Trump ‘seizes control’ of Venezuela

By Luís Bonilla-Molina*

January 5, 2026

The international legal system was torn to shreds on January 3, when the United States military intervened in Venezuela, kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro and his spouse [National Assembly deputy Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro].

The announced plans to install a US-run government harks back to the colonial era. The damage to Latin America’s dignity and sovereignty will not be easily undone.

The relaunch of the Monroe Doctrine, now with its “Trump corollary”, confirms that the US has initiated a new phase of assaulting territories that possess natural resources in order to appropriate them for itself. No one in the region is exempt from this danger.

New era

The leader of the world’s most powerful nation confessed to launching the attack from 20 different military bases, using 150 aircraft, attack helicopters and state-of-the-art drones to subdue the Venezuelan government, massacre troops and civilians, and establish a new model of coups openly directed from the White House.

Far from just being bravado, the era of US continental territorial domination has begun. Trump’s words were precise: “All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them.”

“We are going to run the country,” Trump said.

Neither Maduro nor vice-president Delcy Rodríguez, and not even opposition leader María Corina Machado or opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia are viewed as national figures with sufficient merit to oversee the neocolonial transition.

Instead, Trump has proposed that a group of “good people” of his choosing will manage the transition. In other words, a submissive and unconditional transitional authority “Made in the USA”.

But it does not stop there. Trump also said that Cuba was in their sights, to which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio added: “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned at least a little bit.”

Closing ranks in defence of Venezuela’s sovereignty is the path to guaranteeing the entire region’s sovereignty. Only a united Latin America can confront the US neocolonial offensive.

Machado, an ultrarightist who supports the genocide in Gaza and aligns herself with the global far right, had been, until now, the US’ Trojan horse.

But, as Trump said, Machado does not enjoy the respect of all Venezuelans. Her rhetoric seeks to deepen polarisation and divide the people. But that is not the US’ main concern.

Rather, it is the possibility that her leadership might at some point clash with its neocolonial agenda. Abruptly pushing her aside, as Trump has done, expresses the US’ determination to prevent any leadership with mass appeal from leading the Venezuelan government and state.

The US needs weak governments, without any organic connection to the masses and therefore unable to in any way resist US neocolonial policies.

Neocolonial transition

Trump has threatened that a new military attack on Venezuela could happen at any time if the remnants of the Maduro regime do not quickly agree to a neocolonial transition.

Trump’s media conference addressed several central points.

He acknowledged Maduro’s capture, with whom a transition was being negotiated but, according to Trump, talks had stalled.

He stated that if a transition agreement with Venezuelan authorities was not reached soon, the US would launch a much more lethal attack against the country, signaling that the January 3 actions were the beginning, not the end, of possible military actions.

He announced the US decision to remain in control of the Venezuelan situation, maintain the naval blockade and foster a government of “good people” that would answer directly to a team led by him, his secretaries of War and Homeland Security, and the military Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Machado would not be the figurehead of the transition because, according to Trump, “it would be very tough for (Machado) to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support or respect within the country.”

He recognised Rodríguez as Maduro’s successor to have someone to discuss the transition with. He said Rodríguez had a long conversation with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in which Trump claimed she said, “‘We’ll do whatever you need.”

He said the US will control the transition until the full potential of the oil industry is restored and the “recovery of the country” is underway.

Trump’s media conference was a declaration of Venezuela’s neocolonial status, the loss of its territorial and political sovereignty, and the capture of its wealth (in particular oil resources).

It was a practical and tangible launch of his National Security Strategy, which considers the Western Hemisphere as its domain.

Unanswered questions

Several questions remain, answers to which will enable a more in-depth analysis in the coming days.

Why did Maduro’s military and security detail fail so catastrophically? Why was the military response to the US operation so weak to the point of being almost nonexistent?

Who benefits from a transition without Maduro or Machado? Why was the government silent for so many hours regarding Maduro’s kidnapping?

Are we witnessing a transfer of power to a civilian-military junta negotiated between the current government authorities and the Trump administration?

If this negotiation fails, will it lead to a prolonged military campaign to crush Maduro’s regime?

And will US interference — until the country’s situation normalises — involve the establishment of military bases on Venezuelan soil?

Reaction

Rodríguez — now acting as president in accordance with the constitutional line of succession — issued a call for popular mobilisations in defence of Maduro and the government.

Unlike what happened with the 2002 coup against then-President Hugo Chávez, almost 24 hours after the US military action, the call to mobilise in support of Maduro failed to resonate with the population. There have only been small gatherings of 100 people, broadcast on the government television channel. [Editor’s note: Venezuelanalysis.com reports that thousands took to the streets of Caracas on January 4 to demand Maduro’s release.]

Anti-imperialist sentiment is not widespread; on the contrary, anti-Maduro sentiment is the driving force behind the actions of large segments of the population.

While it is crucial to prioritise anti-imperialism and denounce US interference in Venezuela’s affairs, it is essential to emphasise that this sense of frustrated nationalism among a significant portion of the population stems from the Maduro government’s disastrous mistakes.

Maduro chose to abandon the popular social program championed by Chávez and implement neoliberal policies under the guise of leftist rhetoric. He was the architect of the erosion of anti-imperialist sentiment in Venezuela, which ultimately led to his downfall.

In the era of Trumpism, democratic, progressive, left-wing and revolutionary sectors need to build a broad and diverse global alliance that prioritises anti-imperialism and the struggle for the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples.

Faced with the US’ neocolonial offensive, we defend sovereignty by promoting broad alliances that uphold the right of peoples to decide their own futures.

[A longer version of this article was first published in Spanish at Viento Sur. Translated by Federico Fuentes.]

 * Luis Bonilla-Molina, a Venezuelan academic, is a member of the Executive Committee of the Latin American Social Sciences Council (CLACSO) and Coordinator of the CLACSO “Digital capitalism, educational policies and critical pedagogies” working group.

* * *

Comment (Richard Fidler): Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney was quick to endorse the US kidnapping of Maduro, which he called an opportunity for change in Venezuela: “The Canadian government… welcomes the opportunity for freedom, democracy, peace and prosperity for the Venezuelan people.” In a more critical vein, the leading capitalist media portrayed the attack on Venezuela as an illustration of Trump’s new National Security Strategy and its threat to state sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere. The response of the Globe and Mail editors was to trumpet the opportunity to speed the expansion of fossil-fuel production and export and massively increase the size of Canada’s armed forces as an “elbows up” response to Trump’s trade wars and threats to Canadian independence. However, Montréal’s Le Devoir warned of how the governments of Quebec and Canada are using Trump’s threats to backtrack on their commitments to climate and environmental protection.

