Solidarity Without Exception

Three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, roughly 20% of the Ukrainian territory remains occupied by Russian troops. Before the invasion, there were 41 million people living in Ukraine; today, the UN Refugee Agency estimates that 3.7 million people still in Ukraine have been displaced from their homes, while almost 7 million refugees had to flee abroad. The war has severely damaged the Ukrainian economy and the living conditions for people in Ukraine.

Like everywhere else in the world, there is a class divide in Ukraine, and the impact of the war has not been equally felt: while the average Ukrainian was forced to migrate, lose wages, and fight on the front, the wealthy were able to escape conscription and put their money abroad. While economic elites reportedly took $35 billion out of the country since the start of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnky not only refused to expropriate and nationalize their assets but, instead, chose to impose harsh anti-labor measures on workers and unions and make further cuts to social services using the national emergency laws. 

The fight to ensure Ukrainian people’s right to self-determination is not just about removing all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory and allowing the Ukrainian people to decide their own fate without fears of coups and invasions. It also has to do with stopping and reversing the encroachment of Western corporate and US imperial interests that seek to further exploit the country. However, prospects for this are growing darker by the day as President Donald Trump’s new administration engages in bilateral negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and without Zelensky, to end the war, all while suggesting that the US take ownership of 50% of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. 

Solidarity with working people in Ukraine and their fight against Russia’s invasion never meant support for the Zelensky government, the US government, NATO, or the designs of rival imperial powers, but lack of international solidarity has left Ukrainians in an impossible situation.   

This is Solidarity without Exception, a new podcast series brought to you by The Real News Network, in partnership with the Ukraine Solidarity Network, hosted by Blanca Missé and Ashley Smith. In Episode One of this series, released on the three-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we analyze the current state of the war and the last three years from an internationalist, working-class perspective. Cohost Blanca Missé speaks with Denys Bondar, a native of Ukraine, professor of Physics at Tulane University, and one of the coordinators of the Ukraine Solidarity Network in the US; and Hanna Perekhoda, a researcher at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, a founder of the Switzerland-based Committee of Solidarity with the Ukrainian People and Russian Opponents of the War, and an ethnic Ukrainian who grew up in the Russian-speaking the city of Donetsk in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine.

Credits:
Hosted by Blanca Missé
Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Blanca Missé, Kayla Rivara, Ashley Smith
Studio Production: David Hebden
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Music Credits: 
Venticinque Aprile (“Bella Ciao” Orchestral Cover) by Savfk |
https://www.youtube.com/savfkmusic
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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As we cross the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia has launched its largest drone attack in Ukraine to date, and Israeli tanks are rolling into the Occupied West Bank for the first time in decades. US President Donald Trump has issued repeated threats to “take over” and “own” Gaza, “buy” Greenland, and “absorb” Canada as the “51st state.” Even the fiction of the US-enforced “rules-based international order” has collapsed, and a new, terrifying world disorder—one that more closely resembles the geopolitical periods preceding World Wars I and II—is emerging. 

This new era is characterized by heightening inter-imperial conflicts between great powers like the US, Russia, and China, and emerging regional powers, the rise of far-right and authoritarian governments around the globe, and the accelerated drive of those governments to annex and take over other countries, deny their populations the right to self-determination, and plunder their resources. But this tectonic shift in 21st-century geopolitics has, in turn, provoked growing struggles for self-determination and national liberation. From Palestine to Puerto Rico, from Ukraine to Xinjiang, how can working-class people in the United States and beyond fight for a different future and an alternative world order founded not on imperial conquest, war, and capitalist domination, but on solidarity without exception among all poor, working-class, and oppressed peoples who yearn to live freely and peacefully? 

This is Solidarity Without Exception, a new podcast series brought to you by The Real News Network, in partnership with the Ukraine Solidarity Network, hosted by Blanca Missé and Ashley Smith. In the inaugural episode of this series, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez joins Missé and Smith to dissect how the world order has changed in the three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and how the simultaneous unfolding of the war in Ukraine and Israel’s US-backed genocidal war on Palestine has revealed both the centrality of anti-occupation struggles for self-determination in the 21st century, and the need for global working-class solidarity with all oppressed peoples waging those struggles.

Credits:
Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, Blanca Missé, Kayla Rivara, Ashley Smith
Studio Production: David Hebden
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Music Credits: 
Venticinque Aprile (“Bella Ciao” Orchestral Cover) by Savfk |
https://www.youtube.com/savfkmusic
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/



Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/solidarity-without-exception--6535723/support.

Become a member and join the Solidarity Without Exception Supporters Club today!

Follow Solidarity Without Exception on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on:
Bluesky: @therealnews.com
Facebook: The Real News Network
Twitter: @TheRealNews
YouTube: @therealnews
Instagram: @therealnewsnetwork