Just as I compiled some critical resources on the “Rojava”/AANES situation, I will here include some good readings on the situation in Ukraine. Obviously not implying 100% agreement (there’s indeed some stuff I’d be critical about in some of those), but interesting/useful viewpoints. In both cases, some journalists, centrists/liberals, and a part of leftists/anarchists themselves have painted a reductionist picture of an homogenized ‘Western left’, and ‘Western communists/anarchists’ have been blamed as hypocritical useful idiots that supposedly support Putin’s imperialism (or in the case of Rojava, as Erdogan/”Islamist” shills for having any criticism). Of course, it’s undeniable that this exists (most prevalent among ‘tankies’), but obviously it’s not as homogeneous or simple as that. In a framing reminiscent of various moments in the history of leftist movements last century – including the two world wars (esp. the first) -, radicals are either “for/with” the state/military that’s being invaded or attacked, or they’re “for/with” the invaders. Obviously this is incredibly dumb, but this is a sign of how modern political rationalism functions: there can not be any meaningful agency outside of and against the states, armies, police, nationalism, and military/geopolitical warfare.
The perspectives/discussions compiled here largely do not cover the atrocious things done by the Russian forces, nor the specific evolution of the situation in terms of warfare. The goal/criterion here is have resources for critical – and radical – analysis. Needless to say: fuck Putin and his genocidal imperialism, all these discussions already acknowledge this barbarism! This obviously means that no campist/authoritarian support for and/or denialism/apologetics favoring Putin is tolerable, whether by leftists, fascists, or whomever. But unlike what many liberals, centrists and leftists try to forbid, the conversation cannot end here.
- Interview with the Assembly mag/collective: The war has become a daily routine: two conversations with the Kharkov underground journal.
- Tristan Leoni: Adieu la vie, adieu l’amour… Ukraine, guerre et auto-organisation.
- Olena Lyubchenko: On the Frontier of Whiteness? Expropriation, War, and Social Reproduction in Ukraine.
- A. Dirk Moses: The Ukraine Genocide Debate Reveals the Limits of International Law.
- No War But Class War: Against State Nationalism And Inter-Imperialist War In Ukraine.
- Anarchist Who Fought In Rojava: Response To ‘No War But Class War’ Debate.
- Mike Gouldhawke: A Response To A Response About Militarism, Nationalism And War.
- Salvage Editorial Collective: Did Somebody Say Imperialism?: Ukraine Between Analogies.
- Ilya Matveev & Volodymyr Ischenko: Ukraine, Russia, NATO, & Anti-Imperialism Today.
- Volodymyr Ischenko: Ukrainian Voices?
- Andrew:
- Antiautoritari per la Solidarietà Internazionale: Dodici tesi sulla guerra in corso.
- Zapatista Sixth Commission: After the battle, no landscape will remain. (On the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine).
- Ripples and Waves: Notes on Ukraine in the Long Crisis.
- Czech anarchists: Anarchist antimilitarism and myths about the war in Ukraine.
- Mouvement Communiste: Ukraine: Russia’s colonial expedition accelerates the course to world war.
- Insurgent Notes: Special Issue on Ukraine. (See Issue 25 if link doesn’t work)
- Anarchist Black Cross Dresden: A political and personal statement as well as a review of our solidarity work around the war in Ukraine so far.
- Interview with an organizer of a transnational Russian anti-war feminist collective, on The Final Straw Radio: Feminist Anti-War Resistance to the Russian Invasion.
- Mike Gouldhawke also created his own reading list (which includes some pieces on Ukraine, and various other texts on militarism/imperialism etc…): Against Militarism, Imperialism, and Wars between States.