Carney participated with European NATO leaders in a Paris summit designed to pressure Ukraine’s president Zelensky to accept a Trump proposal for a deal with Putin that would sacrifice 20% or more of Ukraine to Russia. The summit discussed support for Ukraine once a deal was concluded, ignoring the fact that Putin has shown no intention to negotiate or to accept even a ceasefire. Unwilling to challenge outright Trump’s attack on Venezuela or his resistance to bolstering Ukraine’s ongoing military defence against Russian aggression, the Paris summit instead featured statements in defence of Greenland, one of Washington’s threatened takeover targets – all in the name of defending NATO unity.

From Hope to Disillusionment: Bolivia After 20 Years of the MAS

Amidst bitter infighting and economic crisis, Bolivia’s left suffered a major defeat after nearly two decades of groundbreaking governance.

 By Linda Farthing and Benjamin Swift

 [My thanks to the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) for this informative contextual analysis of the recent Bolivian electoral process, from which this English version (with photos by Benjamin Swift) is republished. I follow it with reference to two articles I published in happier times, following my brief sojourn in Bolivia in 2013-2014. – Richard Fidler]

A nearly two-decade era of Indigenous-oriented governance and anti-neoliberal politics has come to an end in Bolivia. The Movement towards Socialism (MAS) government, which launched in the early 2000s with great hopes and optimism, is closing with disappointment and economic chaos.

In a reversal as drastic as the MAS’s landslide victory in 2005, three right-wing presidential candidates—from center-right to far-right—won a combined 77 percent of the vote in the August 18 national election. Far from commanding a majority in both the Congress and Senate as it has since 2006, the MAS lost all its seats in the legislature but one.

Rodrigo Paz Pereira of the Christian Democrats, along with his popular vice-presidential candidate Edman Lara, defied opinion polls and stunned observers by surging into the lead. They will advance to a runoff vote against far-right candidate Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga on October 19.

Though Paz presented himself as a populist outsider promoting “capitalism for all,” he is hardly new to politics. He is a sitting senator representing the department of Tarija and the son of Jaime Paz Zamora, a neoliberal president from 1989 to 1993, closely tied to Bolivia’s traditional ruling elite. Yet it was his running mate, Edman Lara, who propelled Paz to first place. Lara, 39, is a former police officer from rural Cochabamba whose denunciations of police corruption have earned him a large and enthusiastic following on TikTok, Bolivia’s most popular social media platform.

Disenchantment with the MAS was palpable after the vote, when hundreds gathered in the streets of La Paz to celebrate Paz and Lara’s unexpected success. Zuleyka Pinto, a pharmaceutical chemist from El Alto who had knocked on doors for their campaign for months, saw their ticket as representing something new. “El MAS nunca más” (“the MAS never again”), the crowd surrounding her chanted on election night. 

“The MAS no longer guaranteed any possibility of surviving economically, so people went to the other side,” says political analyst José de la Fuente, a former employee of the MAS-controlled Cochabamba departmental government. Indigenous and working-class voters “will never choose the neoliberal right,” he explains, “so many of them opted for what they thought was the middle.”

 Exploding Political and Financial Crises

Other voters heeded a call by former President Evo Morales—barred by term limits from running again—to spoil their ballots. Approximately 19 percent of ballots were marked null, nearly six times above average. Yet not all of these votes can be interpreted as support for Morales; voting is mandatory in Bolivia for those under 70, and null and blank ballots have long been used as a form of resistance against traditional party politics. Even so, with the number of null votes a whisker above perennial conservative candidate Samuel Doria Medina, Morales triumphantly declared victory,  asserting on the coca growers’ radio station, “if you add in the blank ballots and the absentee vote, we’re in first place.”

Morales’s maneuvering eliminated any chance for 36-year-old MAS Senate President Andrónico Rodríguez, who ran on an independent left ticket. Once considered Morales’s political heir, Rodríguez garnered only 8.4 percent of the vote. Rodríguez had been the hope of Bolivia’s left for months, but Morales’s fierce antipathy towards him, his perceived indecisiveness in public appearances, and an unpopular vice-presidential pick all combined to sink his campaign.

With President Luis Arce deciding not to run for re-election amid low approval ratings, former Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo ran as the MAS candidate. In a reflection of Arce and Rodriguez’s unpopularity, he scraped by with only 3.16 percent of the vote, just barely above the 3 percent threshold required to maintain the party’s legal status. 

This fracturing of the left echoed the infighting that has plagued the party since 2020, when Arce—Morales’s longtime finance minister—won a resounding victory with 55 percent of the vote, one year after Morales was ousted in a coup following his unconstitutional bid for a fourth term. Morales always viewed Arce as a placeholder, believing he could run again in 2025, and soon clashed with Arce and his Vice President, David Choquehuanca, as they asserted their independence.

Now facing statutory rape charges, Morales has sought to destroy every Left rival, including his former ministers and social movement allies. Morales even turned on his closest ally: in 2023, when former Vice President Álvaro García Linera proposed mediating the MAS leadership conflict, Morales called him “my newest enemy.”

“I would have been open to supporting the MAS if it had been another person,” says Óscar Paco, a former Morales’s supporter who spoiled his ballot this time, unconvinced by the contenders, including Rodríguez. “Evo already had his moment—he should make space for young people.”

 Beyond the MAS divide, disillusionment stemmed in large measure from Bolivia’s faltering economy. After 2013, falling global commodity prices and dwindling natural gas reserves eroded state revenues. The burden of costly fuel subsidies—which the MAS government failed to curb in 2010 after a near-uprising over proposed price increases that fell most heavily on the poor—has deepened the strain. Meanwhile, the dollar-pegged currency has steadily weakened, with the black-market exchange rate now about twice the official one.

As people struggled to put bread on the table—and with bread size decreasing as prices rose—memories of MAS-era social welfare gains faded from view. 

 The Fall of the MAS

Over two decades in power, the MAS party, which grew out of Bolivia’s powerful social movements, achieved astounding gains for poor people, particularly in its early years. Under Morales, the country’s first Indigenous president, poverty was reduced by half, natural gas contracts were boldly re-negotiated with powerful multinationals, and rural infrastructure expanded dramatically. There was hardly a village or low-income barrio that didn’t boast a new school, road, or health clinic. These advances brought the MAS unprecedented popularity and sustained its electoral dominance for 14 years.

