Stop Pretending the Left Is on Putin’s Side

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is based on obviously reactionary pretexts. The Left has nothing to do with his agenda — and should make no apologies for opposing a US military response.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is sickening. Vladimir Putin had this Monday claimed that the “Kiev regime” refused any resolution of the conflict in the Donbas except through “military means.” The Russian president now claims to resolve it with far more bloodshed, already spreading beyond the Donbas region and risking a wider conflagration.

Putin’s open disregard for Ukrainian independence expresses a reactionary civilizational politics, as expressed in his article scouring medieval myths for reasons to kill and maim in the present. True, he famously once claimed that the fall of the USSR was the last century’s “greatest geopolitical disaster.” Yet it was no accident that this week he cast Lenin as the “architect” of Ukraine, who had subverted an older and thus somehow more authentic tsarist imperial order.

#Russia #Ukraine #Propaganda #MissInformation #Politics #StopTheWar #SayNoToWar #PeaceNow #Europe #NATO #Activism #Putin #Biden

https://jacobinmag.com/2022/02/the-left-vladimir-putin-russia-war-ukraine