By Branko Milanovic, Substack, 8/26/26

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the world reactions were predictable. The strongest reaction came from the United States, that saw itself as a guardian of the old system and possibly as a guarantor of Ukraine’s NATO eventual membership. Europe’s reaction was several octavos lower as it generally was during the Cold War. Finally, the rest of the world, while mostly condemning Russia for an obvious violation of the international law and UN rules, was not overly concerned.

Things have changed. They began changing already under Biden who, while very critical of Russia, including through the imposition of the most radical sanctions ever (with the seizure of private property and property of a government with which the United States was not at war), still observed some rules from the Cold War—namely avoidance of unnecessary escalations with a nuclear-armed power. This was evident in Biden’s policy that did not allow strikes on Russian territory. But even under Biden that policy was gradually abandoned and the US de facto entered the war through its selection and direct targeting of places in Russia.

Over the past two years, the situation has further evolved. The US has continued with a policy where it is a de facto participant in the war but has also shown a desire to wrap-up the conflict in one form or another. What was surprising is that the thirst for war has become almost insatiable in several European countries, principally in the Nordic and Baltic countries, but more recently also in Germany, and, for long-term historical reasons that go to the 18^th century, in the UK too.

The role of small countries—that through their geopolitical irresponsibility can wreck great damage to the world—tends to pass under the radar. The Nordic-Baltic coalition is essentially calling for a war with Russia, citing its own fears and traumas of Russian/Soviet control and occupation. Leaving aside the discussion about the full one-sidedness of such claims (could not Russians argue that the Latvian riflemen played a key role in the Russian revolution?), this type of warmongering by small nations is extraordinarily hypocritical. It is based on the idea that one can advocate for war but bear no consequence of such a war. It tries to do everything possible to make interests of great powers become entangled with interests of small powers so that great powers can fight it out, millions die, yet the objectives of small countries be satisfied after a general war.

This attitude is bad enough in itself—but what is worse is that there are clear historical precedents in Eastern Europe and the Middle East of similar policies that brought global cataclysms. Serbia was playing off Russia in the run-up to the First World War. Poland and Hungary participated in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia which paved the way for Nazi Germany to continue with aggressions. Israel has been playing up the United States for several decades in the Middle East, most obviously right now when the US entered the war against Iran –very similarly to the way Russia entered the war against Ukraine—without knowing why, or what are the political aims of that war. But the outcome arranges Israel because it weakens another Middle Eastern power and deepens the chaos in the region.

The world is now facing a similar situation where several countries, whose combined populations hardly reach the number of inhabitants of a Tier II Chinese city, want, in order to cure their frustrations and traumas, to plunge the entire world into a catastrophe that may more or less end civilization. It is an incredibly irresponsible policy. It is also hypocritical because it is based on the assumption that somebody else (in this case, the United States) will fight for them. For if they were so keen on the war and convinced of its moral value, why don’t enter it themselves? Why don’t they attack Russia directly and see what happens? It would be madness but at least it would not be irresponsible towards the rest of the world and not hypocritical.

Of course, the argument for a war (fought by somebody else) is that accepting to speak of a ceasefire along the current lines gives the advantage to the aggressor. But according to that logic, all wars should be fought until the end, until everybody is destroyed. There should never have been any negotiations. Diplomacy should not exist. The Korean war should be still fought—in fact, it probably would not because had the policies advocated by the Nordic-Baltic alliance been followed then (as McArthur wanted), we would have never been born and our parents or grandparents would have all died long ago.

The Nordic-Baltic alliance also forgets that if the cease-fire is established along the current lines of control, the territory of the Donbass etc. will indeed be controlled by Russia but no single country in the world would officially recognize it. Did they not notice that no country from the Commonwealth of Independent States has recognized it? Did they not notice that not even Belarus recognizes it? Such, indeed fragile, peace not only puts an end to today’s carnage, but leaves open a possibility of eventual long-term solution between Russia and Ukraine. Neither Putin, nor Zelensky, nor the social forces that support them are eternal. Things will change in Russia, and in Ukraine. Negotiations can take place in ten or twenty years—but at least people would be alive rather than dead.

They mention that it would lead to a “frozen conflict”. But is a frozen conflict worse than an open conflict? Is absence of death inferior to continued carnage? There are dozens of frozen conflicts all around the globe, from Cyprus to Kosovo to Western Sahara to Malvinas to Kashmir. Should we reopen them all? They are loath to answer the moral questions because the implicit value they place on Ukrainian lives is zero, and the implicit value they place on Russian dead is a plus. Consequently, an endless conflict is a positive sum game from their point of view.