But a steady concentration of power centered on Morales weakened the country’s grassroots movements. Social movement leaders were absorbed into the government,  their loyalty ensured through perks such as union headquarters funded by the state, while critical social movement voices were sidelined. “The MAS became distant from social organizations and from ordinary people,” explains analyst de la Fuente. “It abandoned its agenda and focused only on re-election.”

The MAS’s successes were not only material. For many Bolivians, the most profound transformation was the decline of everyday racism. During the 2019 protests in defense of Morales, a common refrain heard in the streets was, “we don’t want to go back to the racism of the past,” as a street vendor said through tears at a rally in La Paz.

While the government’s investments proved successful at stimulating the economy and lifting about 10 percent of the population into the middle class, they were built on the extraction of the country’s abundant natural resources—the same model in place since the Spanish invasion over 500 years ago. The boom-and-bust cycles that have plagued Bolivia ever since brought the left-wing experiment to its knees. When commodity prices collapsed after 2013, the government’s carefully accumulated reserves, among the highest in Latin America, were drained as it maintained spending to shore up political support. 

Bolivia’s deeply entrenched patterns of extractivist dependence were never shaken. If anything, more advanced technologies and China’s surging demand for natural resources accelerated exploitation, leaving ecological devastation in their wake. By 2024, Bolivia ranked second only to Brazil—a country eight times its size—in tropical primary forest loss, much of it driven by soy expansion and cattle ranching in the eastern lowlands.

Corruption scandals have further eroded trust in MAS governance. One case diverted millions of dollars earmarked for Indigenous development projects; others have tainted Arce’s administration directly. “There’s been so much corruption with Arce’s current government,” says Máxima Laura, a street vendor in traditional Aymara dress and former MAS voter. “His kids have profited,” she adds. Though Laura voted for Paz and Lara, she is skeptical of their promises. “I don’t believe in politicians anymore. They say one thing, but when the time comes, they change their mind.”

 What’s Next for the Bolivian Left?

The rise of Paz and Lara, and Morales’s enduring influence, leave the Bolivian left with few immediate paths forward. Since most political parties in Bolivia revolve around individual leaders, MAS’s failure to renew its leadership does not bode well for the future.

Morales’s top-down governing style still shapes political culture at every level beyond the local. Bolivia’s Indigenous and working-class unions have long relied on charismatic male leaders, corporatist structures, and close ties between leader and base. As president, Morales famously helicoptered into rural communities almost daily, launching public projects and cultivating loyalty.

But the generational terrain has shifted. Most young Bolivians, raised in relative middle-class security thanks to the MAS’s own achievements, never experienced the poverty or struggles that defined their parents’ lives. One consequence of neoliberalism is that for many young people today, the primary focus is on individual rather than collective well-being.

According to Iveth Saravia, who coordinates a children’s foundation in El Alto, “a lot of young people talk about the need for new people, and for them that new person is Tuto.” She sees it as ironic that “Tuto” Quiroga, who served as vice-president under former dictator Hugo Banzer and briefly as president more than two decades ago, is now embraced as fresh leadership. “It’s striking how much historical memory has been lost,” she observes.

This shift also shaped how Morales’s rhetoric was received. His grand narratives of anti-imperial struggle increasingly rang hollow for younger Bolivians, whose priorities centered on more immediate, everyday concerns. The MAS discourse came to have “an ideological overemphasis,” notes de la Fuente. For him, the future of the Bolivian left lies outside the MAS: “Another left has to emerge, one that’s more mature and more savvy.” That includes more seriously addressing environmental issues, a cause the right has skillfully co-opted as the MAS—like every government before it—prioritized economic development over sustainability.

This is Bolivia’s great conundrum: how to improve living standards through value-added industries, rather than perpetuating historic patterns of resource extraction. It is, in many ways, the perennial dilemma of the Global South.

Before formally gaining power, the resurgence of the right is already taking shape through court rulings favoring key figures from the 2019 coup and subsequent massacres. In response to a rare Supreme Court order, a judge annulled charges against former interim president Jeanine Áñez for her role in the Sacaba and Senkata massacres, sending the case back to Congress for approval before it reaches the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, another judge ordered that former Santa Cruz governor Fernando Camacho be moved to house arrest and that Marco Antonio Pumari, another central figure in the coup, be released from preventive detention. “These politicized court decisions will inevitably pave the way for more political violence like the massacres Áñez oversaw,” says Thomas Becker, a human rights lawyer working with the families of 2019 massacre victims.

Yet amid the crisis, one achievement stands out. In the year of Bolivia’s bicentenary of independence from Spain, the only apparent winner in the recent election is electoral democracy itself—no small feat in a nation that has endured more coup d’etats than almost any other. This time around, Arce appears committed to a democratic transition, even at the cost of dismantling his own party and the legacy of the self-styled “government of social movements.”

But this is Bolivia: a country where social movements have repeatedly risen—against colonial powers, military dictatorships, and neoliberal governments alike—to demand a more equitable and inclusive society. It may take time, but there is little doubt they will rise again.

September 3, 2025

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Linda Farthing is a journalist and independent scholar who has co-authored four books on Bolivia. She has written extensively on Latin America, including for the Guardian, the Nation, Al Jazeera, and Ms. Magazine.  

Benjamin Swift is a journalist based in La Paz, Bolivia. His stories focus on climate change, the environment, and LGBTQIA+ themes. Find more of his work at www.bswiftcreative.com

 See also:

How Bolivia is leading the global fight against climate disaster

 Bolivia’s Evo Morales re-elected, but important challenges lie ahead

(Both articles are among those republished on Z Network and first published on my blog.)

 

Ukraine must receive all it needs to win a just peace!

 Introduction

For more than three and a half years Russia has pursued its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It occupies about one-fifth of the country, which it has illegally annexed (including territories it has not yet occupied). And it is relentlessly bombing daily cities and towns in the rest of Ukraine with immense damage to critical infrastructures and civilian residences.

Ukraine’s heroic resistance, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, has blocked further major advances by Russia on the ground. But Putin shows no signs of retreat from his goal of overthrowing the government in Kyiv and replacing it with a subservient pro-Russian regime.

