melinda Butterfield