Not only is the idea of an endless war immoral, but it plays with an immense risk of nuclear escalation. During the Cold War that risk was taken seriously by the two major powers. That’s why they had four binding nuclear agreements, all of which have lapsed. Today, people assume that nuclear weapons do not exist. This is an entirely invalid assumption, but even if there were just one-millionth probability of nuclear war happening, the costs of such a war are so immense (since such a war is uncontrollable), that every rational person’s calculation must be to do everything to avoid it.

The Nordic-Baltic warmongering under the current conditions is therefore (i) irresponsible, (ii) hypocritical, (iii) immoral, and (iv) flirts with a disaster of immense proportions.

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By Kit Klarenberg, Substack, 8/20/26

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Over the past two decades, hardline Ukrainian ultranationalists have waged an ever-escalating war on history at home and abroad, with dramatic, world-changing consequences. In the country itself, a highly repressive legal apparatus is increasingly enforcing dangerously skewed narratives of Kiev’s near and distant past, with excessive criminal penalties even for those who unwittingly fall foul of the law. A brazenly politicised battle, it has become turbocharged since the Ukraine proxy conflict’s eruption. Despite widespread opposition, Kiev’s aggressive ultranationalist offensive on history is only intensifying.

These are the grave findings of an extraordinary paper by Ukrainian academic Georgiy Kasianov, “To discipline and punish”: A punitive turn in the memory politics in Ukraine, 2006–2025. As the author notes, the weaponisation of law in service of memory politics is common in Central and Eastern Europe. At least nine countries in the region boast legislation prohibiting public displays of Communist and Nazi symbols, which underpins local ultranationalist efforts – eagerly endorsed by the EU – to perversely conflate the two ideologies as comparable totalitarianisms.

Moreover, in many cases – especially the Baltics – these laws are components of wider cultural and legal ecosystems glorifying Nazi collaborators and Holocaust perpetrators as heroic freedom fighters, while strictly limiting discourse about World War II to conceal local culpability for macabre crimes. As such, Kasianov writes, Ukraine’s “punitive model of memory politics” fits into “a broader post-Communist pattern of state-enforced historical narratives.” Yet, “in its severity, selectivity, ideological and bureaucratic instrumentalization,” Kiev’s war on history “represents a particularly radical and revealing case.”

Today, Ukraine “leads Europe in the number of judicial decisions concerning violations of criminal statutes specifically designed to prohibit certain historical symbols,” with criminal penalties for breaching “memory laws” being the continent’s “most severe.” Kasianov traces this state of affairs to the mid-2000s, when Western-installed President Viktor Yushchenko’s government sought to implement laws “institutionalizing” the Soviet Union’s 1930 – 1933 famine as a deliberate genocide of Ukrainians specifically engineered by Joseph Stalin. It is known within Ukraine, and increasingly internationally, as “Holodomor”.

While the famine and resultant mass death was produced and exacerbated by catastrophic human errors combined with adverse natural factors, few historians consider the horror to have been intentional. Markedly, Kazakhs and Russians also perished in vast numbers. As of November 2022, just 23 UN member states have recognised Holodomor as a genocide – most being Kiev’s close allies, post-Maidan. Nonetheless, prominent Western sources state axiomatically the famine was deliberately inflicted, part of a wider ongoing Russian and/or Soviet effort to erase Ukraine.

Meanwhile, ultranationalist claims of how many Ukrainians were supposedly killed by the famine have grown ever-wilder, with some sources placing the figure as high as 10 million. This is several times the multiethnic death toll typically accepted by scholars, conveniently framing the so-called Holodomor as a greater targeted crime against humanity than the Holocaust. Yuschenko’s foray into memory politics contributed significantly to this warped contemporary informational climate. Still, 2006 legislation formally designating Holodomor as genocidal didn’t include punitive measures for denying or questioning that characterisation.

Kasianov documents how over the next 14 years, 13 separate attempts were made to criminalise “Holodomor denial” by ultranationalist Ukrainian elements within and without government and parliament. Each effort sought to impose “a state-sanctioned historical orthodoxy” around Holodomor, while “[constraining] scholarly debate and freedom of expression.” None received approval from parliament’s “legal analytical department”, but ultranationalist memory politics ultimately prevailed on a cultural and political level locally, and beyond. Notably, many of these initiatives were sponsored by the openly Neo-Nazi political party Svoboda.

‘Political Repression’

Svoboda played a substantial role in the Western-orchestrated 2014 Maidan coup, which not coincidentally “created a fertile environment for reframing memory politics as an instrument of state security and ideological consolidation.” The government of Petro Poroshenko justified the “rapid passage of a package of laws aimed at condemning [Communism] and institutionalizing a nationalist historical narrative” as a “necessary defensive measure” and “nation-building project,” countering supposed “external aggression” from Russia. This led to the adoption of hitherto unthinkable legislation in April 2015.