Trump’s capitulation to Putin at the Alaska summit of the two war criminals has sabotaged the Ukrainian resistance, which has depended heavily on US military supplies. Trump has shifted that responsibility to Ukraine’s west European allies, who must purchase from the US much of the additional military aid they agree to provide to Ukraine. There is now much talk among the Europeans of how they plan to aid Ukraine once the war has ended – a hypothetical in view of Russia’s refusal of a ceasefire and negotiation of a “peace deal” that Ukraine could accept.

Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney, sensing an opportunity in Europe to counter Canada’s loss of trade under Trump’s tariff offensive, has concluded a four-day official visit to Ukraine, Germany and other countries in the region in which he and his ministers promoted Canada as a source of arms, gas, critical minerals and other commodities. Citing the Russian war on Ukraine as the pretext for his projected multi-billion dollar increase in military spending (to 5% of GDP by 2035), Carney said his offer of assistance to Ukraine does not rule out a possible role for Canadian troops to help enforce a peace agreement.

That was enough to trigger a renewed campaign by Montréal-based antiwar blogger Yves Engler, who is currently hoping to mount his own candidacy in the federal NDP’s leadership campaign. Engler, along with his family enterprise the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, has consistently opposed Ukraine’s self-determination in opposition to Russian aggression, effectively urging its surrender to Putin’s demands. They tend to reduce their portrayal of global imperialism to the US and its military and commercial allies, and have never acknowledged the existence of Russian imperialism -- all in the name of liberal pacifism and diplomacy.

A radically different and progressive approach to the war by the European network in solidarity with Ukraine is expressed in the following statement calling for a vast increase in support for Ukraine, including further armament to be sourced in part by a ban on arming Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The ENSU statement is followed by links to a few articles and interviews with leading protagonists in the solidarity movement in and outside of Ukraine. – RF

 * * *

 Ukraine must receive all it needs to win a just peace!

 Declaration of the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine

August 26, 2025

 After US president Trump’s “summits” with Putin (August 15) and European leaders (August 18) Ukraine confronts the immediate prospect of an unjust “peace” settlement that rewards the Russian aggressor. If forced on their besieged country, this Trump-Putin “deal” will betray the Ukrainian people’s heroic struggle against Russia’s murderous invasion.

Top-level haggling among the US, Russia and European powers over a possible settlement continues, and may well founder because of stubborn Ukrainian resistance to Trump’s appeasement of Putin.

However, any version of the current “peace” blueprint will grossly violate Ukraine’s democratic and national rights. It will legitimize:

• The violent Russian occupation of a fifth of Ukrainian territory and the swap to Russia of territory and people presently under Ukrainian administration
• The destruction of Ukraine’s towns, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, environment and heritage
• The murder of tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens and the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children, and
• The genocidal Russification of the occupied territories, and a host of other war crimes.
• It will also place the burden of ending the war not on aggressor Russia but on Ukraine, its victim.

The flurry of diplomatic activity in mid-August did not deter Putin, who is determined to gain as much as possible on the battlefield and in negotiations. Lethal drone and missile attacks have increased on Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure, even as Russian foreign minister Lavrov insists that Russia must have a role in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security (and is supported in this by J. D. Vance).

A “settlement” on these terms will not only be a disaster for Ukraine, but a blow against democratic rights and freedoms everywhere, like colonizer Israel’s genocidal invasion of Gaza.

The European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine (ENSU) therefore calls on supporters of democratic rights to mobilize to help prevent a “peace” deal that can only leave the door open to further Russian aggression. The Ukrainian people must experience a new wave of solidarity like the one that surged after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, a wave strong enough to make governments–and politicians facing elections–think long and hard before abandoning Ukraine.

Policy towards Ukraine to date: supporting it just enough to survive

Ukraine’s present dangerous situation is largely the work of Vladimir Putin’s “partner” (his term), Donald Trump. But the hesitations and vacillations of the Biden administration and major European governments and institutions that have most boasted about “standing with Ukraine” also contributed.

Trump has directly sabotaged Ukrainian resistance. US military aid, which was always a useful tool for blackmailing Kyiv, is now far from guaranteed: even when agreed to, Europe will foot the bill. Trump’s Alaskan red‑carpet for war criminal Putin simply accommodated to his aggression: the threat of sanctions was promptly forgotten, “land swaps” (involving hundreds of thousands of human beings) were accepted as part of “a comprehensive peace”, the demand for a ceasefire before negotiations disappeared, the prospect of a return to normal in US-Russia business relations was floated, and any prospect of justice for victims of war crimes just evaporated.

On the European side, the last three years have been marked by the reluctance of the major powers, especially Germany and France, to offend Russia “too much”: Ukraine could have been given longer range missiles, more aircraft and €300 billion in frozen Russian assets. Russia’s “shadow fleet” of rusting oil tankers could have been pursued with much greater vigour.

The overall level of support received by Ukraine after three years has been enough to prevent its defeat but well short of that needed to win the war. The Zelensky government has been left expressing gratitude for what has been given, but also imploring its donors to actually deliver what has been promised and provide what is still lacking.

Time for serious commitment from Europe

Europe’s vacillations must now end in all those areas where its leading powers have so far feared to act. They must first pay attention to Putin when he says what he really thinks: “I’ve said it before, Russians and Ukrainians are one people. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours. There’s an old rule that wherever a Russian soldier sets foot, that’s ours.” (St Petersburg International Economic Forum, June 20)

They must also stop believing that Trump can be lured over to Ukraine’s side with gross flattery and offers of financial gain. No-one, not even Trump himself, can say what his posture on Ukraine will be tomorrow.

The European Union and the United Kingdom must follow the lead of the Nordic and Baltic countries, whose leaders stated on August 16: “We will continue to arm Ukraine and enhance Europe's defences to deter further Russian aggression. As long as Russia continues its killing we will continue to strengthen sanctions and wider economic measures to put pressure on Russia’s war economy. We stand firm in our unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity.”

Taken seriously–and so Putin understands that Ukrainian resistance really is being boosted–these words can only mean:

• Full and rapid arming of Ukraine, in part sourced from a ban on arming aggressor states like Israel and Saudi Arabia. The quicker and more completely Ukraine can develop its own defence industry and find reliable non-US suppliers of equipment it still cannot manufacture, the better.
• Frozen Russian assets must be immediately transferred to Ukraine and sanctions tightened on Putin’s regime, its supporting oligarchs and European firms directly or indirectly implicated in its war effort.
• The European Union’s timetable for eliminating its dependence on Russian fossil fuels exports must be radically shortened and any firm that provides services to this trade severely sanctioned.
• Prosecution for Russian war crimes must be pursued rigorously.

