Tag Archives: Ukraine

January 9, 2020

Contradictions of Post-Soviet Ukraine and Failure of Ukraine’s New Left

by Volodymyr Ishchenko  

Dossier 1989 Thirty Years Later: Several profound contradictions have defined the dynamics of Ukrainian economy, politics and society since the collapse of the Soviet Union: the contradiction between transnational and local capital, those between factions of the local capital, Ukrainian national identity contradictions, geopolitical contradictions with Russia, the US, and EU, and contradictions between civil society, the active public, and Ukrainian society at large. I will first expose them, and then discuss how the Ukrainian new left has been failing to respond to these contradictions with a project for Ukraine ..

January 9, 2020

Ukraine and the (Dis)integrating Empire of Capital

by Yuliya Yurchenko  

1989 Thirty Years Later: The combination of ill-prescribed market transition reforms and loaned funds mismanagement and misappropriation by kleptocratic ruling bloc with its rivalrous fractions have resulted in a toxic debt dependency that has become a tool for manipulation in the renewed geopolitical confrontation between Russian and the USA/EU, as I discuss at length in my recent book. These asymmetries and unevenness condition the consciousness, thinking, approach, praxis of politics in Ukraine, be they conformist, populist performers of counter-narratives, or ideologically progressive e.g. the Social Movement ..

October 14, 2019

The road to the East. Ukrainian workers in Russia after 2014

by Aleksandra Renoire Alekseeva  

As a 45-year-old woman scoops up another spoonful of cereal for the three year old child she has professionally taken care of during the past couple of years, she tells me: ‘I’m not a migrant, I’m a gastarbaiter [a derogatory word for a guest worker]. And so I’m underground (podpolnij).’. Ljuba first came to Russia a long time ago – before her place of birth in the Donbass became a ‘non-controlled territory’. Her story, like many others, is fairly standard: she couldn’t sustain herself economically or help other relatives that she had to look after at home. And so, she packed her belongings and ..

May 29, 2019

The Left Group GUE/NGL Will Not Split: MEP Helmut Scholz on Elections in the EU and Ukraine

by admin  

This interview with Helmut Scholz was conducted by editors of the Ukrainian Left magazine СПIЛЬНЕ/ COMMONS. In previous materials we’ve already generally informed our readers about how the European Parliament functions and which parliamentary groups are represented in it. In our interview with you we would like first of all to focus on the radical left in the European Parliament and their group GUE/NGL. What do the radical left parties of the group aim to achieve in the EP in comparison to their goals in the national parliaments? Our core common values on the left is our fight for social justice, democrac ..

April 25, 2019

A Comedian in a Drama

by Volodymyr Ishchenko  

This article was first published in Jacobin. In Sunday’s election Ukrainian voters dealt a decisive rebuttal to the post-Maidan establishment. Yet well-organized nationalist forces represent a time bomb under the new president-elect. American readers won’t be too surprised by a tale of an inexperienced candidate winning against the establishment’s pick. But in the case of Ukraine’s new leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy, this widely made comparison is even something of an understatement. Imagine that Donald Trump was thirty years younger and had never written any books or participated in any (even allegedly) seri ..

February 21, 2019

The Commercialization of Science and the Struggle Against It

by Denys Bondar  

In the core countries of the global economic system, science has long been a productive power. Universities and laboratories today have become factories of knowledge and discovery, and scientists are the proletariat of these factories. There has long been a critique of the role of science and scientists in the capitalist system. What is happening with science/scholarship in the core countries, what is the position of science workers in Western universities and in particular, in the United States? In this text we present an interview with Denys Bondar, a young Ukrainian scientist working in one of the famous North ..

February 17, 2018

Polish Law on Historical Memory Widens Divisions at Home and Abroad

by Gavin Rae  

Note by the LeftEast editors: this article has been reprinted from the blog of Gavin Rae, Beyond the Transition, with the author’s permission. The Amended Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, passed by the Polish parliament on 26 January, has caused a huge political domestic and international storm (the full English language text of the Act can be found here). As well as widening historical and political divisions in Poland it has opened up a conflict not only with Israel and Ukraine, but also with the country’s major ally the USA. The Act has now been signed by the President, although he ha ..

May 15, 2017

Ukraine’s Civil War Crimes: Facebook Post As Bad As Kidnapping, Torture, and Murder

by admin  

On May 12th, the Artemovsk court in the Donetsk oblast (province), sentenced a soldier to five years of prison with a three year probation period for the kidnapping of a local civilian that resulted in his death. The ruling cited the soldier’s ‘sincere confession and military engagement in the Anti-Terrorist Operations in the East of Ukraine’ as the mitigating circumstances and let him go. Numerous eyewitness accounts by army colleagues of the convict describe what had happened: The soldier suspected that a local man had ties with the separatists. He proceeded with kidnapping him, putting a bag ove ..

April 21, 2017

Ukraine: Statement on the Armed Attack on the Left-wing Activist Stanislav Sergienko

by Ukrainian organization Social Movement  

A group of people armed with knives has attacked Stanislav Sergienko, activist of “Social Movement” and student of Kyiv-Mohyla academy on the 20th of April in Kyiv. Stanislav has been stabbed multiple times and is currently being treated in the hospital. There are strong reasons to conclude that ultra-rightists committed this crime. On the April 20, 2017 at about 4 pm Stanislav Sergienko, activist of the platform “Start” and the civil organization “Social Movement”, was attacked and stabbed by two unknown people near the entrance to his home. Now Stas is in the hospital, where he has had urgent surger ..

August 17, 2016

Science, Crimea and prison bars: persecution of teachers and researchers

by lefteast  

Note from the LeftEast editors: this article first appeared on Commons Journal. It has been reprinted on LeftEast with the permission of the authors. by Viktoriia Muliavka and Alona Liasheva Translated from the Ukrainian by Valentyna Kolesnik. The use of science and education for political purposes in Ukraine has become the norm. How has it happened and why is it a terrifying trend? The conference in Yalta For Ukrainian teachers, participation in a scientific event in Crimea resulted in dismissals and monitoring by The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU). The annual international applied science conference on Russi ..