These hastily passed laws equated Communism with Nazism, prohibiting the public display of symbols associated with both ideologies. Yet, Kasianov notes the legislation “also granted legal and moral rehabilitation” to mass-murdering, Nazi-affiliated Ukrainian nationalist factions heavily implicated in the Holocaust. This included Stepan Bandera’s Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, and its armed Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) wing. Moreover, despite the law’s formal dual condemnation of Communism and Nazism, Kasianov details how “its implementation and symbolic focus reveal a stark imbalance.”

Approximately 90% of the legislation’s text “is dedicated to defining and enumerating Communist symbols, while Nazi symbols are addressed in relatively minimal and largely perfunctory terms.” Nazi-related prohibitions are “limited to the most universally recognized insignia of the Third Reich, such as the swastika.” By contrast, “the law offers an expansive and detailed catalog of banned Soviet insignia, ranging from the hammer and sickle to red stars and Soviet-era street names.” This “obvious asymmetry” extends even further.

Symbols associated with local Neo-Nazi groups, or formal World War II-era collaborationist Ukrainian military units such as SS Division Galicia, are spared from proscription entirely. “Legal and policy experts and Ukrainian and international human rights organizations” have all expressed concerns over the law’s “vague definitions,” and “potential misuse for political repression.” The Ukrainian Rada’s own “expert department” found the legislation conflicted with the country’s established constitution, and several existing domestic laws.

Disproportionately harsh punishments for infringements, with offenders facing prison sentences of up to five years along with property confiscation, also drew widespread criticism. A lawyer and lecturer at Lviv National University strikingly compared the penalties involved to “using a guillotine to treat a headache.” A damning open letter signed by a welter of academics and policymakers dubbed the legislation “an instrument of ideological purification, selectively targeting the symbols and narratives associated with the political left while allowing for the implicit valorization of radical nationalist traditions.”

These devastating indictments were dismissed by the law’s advocates as “Kremlin propaganda”, if not outright treason. Kasianov reveals how “principal architects” of Poroshenko’s “Decommunization” agenda were a coterie of ultranationalist “memory activists”, drawn from the Lviv-based Center for Research on the Liberation Movement, and Youth Nationalist Congress. Both maintain “close ideological and organizational ties” with, operating as “facade organizations” for, the Banderite OUN. The pair have long-served as “conduits for nationalist reinterpretation of 20th century Ukrainian history and strong anti-Communist and anti-Russian policies.”

‘Memory Regime’

Post-Maidan, “several leading figures from this milieu assumed influential positions within state institutions, shaping historical policy.” This included extensive infiltration of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINP), the state body charged with implementing memory laws. Then-Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych of Neo-Nazi Svoboda appointed OUN-linked figures to influential positions within UINP. Not coincidentally, Sych cofounded the fascist, pro-Maidan Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, an OUN-B “political facade”. Once their long-sought anti-Communist legislation was enacted, enforcement came thick and fast.

From November 2015 – spring 2016, almost 52,000 toponymical objects, 32 cities, 955 villages and settlements, and 25 administrative districts were renamed, with 2,389 monuments and memorial plaques to “totalitarian leaders” removed. In all, 1,320 were Lenin statues. Between 2015 and 2021 too, Ukrainian police and the general prosecutor’s office registered 334 criminal cases against citizens related to the display of “totalitarian symbols” – “the vast majority of which concerned Communist imagery.” Details were almost invariably farcical.

In May 2017, a student narrowly avoided jail for posting Lenin quotes on Facebook. Under his plea deal, he publicly expressed “sincere remorse”, while his personal copy of Karl Marx’s Capital was destroyed. In June 2019, an unemployed man received a one year suspended prison sentence for wearing an old T-shirt featuring the Soviet coat of arms while washing windows. In March 2021, a Lviv resident was sentenced to one year’s probation after being “detained by politically vigilant local citizens” for wearing a USSR emblem.

In the meantime, further legislation was passed by Kiev sacralising ultranationalist historical narratives. Lack of political pushback was in no small part assured by Ukraine’s Communist party being banned in December 2015. The same openly fascist and Neo-Nazi elements behind Poroshenko’s “Decommunization” push successfully sponsored laws granting OUN and UPA genocidaires official combatant status and veteran benefits. Now insulated from legal consequences for any atrocities they committed, Ukrainian state sources universally describe them as “heroes” who fought for Ukrainian “independence”.

The volume of cases brought under “Decommunization” laws, and severity of the punishments involved, ratcheted significantly following the Ukraine proxy war’s eruption. Authorities were handed an ideal rationale further assaulting history, while waging war on enemies within, under the guise of “derussification and decolonization.” In keeping with the “near-absence of prosecutions for Nazi-related offenses” pre-conflict, in over 300 criminal cases brought to trial 2022 – 2025, fewer than 10 involved Nazi symbols. The vast majority “concerned the dissemination of prohibited [Communist] symbols on social media platforms.”