Solidarity with Ukraine–now more than ever

ENSU holds that the alternative to appeasement of aggression lies in supporting Ukraine’s right to self-determination and self-defence, done in the name of a democratic and united Ukraine free of occupiers.

The defence of Ukraine is also a struggle against authoritarian aggression everywhere. The fate of the peoples of Europe and of the whole world, from Palestine to Ukraine, is at stake. Any position taken by the labour movement and the left that would help Putin (like dropping the call for all Russian forces to leave Ukraine or echoing his demand for a change of regime in Kyiv in the midst of war) would be a stab in the back not only of the Ukrainian people, but of the social and national struggles of all peoples.

Former UK Labour shadow treasurer John McDonnell has explained what is at stake: “This is a critical time in Ukraine’s future. There can be no sell‑out after all the sacrifices made to maintain freedom. It’s time for maximum solidarity.”

No to an imperial peace leading to future wars! Real peace through the defeat of Putin and Trump! Peace through solidarity with Ukraine and among the peoples of Europe and the world!

 Ukraine must receive all it needs to win!

For a full statement of the ENSU position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how to counter it see the Brussels Declaration.

See also…

“Anti-militarism without pacifism,” https://labourhub.org.uk/2025/08/15/anti-militarism-without-pacifism/

“Will Russia-Ukraine War End with Diplomacy or on Battlefield? John Mearsheimer vs. Denys Pilash,” https://www.democracynow.org/2025/8/19/russia_ukraine_war

And from Ukrainian socialists, an earlier statement explaining the class issues posed in the war: “For Ukraine without oligarchs and occupiers!,” https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article8894

 

Members of The Hague Group declare six ‘concrete’ steps against Israel at Bogotá summit

 Colombia says ‘we will no longer allow international law to be treated as optional’ as nations pledge to prevent arms transfers to Israel for Gaza atrocities

 By Laura Gamba in Bogotá

[Thanks to Middle East Eye for this report, which is followed below by further information and analysis – R.F.]

A coalition of states from around the world gathering in Bogotá on July 16 agreed to implement six measures to stop Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and prevent violations of international law.

The announcement came as part of an “emergency summit” in the Colombian capital, co-hosted by the governments of Colombia and South Africa as co-chairs of The Hague Group, to coordinate diplomatic and legal action to counter what they describe as “a climate of impunity” enabled by Israel and its powerful allies.

The Hague Group is currently a bloc of eight states, launched on 31 January in the eponymous Dutch city, with the stated goal of holding Israel accountable under international law.

The conference brought together more than 30 states, including Algeria; Bolivia; Botswana; Brazil; Chile; China; Cuba; Djibouti; Honduras; Indonesia; Iraq; Ireland; Lebanon; Libya; Malaysia; Mexico; Namibia; Nicaragua; Norway; Oman; Pakistan; Palestine; Portugal; Spain; Qatar; Turkey; Slovenia; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Uruguay; and Venezuela.

“We came to Bogotá to make history - and we did,” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

“Together, we have begun the work of ending the era of impunity. These measures show that we will no longer allow international law to be treated as optional, or Palestinian life as disposable.”

“In the deliberations at the Bogota conference, all 30 participating states unanimously agreed that the era of impunity must end - and that international law must be enforced without fear or favour through immediate domestic policies and legislation - along with a unified call for an immediate ceasefire,” the Hague Group said in a statement.

To kickstart that process, the group said that 12 states from across the world – Bolivia; Colombia; Cuba; Indonesia; Iraq; Libya; Malaysia; Namibia; Nicaragua; Oman; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; and South Africa – have committed to implementing the six measures immediately through their domestic legal and administrative systems.

The measures seek to “break the ties of complicity with Israel’s campaign of devastation in Palestine,” the group added.

A date has been set for 20 September 2025, coinciding with the 80^th UN General Assembly, for additional states to join them in adopting the measures, the statement added.

“Consultations with capitals across the world are now ongoing.”

What are the six measures?

The six measures are as follows:

1.      Prevent the provision or transfer of arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel.

2.      Prevent the transit, docking, and servicing of vessels at any port…. in all cases where there is a clear risk of the vessel being used to carry arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel.

3.      Prevent the carriage of arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel on vessels bearing our flag… and ensure full accountability, including de-flagging, for non-compliance with this prohibition.

4.      Commence an urgent review of all public contracts, to prevent public institutions and funds from supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territory and entrenching its unlawful presence.

5.      Comply with obligations to ensure accountability for the most serious crimes under international law, through robust, impartial and independent investigations and prosecutions at national or international levels, to ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes.

6.      Support universal jurisdiction mandates, as and where applicable in national legal frameworks and judiciaries, to ensure justice for victims of international crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

 In her closing speech, Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, said: “These aren’t just measures but are lifelines for a people who are under relentless assault and a world that has been paralyzed for too long.”

“These 12 states have taken a momentous step forward,” Albanese added. “The clock is now ticking for states, from Europe to the Arab world and beyond, to join them.”

The conference agreed to set a deadline for states’ final decisions by September 2025, in line with the 12-month timeframe mandated by UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/ES-10/24, adopted on 18 September 2024.

That resolution called on all states to take effective action on Israel’s violations of international law, including accountability, sanctions, and cessation of support, within one year of adoption.

“What we have achieved here is a collective affirmation that no state is above the law,” said South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola.

“The Hague Group was born to advance international law in an era of impunity. The measures adopted in Bogotá show that we are serious, and that coordinated state action is possible.”

Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, the executive secretary of The Hague Group, said: “This conference marks a turning point, not just for Palestine, but for the future of the international system.

“For decades, states, particularly in the Global South, have borne the cost of a broken international system. In Bogotá, they came together to reclaim it, not with words, but with actions.”

Israel’s war on Gaza, increasingly condemned by experts and governments as a genocide, has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians and displaced almost the entire population since October 2023.

The onslaught has left the Palestinian enclave barely habitable and around two million on the brink of starvation.

***

The full text of the “Joint Statement on the Conclusion of the Emergency Conference on Palestine” can be accessed here.

In her closing remarks at the Bogotá conference, Francesca Albanese was critical of the Joint Statement’s favourable reference to the conference on “Implementation of the Two-State Solution” to be held at the UN General Assembly from 28-30 July. The “32 years of two-state discourse,” she said, has led to the current genocide. “Palestinian self-determination, reparations and return, are not subjects for negotiation, as the International Court of Justice has declared.”

