Self-Determination for Ukraine, Not a Deal Between Trump, Putin, and European Leaders - CounterPunch.org Self-Determination for Ukraine, Not a Deal Between Trump, Putin, and European Leaders
We are spitting mad about the meeting between Trump and Putin to decide how to divide up the land and minerals of Ukraine for the benefit of the rich people who dominate their own countries and attempt to dominate the world. Who are they to make decisions for Ukrainians? Trump uses the police and military to arrest or brutalize people who disagree with him, whether Black people in Washington, Chicanos in Los Angeles, or a “renegade” member of the right like John Bolton. Meanwhile, his actions are killing millions of Africans from disease, closing hospitals in the United States, and threatening small businesses and workers with bankruptcy and homelessness. Putin is just as bad. He rules Russia by terror, assassinates his political enemies, and is driving Russia toward hyperinflation and insolvency to pay for his war in Ukraine. We are just as mad about the meeting between Trump and the European “allies” of Ukraine, who also met with Trump along with Ukrainian President Zelensky. They should have discussed how to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s imperial invasion and get Russia’s army to withdraw back to Russia. Instead, the European leaders and Trump discussed how to provide security guarantees to police a deal that would partition Ukraine with “land swaps” and population transfers. Self-determination for Ukraine — independent for little more than 30 years after centuries of colonization by Russia — was never on the agenda. Are these the kinds of people who should decide the fates of Ukrainians? When they talk of “land swaps,” Ukrainians know they are talking about making the lives of Ukrainians in the Donbas even worse than they are now during the war. Ukrainians have seen how Russia beats, rapes, and kidnaps kids in the land it has taken over during the last eleven years. Why do they do this? Because capitalism depends on profits, and the profitability of investments has been shrinking. Competition among corporations is desperate — even the executives of giant tech companies fear each other and worry about bankruptcy. They try to protect themselves by grabbing cheap Ukrainian, African, and Brazilian minerals, laying some workers off and making the others work twice as hard, and taking over countries and lands they see as vulnerable, like Ukraine or Palestine. The on-and-off approach of Biden, Trump, and European powers to arming Ukraine has been enough to prevent Ukraine’s defeat but well short of that needed to win the war. The European re-armament now underway is more focused on reviving European imperialist military power than on arming Ukraine. British plans to build up to 12 new nuclear-powered attack submarines and French plans to build three new surface warships have nothing to do with defending Ukraine. The European countries who are doing little to nothing to prevent the premeditated starvation of hundreds of thousands in Gaza while still funding and arming Israel’s genocide are hardly reliable defenders of the struggle of oppressed nations for self-determination or even survival. American corporate leaders of both parties are most afraid of China. It is threatening their profits by out-competing them, and seems ready to take over or otherwise dominate many places whose workers and resources American companies now exploit. This is why American presidents of both parties have wanted to make a “pivot to Asia,” by which they mean using the military and investments to deal with the Chinese challenge to their profits and their sphere of influence. They are perfectly happy to throw a million Ukrainians’ lives into the trash heap to get this done. So we at the Ukraine Solidarity Network support Ukrainians against the “land swaps” of American, Russian, and European billionaires. We support Ukrainian workers when they have to defend themselves against “their own” government and corporations. We support a people’s peace determined by the Ukrainians, not an imperial peace imposed by foreign powers. To those who just want the Ukrainians surrender to Russia’s demands so they are no longer bothered by Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling, we can think of no more appropriate final words than to quote the great Ukrainian author, soldier, and socialist, Artem Chapeye: Arguments such as ‘You, over there, just submit so that we, over here, don’t start getting scared’ are perceived differently from an underground bomb shelter in a Ukraine partly occupied by Russians than in a safe Berlin town square or an Arizona office with air conditioning and a soft sofa. The Ukraine Solidarity Network (US) is a formation of activists in the US who oppose Russia’s imperialist war on Ukraine and support Ukraine’s struggle for self-determination. 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