Today, even simply liking social media posts featuring Soviet symbols can land Ukrainians in court. Kasianov notes how “case materials” have “indicated the emergence of specialized investigators…focused on monitoring digital communications and online content,” within the ranks of both police and the SBU security service. There has concomitantly been a significant rise in “vigilant citizens” reporting acquaintances, coworkers, and neighbours to authorities for breaching Kiev’s stringent memory laws. “Overwhelmingly”, individuals “from marginalized and impoverished segments of the population” have been targeted.

Ever since Maidan, Ukraine’s “punitive memory regime” and “nationalist identity project” has been wholeheartedly embraced and promoted by Kiev’s Western proxy sponsors. No wonder – the legally-enforced distorted narrative Ukraine is fighting a battle for its very existence, and ultimate liberation from “Russian imperialism”, ensures the war will continue in perpetuity. All along, distorted “memory politics” becomes more entrenched and rabid at the country’s highest levels, leaving the population – and the wider world – at the mercy of a dangerous and deranged ultranationalist clique.

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By Branko Marcetic, Responsible Statecraft, 8/18/26

For those casually observing the war in Ukraine, the failure of Kyiv’s recent strikes on Russian territory to impact the battlefield might be disappointing, even inexplicable. For those who have paid close attention to the war, it is just the latest demonstration that there is no feasible military solution to the conflict.

Earlier this summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a 40-day campaign of deep strikes in Russia, with the stated goal of pressuring Russian leadership to end the war. Mainstream media wrote triumphantly about the pain Ukraine was inflicting with its U.S.-assisted drone attacks inside Russia, claiming that Ukraine was “now turning the tide,” had a “decisive upper hand,” and was even “winning the war.”

But detailed analyses of the actual battle lines showed that, when the 40-day clock expired earlier this month, little had actually changed on the ground. In fact, Russia had made some minor territorial advances, while Ukraine’s severe manpower, demographic and economic crises continued to deepen.

Worse, the drone attacks have elicited the most severe Russian retaliation yet. Moscow has markedly stepped up its strikes on Ukraine, including one of the largest ballistic missile attacks of the entire war, at the precise time the United States and Europe are running low on interceptors to defend it. With Russia now attacking Ukraine’s port facilities and commercial vessels in the Black Sea, the country is being starved of billions of dollars of revenue, and its GDP could drop by as much as 1.5%.

At the same time, it seems that the underlying goal of the Ukrainian drone strikes — convincing a skeptical President Donald Trump that Ukraine is winning and thus deserving of ongoing U.S. military support — has not succeeded: the Atlantic reported that, though the campaign initially seemed to have changed Trump’s mind, progress on this front had “fizzled in a matter of days.” On top of all this, Russian President Vladimir Putin has now reportedly hardened his negotiating demands and refuses to return any occupied territories in future talks.

In other words, the ultimately unsuccessful Ukrainian drone assault is something we have now seen over and over again: Kyiv embarks on an audacious, headline-grabbing military gambit; Western media and officials seize on it to claim the tide is turning; and then when the smoke clears, it turns out nothing has been achieved but an escalation of the war. Ukraine winds up battered even worse, and with less favorable negotiating terms on the table.

In late 2022, when Ukraine partially destroyed Putin’s prized Kerch bridge connecting the Russian mainland to Crimea, there was rapturous celebration on the Ukrainian side and among its Western backers.

“Putin’s Regime Faces the Fate of His Kerch Strait Bridge,” blared the headline of a piece by the Atlantic’s Eliot Cohen, who told us it marked “the moment when Russian elites began to understand that they are losing.”

“Russian propagandists are beginning to signal that they understand deep down that the Kremlin is losing the war,” wrote an analyst from the hawkish, weapons manufacturer-funded Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

Of course, this is not what happened. The attack did, however, give Russian hardliners an upper hand in Moscow and consequently elicit a major Russian escalation that badly damaged Ukraine’s energy infrastructure just as winter was about to set in.

Then there was the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive of summer 2023. “Ukraine’s coming counteroffensive has a good chance of succeeding,” said a fellow at the similarly hawkish, similarly arms manufacturer-funded Atlantic Council.

“Ukraine’s current counter-offensive likely will be slower, deadlier, and less impressive in making immediate territorial gains. But be patient — that does not mean it will not be a success,” cautioned CEPA. When initial results were indeed underwhelming a month later, Time magazine assured readers that “the Ukraine counteroffensive can still succeed.”