However, as the above report indicates, Albanese described the conference decisions as “a momentous step forward” and urged other states to follow suit.

Most of the governments that signed the Bogotá statement have already cut diplomatic ties with Israel. Some of the states attending the conference are unlikely to sign the statement; among them is China, Israel’s 2^nd largest trading partner (including Hong Kong).

The Progressive International, initiator of the Hague Group, is a coalition of international left-wing activists and groups mobilized to fight what it calls “the resurgence of authoritarian nationalism worldwide as well as the rise of disaster capitalism.”

In an article announcing the Bogotá conference, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro warned that failure to implement United Nations resolutions on Israel’s Gaza war risks “stripping the global legal order of its remaining protections for less-privileged nations.”

“In September 2024, when we voted for the United Nations general assembly resolution on Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, we assumed concrete obligations – investigations, prosecutions, sanctions, asset freezes, and cessation of imports and arms. That resolution set a deadline of 12 months for Israel to ‘bring to an end without delay its unlawful presence’.” One hundred and twenty-four states voted in favour, including Colombia. The clock is now ticking.

“In the meantime, however, far too many states have allowed strategic calculations to override our duty. While we may face threats of retribution when we stand up for international law – as South Africa discovered when the United States retaliated against its case at the international court of justice – the consequences of abdicating our responsibilities will be dire. If we fail to act now, we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu’s government.”

Although the Bogotá conference went largely unreported in mainstream media, the U.S. government was quick to respond, in a statement that reeked of cynical irony:

“The United States strongly opposes efforts by so-called ‘multilateral blocs’ to weaponize international law as a tool to advance radical anti-Western agendas,” a State Department official said. “The so-called Hague Group—whose leading voices are South Africa and Cuba, authoritarian and communist regimes, respectively, with deeply troubling human rights records—seeks to undermine the sovereignty of democratic nations by isolating and attempting to delegitimate Israel, transparently laying the groundwork for targeting the United States, our military, and our allies.”

Those “allies” include Canada, which repeatedly votes “no” at the United Nations on resolutions regarding Palestinian rights. Its complicity with Israel’s aggression was further detailed in a report by Francesca Albanese on “the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory.” Here is a summary of some key findings.

Last November, Albanese was invited to meet with Canadian government officials and parliamentarians, but both events were cancelled a week before her arrival. She nevertheless managed to meet with a wide range of pro-Palestinian activists in Ontario and Quebec. In a hard-hitting interview with The Breach, she explained how Canada is “part of a small group of countries who have ‘continued to allow and nurture the arrogance that is at the origins of Israeli behaviour today’.”

On July 11, NDP Foreign Affairs critic Heather McPherson and NDP House Leader Alexandre Boulerice announced their intention to nominate Francesca Albanese for the next Nobel Peace Prize:

“She has travelled the world to share what she has witnessed on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories and has urged us to take action in the name of justice and the rule of law. She has shown true courage and conviction in the face of a genocide that world leaders have failed to take concrete action to stop.”

Here is Albanese's speech at the opening session of the conference. Note that she calls for state actions that are far more definitive than those demanded by the Bogotá conference:

"Each state [must] immediately review and suspend all ties with Israel: their military, strategic, political, diplomatic, economic relations — both imports and exports — and make sure that their private sector, insurers, banks, pension funds, universities, and other goods and service providers in the supply chains do the same. Treating the occupation as business as usual translates into supporting or providing aid or assistance to the unlawful presence of Israel in the OPT. These ties must be terminated as a matter of urgency.

"Let’s be clear: I mean cutting ties with Israel as a whole. Cutting ties only with the “components” of it in the OPT is not an option."

A Québécois socialist response to Canada’s federal election

The following article appeared first in the Quebec online weekly Presse-toi à gauche. The English translation is by International Viewpoint, slightly revised and updated by me, which IV published under a literal translation from the PTàG headline: “Lessons from the last federal elections: Towards the renewal of the status quo ante or the desperate search for an agreement with Trumpism.” The authors, André Frappier and Bernard Rioux, are editors of the Quebec publication. Both are members of the left party Québec solidaire, which does not contest federal elections. – Richard Fidler

Although opinion polls in 2024 had predicted a landslide victory for the Conservative Party, the recent federal election gave the Liberal Party of Canada a fourth consecutive mandate. The election campaign was dominated by widespread public apprehension over the trade war and Donald Trump’s threats of annexation of Canada. These fears weighed heavily on voting intentions.

The new government headed by Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged to defend the Canadian economy against the effects of the trade tariffs imposed on the country, to reaffirm national sovereignty, and even to protect territorial unity. The Canadian bourgeoisie and its federal and provincial governments will be under pressure from a US administration determined to subordinate Canada to its own interests. The trade-union movement, the various social movements, and the political left — at least what remains of it — will have to work to build their unity and to demonstrate strong combativeness and political autonomy vis-à-vis the choices of the governments of the Canadian oligarchy in order to resist the Trumpist project with a view to achieving genuine social emancipation.

Electoral dynamics and party positioning

The Liberal Party of Canada elected 169 members of parliament, with 43.7 percent of the vote. It will have to form a minority government, having fallen short of the 172 seats needed for a majority. The Conservative Party of Canada recorded significant gains, winning 144 seats and a jump in its vote from 33.7 percent in 2021 to over 40 percent in 2025.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) suffered a collapse, its number of MPs dropping from 25 to 7, causing it to lose its status as a recognized party. Much of its traditional electorate, worried about Trump’s threats and eager to prevent a Conservative victory, opted instead to vote for the Liberals.

The Bloc Québécois lost ground, securing 22 seats. The Green Party elected only one member, with just 1.2 percent of the vote. The far-right People’s Party of Canada (PPC) received only 0.7 percent of the vote, six times less than in 2021.

These elections therefore led to a minority government, revealing a polarization of the electorate around the two major neoliberal parties and a marginalization of third parties. The social democratic and ecological left saw its parliamentary representation and popular support reduced to a bare minimum.

The Conservative Party driven by populist demagogy

The Conservative Party has championed an ultraliberal, climate-sceptic, and militaristic agenda: corporate tax cuts, privatization, deregulation of oil and gas exploitation, and attacks on union rights. It has combined this approach with populist demagogy aimed at the working classes, presenting itself as the defender of purchasing power and access to housing.