Sure enough, after five months the counteroffensive was definitively determined to be a “disaster,” as Zelensky’s own former adviser put it. Between that January and September, Ukraine had gained only 143 square miles compared to Russia’s 331 square miles, and had done so at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, according to official U.S. estimates. Two months later, Ukraine’s top military commander at the time, Valery Zaluzhny, declared the war a “slatemate.”

The following year saw Ukrainian forces launch a daring incursion into Russian territory, taking 28 settlements and 300 square miles in the border region of Kursk. “Ukraine’s gamble in Kursk restores belief it can beat Russia,” went the headline from Chatham House. “Ukraine can use the occupied territories [in Kursk] as a bargaining chip for a territorial swap,” one expert proffered. It had revealed “critical truths,” wrote the American Foreign Policy Council’s Elliott Petroff, one of which was that Ukraine “can still find ways to break the stalemate and win this war.”

Once again, none of this came to pass. The Kursk gambit ended up being a hugely costly operation for Ukraine that exposed the actual frontline to Russian forces, who then made significant advances into Ukrainian territory at the very time pundits were lauding the move, and ended up expelling Ukrainian forces from Russian territory anyway. It also scuttled ceasefire talks that would have halted further attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which instead escalated.

It’s a consistent pattern: a combination of wishful thinking and misinformation does just enough to keep the idea of a military victory alive, undermining the chance for painful but necessary negotiations, and ultimately rebounding in ever worsening ways on Ukraine and its people. The major human, economic, and social costs for Ukraine of continuing war, meanwhile, remain invisible to much of the Western public, which is instead fed a recurring diet of headlines and rhetoric assuring it that victory is close at hand.

Ukraine supporters’ unwillingness to let go of the fantasy of a military breakthrough is understandable. Ukraine is the victim, after all, and it feels inherently unjust that the aggressor state would come away unpunished or even having gained something from a flagrantly illegal and immoral act.

But this fantastical thinking has served Ukraine poorly, to say the least, every time it has prevailed. It is not clear that either side is ready at this moment for serious peace talks. But when that chance comes again, we mustn’t be lured away from it by yet another media campaign promising one [more] weird trick to defeat Russia.

Russia Matters, 9/11/26

1. Ukraine’s allies wonder why Kyiv needs $27 billion more from them to make it through the year: In late August, Volodymyr Zelenskyy told allies that Ukraine will need $27 billion more to get through this year due to “an unexpectedly large defense budget shortfall,” NYT reports. “Ukraine’s request surprised and unsettled many officials around Europe at a moment when Kyiv, short on air defenses to protect itself from nonstop Russian drone and missile attacks, faces one of its most dangerous moments since 2022,” according to NYT. The request came after the European Union signed off on an over $100 billion loan for Ukraine earlier this year. According to NYT, “European officials are scrambling to understand where the shortfall came from, exactly how large it is and whether, or how, to send more money this year.” In the meantime, Ukraine is also “asking Britain, Canada and Japan to help cover the gap,” NYT reports. In assessing who is winning and who is losing the Russia-Ukraine war, the question of how each can sustain its effort is critical. And who is pleading with the world for gifts or grants to allow it to get through the year?*
2. Russian forces made a net gain of 14 square miles of Ukraine’s territory in the past four weeks (Aug. 11–Sept. 8, 2026). In comparison, Russia made a net gain of 33 square miles during the previous four-week period (July 14–Aug. 11, 2026), according to DeepState’s data analyzed in the latest issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. In the one-week period of Sept. 1–8, 2026, Russian forces saw a net gain of 20 square miles of Ukrainian territory. In that one-week period, Russian forces advanced near 15 Ukrainian settlements, while the Ukrainian Armed Forces regained control of an area near one settlement (Dvorichna), according to the map maintained by DeepState.
3. No breakthroughs reported after U.S. envoys’ trip to Moscow and Kyiv: U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held more than three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sept. 5, but the meeting produced no publicly announced agreement. Kremlin officials described the discussions as substantive and constructive, while Putin reportedly reiterated Russia’s battlefield claims and demands concerning what Moscow calls the conflict’s “root causes.” According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the discussions said Putin remains committed to continuing the war and seeks control of all of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Oblast, believing Russian forces could achieve that objective within six months. Russian officials reportedly told the U.S. negotiators that Russia would be prepared to resume peace talks after State Duma elections scheduled for Sept. 18–20. Upon meeting Putin, the U.S. envoys then traveled to Kyiv to hold their first official talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Ukrainian capital on Sept. 6. The approximately three-hour discussions, conducted in two meetings with Zelenskyy and a third involving British, French and German national security advisers, reportedly explored new ideas for reviving trilateral negotiations among the United States, Russia and Ukraine, including issues such as, air defense, winter assistance, energy support, security and economic guarantees, territorial control and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. 
4. U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a one-hour phone call on Sept. 8 after U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Moscow and Kyiv to revive negotiations over the war in Ukraine on Sept 5-6. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov described the conversation as constructive and candid, saying the leaders positively assessed the envoys’ visits, agreed to remain in contact and supported continuing talks among Washington, Moscow and Kyiv. Trump urged Putin to end the war quickly, linking a settlement to expanded U.S.-Russian trade and economic cooperation. Putin said Russia had no aggressive plans toward Europe and praised U.S. diplomatic efforts, but reaffirmed Moscow’s war aims and demands that Ukraine surrender the remainder of the eastern region of Donbas, abandon NATO ambitions and accept military restrictions.

By Ana VraCar, Breakthrough News, 7/22/26

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent dismissal of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov – credited by many for Ukraine’s drone strikes into Russian territory – has triggered widespread protests, exposing continuing instability at this level of government. At the same time, European leaders continue approving new loans for Ukraine’s armament and imposing fresh sanctions on Russia, while the Ukrainian working class bears the brutal cost through violent street conscriptions.

In this interview with BreakThrough News, sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko analyzes the presence of colonial-style exploitation and class conflict in the war in Ukraine. He explores scenarios ranging from nuclear war to failed-state fragmentation, emphasizing that Ukraine’s fate is tied to global shifts – it is now up to the international anti-militarist left to challenge the austerity-and-armament agenda driving the catastrophe.

BreakThrough News: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently dismissed Mykhailo Fedorov from the post of defense minister, triggering widespread protests across the country. Demonstrators demanded Fedorov’s reinstatement and the removal of Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi [editor’s note: the interview was conducted before Syrskyi was removed from the post on July 21]. How should we interpret this cabinet reshuffle and the mobilization that followed? 

Volodymyr Ishchenko: These events stem from the same fundamental conflict that has defined Ukrainian politics since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the very conflict that stands behind this war. On one side are local political capitalists, businesses that grew out of post-Soviet predatory privatization and selective state benefits, yet have consistently failed to establish sovereign rule in Ukraine. On the other side is a professional middle class aligned with transnational capital, betting on integration into the crumbling US-centered international order. 

The recent escalation is a direct continuation of last year’s events, when Zelenskyy tried and failed to take control over anti-corruption institutions. In an article with Peter Korotaev last year, we discussed how anti-corruption bodies designed by comprador “civil society” and supported by the West became a “state within the state” in post-Euromaidan Ukraine, and why the conflict around them was never truly about democracy. Since then, this conflict has not been developing in Zelenskyy’s favor. Anti-corruption bodies revealed large-scale corruption schemes involving some of the president’s closest associates. His chief of administration, Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s “grey cardinal” for years, was forced out and now faces charges.

Now comes Fedorov. In pro-Western circles, he was credited with Ukraine’s only significant successes since 2022: the medium- and long-range drone strikes that caused gasoline shortages across Russia and electricity cuts in Crimea. He was becoming popular, and within comprador circles, he was increasingly seen as a potential successor, or even a replacement, for Zelenskyy. Behind this lay competition between patronage networks over military supplies and associated corruption schemes. So Fedorov did not go quietly. His public attack was not just on Syrskyi. It aimed at further weakening Zelenskyy. Essentially, the pro-Western compradors demanded the power to change the commander-in-chief in the middle of the war.

It is worth remembering that all Ukrainian presidents have failed to consolidate a sovereign state. This was prevented not just by protests, which were historically far more massive than anything we have seen in support of “anti-corruption” institutions or Fedorov recently, but also crucially by rifts and the power of local opportunistic elites. Zelenskyy failed last year primarily due to pressure from the EU, and it is unclear whether he can succeed this time. So far, his vacillations regarding the name of the new defense minister, and his hints that certain changes in the army might follow in response to the protests, only contribute to further destabilization.

Compare this to Russia. In 2023, Putin met a much stronger challenge: a real mutiny by the private military company “Wagner,” which demanded the dismissal of the defense minister and the chief of the general staff, whom Yevgeny Prigozhin blamed for the Russian army’s setbacks in 2022. Putin eliminated Wagner’s leadership, restructured the group, and only afterwards removed Sergei Shoigu and launched an unprecedented crackdown on corruption in the army. The sociopolitical cohesion achieved in Russia, contrasted with the disintegration occurring in Ukraine, is one of the crucial manifestations of the different paths that these two countries took in the post-Soviet period – a difference that has decisive implications for how this war develops.

BT: One of the things that comes through your commentary on the war is that it should not be understood only as a conflict between states or geopolitical blocs, but also viewed through the class structures of post-Soviet Ukraine. How has the war impacted the relationship between Ukraine’s political and economic elites, the middle classes, workers and the rural population?