Through a tour of factories and workplaces, it managed to build significant support for its program, anchoring it to popular anger. A conservative bloc was thus formed, ranging from supporters of fossil fuel capital to certain sectors of the working class.

The trade union movement and progressive social movements clearly perceived this strategy, but they responded not with a united and massive mobilization but with support for the Liberal party and its new leader.

Faced with the Trumpist offensive, the Liberal party is surfing on Canadian nationalism

The new Liberal leadership quickly realized that the Tories’ rise in the polls reflected a significant shift to the right of the electorate. It repositioned itself accordingly.

Taking office as the new Liberal leader (he replaced Justin Trudeau, who resigned in December), Mark Carney abolished the consumer carbon tax, short-circuiting Tory leader Pierre Poilievre’s “Axe the tax” slogan. During the campaign, he promised tax cuts and an end to the further tax on capital gains introduced by Trudeau. He also supported pipeline projects, advocated for increased oil and gas production, promised to boost military spending to 2 percent of GDP, strengthened border surveillance, and restricted immigration.

He thus adopted many elements of the Conservative platform, which the Tories denounced as a plundering of their ideas. Taking advantage of the resurgence of Canadian nationalism sparked by Trump’s comments on the annexation of Canada, Carney touted the purchase of local products, energy independence, and the diversification of export markets.

As Romaric Godin wrote in Mediapart: “Finding new outlets for Canadian businesses is likely to be tricky. […] The US market represented nearly 75.9 percent of Canadian exports and 62.2 percent of imports in 2024.”

The economic diversification project therefore seems unrealistic, especially since Canada has long since abandoned any policy of economic nationalism, as in the orientations of the Watkins report of the 1960s. Every government since Mulroney’s in the 1970s has supported continental integration, embodied by NAFTA and then CUSMA. The Carney government’s objective is thus a return to the status quo ante, in the interests of the Canadian bourgeoisie. But any negotiation with Trump will involve unilateral concessions: expansion of fossil capital, increased military spending, tougher immigration policy, deportations of asylum seekers and border reinforcement.

The government’s embarrassed silence in the face of Trump’s authoritarian excesses shows that it is prepared to compromise with Washington to preserve a facade of Canadian autonomy.

In Quebec: decline of the Bloc Québécois and impasse of the independence movement

The Bloc Québécois suffered a sharp setback. Focusing its campaign on defending a distinct society, it did not challenge federalism or address the issue of Quebec independence. It pledged its support to the Liberal party for the first year and suggested the creation of a border ministry, which angered the leader of the Parti québécois.

The Liberal Party’s victory in Quebec strengthens the legitimacy of Canadian federalism and weakens the PQ’s referendum plan. Collaborating with the Liberal party is tantamount to reinforcing the status quo. To believe otherwise is politically naive.

The foundations of the marginalization of the political and social left

The left has been weakened by the NDP’s prolonged support for the Liberal government, its parliamentary manoeuvring, trade-union apathy and the fragmentation of social movements.

Unions, in Quebec as in Canada, have failed to mobilize their members against conservative policies. As Sid Ryan, former president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, wrote: “The voice of millions of union members was shamefully missing this election.” He attributed this to the NDP’s failure to address workers’ concerns and needs, and to the unions’ lack of political autonomy.

The NDP, becoming a mere parliamentary back-up force, cut itself off from real social struggles. Its strategy based on compromise weakened its credibility. Its electoral decline can also be explained by its inability to defend a programme of radical change in action.

The major unions developed platforms of demands, but limited themselves to asking their members to challenge the candidates. The Liberal party’s shift to the right went unchallenged. The Canadian Labour Congress was quick to express its willingness to collaborate with the Liberal government, confirming the abandonment of any political autonomy.

The feminist movement challenged the parties, of course, but its demands have been marginalized. The mobilization for abortion rights has come up against the rise of a pro-choice right that has received little opposition.

The international solidarity movement campaigned, for example, in defence of the Palestinian people, but without achieving significant traction. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have denounced Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza.

Social movements remained dispersed, each acting in its own field without building a common front.

Paths to Rebuilding the Left in the Canadian State

These elections took place in a climate of heightened Canadian nationalism. In Quebec, the Bloc adopted a nationalism compatible with federalism. Both forms of nationalism assume that national interests converge with those of capitalists, to the detriment of solidarity between peoples.

The Canadian and Quebec left can rebuild itself only by breaking with these nationalisms. It must bring together the working classes, Indigenous peoples, and subaltern groups in a plurinational liberation project.

This project must be feminist, anti-racist, socialist and decolonial. It implies the rejection of any alliance with the PQ and of any defence of the Canadian state as it is, that is to say, based on the negation of the multinational reality of the territory.

A left of social transformation must link its action to an ecosocialist project, uphold the self-determination of the indigenous and Quebec peoples, and develop solidarity with ecological, feminist and popular movements.

It must work to build a social bloc around climate justice, the fight against patriarchy, reparations for Indigenous peoples, the creation of popular constituent assemblies, the nationalization of resources and the dismantling of the Canadian military-industrial complex.

The results of the last elections show that everything must be rebuilt from a veritable field of ruins. But there are battles that cannot be avoided.

Returning to the road to solidarity and updating our perspectives

Initial thoughts:

Building a pan-Canadian activist network has always been a laborious undertaking. This challenge was described in the article “The Challenge of Fighting Together” by Andrea Levy and André Frappier, published in issue 24 of the Nouveaux Cahiers du Socialisme. This 2020 article described the political situation in the Canadian state and in Quebec and its challenges. Clearly, the arrival of Trump and the rise of fascism on our doorstep have altered the situation. We must now examine how we can and must fight together, and on what basis.

The imperialist character of the Canadian state is still very real, as we stated in 2020:

“The Canadian state was built against the rights of peoples, through the oppression of Indigenous peoples who were dispossessed of their territories and ancestral rights, and through the oppression of the French-Canadian nation. This state then developed into an instrument of industrial corporations and finance capital, increasingly playing an imperialist role internationally as a junior partner of American imperialism.”

 A difficulty arose, on the one hand, in understanding the national liberation struggle: “To think of a uniquely Quebec strategy for changing society is to ignore the power of financial institutions and corporations.... Let us remember the fate that the European Central Bank reserved for Greece (a sovereign state, nonetheless) a few years ago.”

And, on the other hand, we considered the problem of the progressive forces in the Rest of Canada: fragmented and limited to regional perspectives, while identifying with the federal state, as the CLC does.