VI: Looking at Ukraine today, the ruling class – the political capitalists, including but not being limited to the “oligarchs” – has been weakened economically and politically, but the overall structure of the post-Soviet class conflict remains largely unchanged. The ways of making money are essentially the same, as shown by recent scandals involving President Zelenskyy’s cronies that I have just mentioned. Basically, those connected to the presidency have seized significant opportunities to profit from the war. Despite numerous ongoing investigations, practically no one has actually been held accountable. 

Meanwhile, transnational capital and an aligned professional middle class have been empowered by Ukraine’s dependence on Western funding and weapons. Those working on projects funded by Western donors are exempt from mobilization. In 2024, an official list identified 133 Western-funded NGOs whose staff were granted draft exemptions. 

Similarly, so-called “Ukrainian voices” have launched careers in the international public sphere. We’ve seen a similar pattern with “Cuban voices,” “Venezuelan voices,” and “Iranian voices.” These “voices,” claiming to speak on behalf of the entire people, are typically drawn from privileged classes and are used to legitimize imperialism.

On the other hand, subaltern classes – primarily the working class and rural population – have borne the brunt of military conscription, exacerbated by corruption. These are the people who cannot afford bribes to evade the draft or escape the country. So, the fundamental structure of class conflict remains unchanged. But the war has deepened the asymmetry within it: those who were already organized and connected have grown stronger, while the atomized majority is now even less able to defend its interests. 

BT: Another topic you’ve written about is forced street mobilization or busification, and about the large number of Ukrainian men trying to avoid registration, conscription or military service. How widespread and systematic are these practices, and what do they tell us about the relationship between the people of Ukraine and the state?

VI: Busification and resistance to it need more attention because it’s something that has been escalating throughout the war. Busification happens every day: every day, on Ukrainian social media, you see another video from another city showing how brutally men are dragged to military recruitment offices. 

The reason is pretty simple: the number of army volunteers is extremely small, a shrinking minority at this point. One indication was last year’s experiment where they offered young men aged 18 to 24 much better conditions to join: higher pay, even a promise they could leave the country after just one year of service. Even with those promises, they only attracted a tiny fraction of people. 

This shows it’s not just about conditions in the army, but also a fundamental distrust of the state. With Peter Korotaev, we position this as a consequence of the broken post-Soviet social contract. For decades, the state offered Ukrainians less and less in terms of welfare, benefits, or prospects. At the same time, it didn’t ask for much in return; you could evade taxes, for example, and this was done en masse. But then the war started, and the state began demanding that people sacrifice themselves or their relatives for a state that had offered them almost nothing in life. 

This couldn’t work. By late 2022, most joining the army were mobilized, not volunteers. And already in 2022, social media channels emerged helping people avoid mobilization patrols by sharing which streets recruiters were hitting in which cities. Those channels had hundreds of thousands of subscribers in big cities like Kharkov.

Mass draft dodging has only grown since. The latest data we have on criminal cases opened against those absent without leave (AWOL) is in the hundreds of thousands. The numbers are so high that last year, the state officially classified the statistics because it represented a threat to national security, showing how little Ukrainians want to fight for this state. People massively avoided even updating basic contact info they were required by the law in 2024, making it harder for the state to send draft notices strategically. 

This resistance is growing and becoming more frequent, perhaps showing qualitative advances too. Until now, most resistance was spontaneous, passersby or relatives trying to help a guy escape from minibuses. There was no organization or evidence of coordination between different initiatives. But recently, it has taken on a more massive scale, like riots. These are still spontaneous but start involving whole neighborhoods. One recent case in Lviv caused quite a stir among pro-recruitment supporters. 

There’s also evidence of emerging strikes against mobilization, particularly by drivers of private minibuses. In the context of the post-Soviet collapse of public transport, these private operators took on large shares of urban transit. Unlike public transport companies, they are not exempt from the draft, so drivers have been regularly recruited – and they’ve protested this. One of the examples worth noting was a recent demonstration in Vinnytsia, where minibus drivers stopped working for half a day. This is important because it’s not just spontaneous resistance; it’s a sign of organized action by the working class or petty entrepreneurs defending their collective interests against state mobilization.

BT: Ukraine’s state and state-guaranteed debt now runs into hundreds of billions of euros, with the EU being one of the largest creditors. What does this relationship with the EU mean for the future of the working class in Ukraine?

VI: Most likely, Ukraine won’t be able to pay this money back. Basically, the newest loans are structured so that Ukraine repays only if it receives reparations from Russia, which probably isn’t going to happen. 

We’ve seen how the United States, during the second Trump administration, revised its position on aid to Ukraine, imposing a minerals deal whose exact conditions remain still unknown to the Ukrainian public. Supposedly, Ukraine is going to pay for American weapons by allowing the extraction of valuable resources or by handing over valuable assets in Ukrainian infrastructure to American corporations. It’s essentially a colonial relationship. 

It’s a bit different with the EU right now, but it depends on what kind of governments emerge there in the future. If we see an Alternative for Germany administration in Germany or the National Rally seizing power in France, they may also revise their conditions for supporting Ukraine – or stop support altogether. 

But so far, the money from the EU is more or less about outsourcing security to Ukraine. The EU pays Ukraine because they are buying themselves time to prepare for a future war with Russia. They’ve said this quite openly, even though the consequences of European rearmament create social and political tensions within the EU that weaken European governments and deepen divisions within European countries. This doesn’t decrease the chances of a potential Russian attack; it probably increases them. But in relation to Ukraine, they are paying money to buy time with Ukrainian lives, at the cost of destroying the country’s future. 

Because of this, Ukraine is becoming some sort of “function-state,” existing not to represent the citizens living on its territory, but to serve European elites’ security. For it to fulfill this function, it doesn’t matter much how well the people living in Ukraine are doing. It doesn’t matter whether they have human rights or not.

Let’s also note that Ukraine is becoming depopulated. The most recent UN forecast says Ukraine’s population will drop to 15 million by the end of the century, down from 52 million after the Soviet Union’s disintegration in 1991 – a decline of some 70%. But even this might be enough for Ukraine to fulfill its function toward Europe, because what matters is the army, the necessary infrastructure and civilian sectors to serve the army, and employees for American corporations to extract resources from Ukrainian soil. Nothing more is necessary to fulfill the role they see for Ukraine.

BT: Is a different scenario possible, or a possibility for European countries to actually adopt a fairer approach to the war in Ukraine?

VI: Different scenarios are possible because there’s a crisis tendency all around the world, and the future is pretty much uncertain. What I’ve been describing isn’t even the worst-case scenario. The worst would be nuclear war. This might not be the most probable outcome, but it is a real possibility.

In a better scenario, Ukraine might become something like Georgia. That depends not only on European elites, but also on the choices of Ukrainian elites, who might choose to accommodate certain Russian demands and try to maneuver. Since 2012, the Georgian Dream government has similarly tried to balance between Russia, the EU, and China. Segments of the Ukrainian elite might consider this a better way forward compared to continuing down the path of turning Ukraine into what the Roman Empire called foederati – so-called “barbarian” tribes and states bound by treaties to Rome to protect its borders against other “barbarian” tribes. Ukraine could become a foederatus of the European Union, protecting the borders of “civilization” against “Russian barbarians.”

It could also turn out to be a completely failed state, something like Syria or Libya, with parts of the territory controlled by the government in Kyiv, but other parts controlled by occupying powers (and this wouldn’t necessarily be just Russia), but also non-governmental formations. In Syria, this was ISIS. In Ukraine, it could be radical nationalists who are growing stronger and more autonomous. In the case of state failure, formations around the so-called “Azov movement” might start serving quasi-state functions for the local population in terms of security and organizing the basics of human life. That would also be a disaster scenario.

But in fact, Ukraine is now in a state of catastrophe, and basically all the most probable visions are pretty bleak.

BT: And what way is there to try and address this bleakness?

VI: What’s important to understand is that the possibility of a better future is now decided on a global level. It’s not decided within Ukraine. Unfortunately, Ukraine is no longer a sovereign country, and what happens there depends much more on what’s going on in Russia, Europe, or the US. The possibility of a better future is something we’ll have to develop globally and internationally.

It will depend on the capacity of European left-wing movements to offer a very different agenda for European countries – one that is anti-militarist and socially expansive. The connection between ongoing rearmament and further austerity in Europe is pretty obvious, clearly linked to the administrations of Merz, Macron, and other centrist governments.

Whether the European left will be capable of offering an alternative is also a big question, but there have been certain shifts in that direction. There have been important rallies in Paris, London, and Brussels. We still need to see where this is heading, but the outcomes of austerity and armament policies could also produce stronger resistance. A chunk of this resistance could be snatched by the far-right – but it’s a crucial opportunity which the left should not just give up to the far-right.

Developments in Russia – whether Putin’s regime will become more stable and powerful or not – as well as developments in China, will also play a role. China might be opening a different vision of the world amid the disintegration of US hegemony. But the question remains: what is next? What kind of order might be offered, and by which state?

We need to think about Ukraine in this global and long-term perspective, and consider the possibilities of organizing a better future for all of humanity, including Ukraine. Right now, basically, Ukraine is not a place of hope. It’s a place that shows how catastrophic the outcomes of the ongoing crisis can be. It’s a kind of magnifying glass for the world: it shows the most extreme futures that may wait for other parts of the world if we do not find a better alternative.