The rise of the far right and the arrival of Trump have changed this situation. The mantra has become “Save Canada,” with a right-wing stance from the Liberal Party that adopts Poilievre’s policies. Building a pan-Canadian left movement is becoming an unavoidable necessity, but it cannot be achieved without comprehending, in the Rest of Canada as much as in Quebec, a perspective that combines the dynamics of the national liberation struggle in Quebec, the struggle of Indigenous peoples for their ancestral rights, and the fight for an egalitarian society. The unity of the pan-Canadian left cannot exist if it falls into supporting the Canadian ruling class in the hope of blocking Trump.

This lack of perspective has left all the ground open to neoliberalism and the right. It is urgent to reclaim a united, working-class, and popular perspective at the pan-Canadian level. We must dedicate ourselves to it now!

 Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Memory as Warfare: How Putin’s Russia Weaponizes Anti-Fascist Rhetoric to Justify Imperial Aggression

From Kyiv to Brussels: The Great Patriotic War as Putin’s propaganda tool

Russian embassy in Ottawa, May 11, 2025, celebrating Soviet victory in the "Great Patriotic War"

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been cloaked in the language of “denazification” - a rhetorical sleight of hand that warrants critical examination from progressive perspectives. Hanna Perekhoda explains how the Kremlin has systematically distorted the memory of World War II, transforming anti-fascism from a genuine emancipatory struggle into a tool of imperial aggression. By appropriating and manipulating the sacred symbolism of the “Great Patriotic War”, Putin’s regime has constructed a narrative that erases the USSR’s complicity in the war’s outbreak, silences minority experiences, and reframes contemporary geopolitical conflicts as existential battles against an eternal fascist threat. This weaponisation of memory serves not only to justify Russia’s violence against Ukraine but increasingly targets all of Europe. For those committed to authentic international solidarity and anti-imperialism, understanding this cynical manipulation of anti-fascist rhetoric is essential - progressive movements must reclaim the genuine legacy of anti-fascism from those who pervert it to serve imperial ambitions.  -- Adam Novak (Europe Solidaire sans Frontières)

By Hanna Perekhoda

Ukrainian historian, researcher, and activist

Since the Maidan uprising and Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Kremlin propaganda has consistently portrayed Ukrainian leaders as Nazis or fascists. Russian officials and state media began claiming that the new Ukrainian leadership consists of “neo-Nazis” who allegedly threaten the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. Russia also accused the Ukrainian authorities of “genocide” of the population of Donbas.

On 24 February 2022, while announcing the full-scale invasion, the “denazification” of Ukraine was presented as the primary goal of the war. On the ground, there is no evidence to support Moscow’s accusations: nobody has ever documented a “genocide” against ethnic Russians or Russian speakers, whether in Ukraine or elsewhere. As for the Ukrainian far-right, its political influence remains minimal: in the 2019 parliamentary elections, the main ultra-nationalist parties, running together on a joint list, received just over 2% of the vote, well below the threshold required to enter Parliament. In short, the image of a “Nazi regime” in Kyiv is based on a glaring mismatch between rhetoric and reality.

However, the goal of this analysis is not to demonstrate that Russian propaganda is, in fact, propaganda. Rather, it is to understand why the Russian authorities repeatedly invoke references to the Second World War—or, in Russian parlance, the “Great Patriotic War”—when speaking about Ukraine. Understanding this memory dynamic is essential to grasp the power of a rhetoric which, despite lacking any factual basis, continues to shape the Russian worldview.

Erasing Soviet complicity in World War II

The Soviet and Russian insistence on using the term “Great Patriotic War” to refer exclusively to the period from 1941 to 1945 serves a specific purpose: to erase the twenty-one months that preceded Nazi Germany’s invasion of the USSR. Between the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939, and Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, Moscow and Berlin were de facto allies: they engaged in extensive economic cooperation, diplomatic coordination, jointly invaded and partitioned Poland in September 1939, and the Soviet Union proceeded to annex the Baltic countries and wage war against Finland. By reducing the war to the period 1941–1945, the USSR and Russia were able to deny any responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War and present themselves solely as the victim of Nazi aggression and the primary liberator of Europe.

The Great Patriotic War—and especially the victory in 1945—became the founding event of Soviet history and the cornerstone of collective memory. Yet this memory, often portrayed as monolithic and universally shared, is anything but uniform. A Ukrainian from the west, who endured two successive occupations between 1939 and 1944, remembers a war very different from that of an eastern Ukrainian, whose experience was shaped primarily by Nazi destruction. The memory of a Russian bears little resemblance to that of a Crimean Tatar, who was deported along with his entire community and denied the right of return for decades. As for Soviet Jews, whose families and communities were annihilated in the Holocaust, they were long forced to remain silent—official narratives left no room for the specificity of their suffering.

While in Western Europe and North America the Holocaust has come to be understood as the ultimate measure of wartime horror, the Soviet myth of war erases this tragedy by subsuming it within the vast death toll of the Soviet people as a whole. Minority memories—of anti-Jewish massacres, ethnic deportations, or the varied experience of occupation—had to be absorbed, silenced, and effaced.

The collective experience of the war and the official discourse surrounding it deeply reshaped the Soviet population’s understanding of “fascism” and “anti-fascism.” Rather than referring to a specific political doctrine of the inter-war period, the term “fascism” had become a catch-all label for the ultimate enemy. Trotsky or the British Conservatives could just as easily be branded as “fascists”, as well as domestic and international opponents after 1945—including even the Chinese Communists. The word “Nazi” itself was rarely used. In everyday life, calling someone a “fascist” served more as the gravest possible insult rather than as a statement of ideological substance.

In the 1960s and 1970s, as faith in communism as a project for the future began to wane, the cult of the 1945 victory gradually became the main pillar of the Soviet regime’s legitimacy. Commemorations became ritualised and came to involve all generations and social groups: children, neatly lined up, marched in front of the Eternal Flame or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; brides, veils flowing and bouquets in hand, visited war memorials to lay flowers and pose. In every city—and eventually in every town and village—the state-built memorial complexes whose solemn architecture was intended to inscribe the memory of the Great Patriotic War into the everyday life of its citizens.

The Putin Era: memory as a weapon

Under Vladimir Putin, the cult of the Great Patriotic War has been revived. Following the pro-democracy protests of 2011 and Putin’s bid for a third presidential term in 2012, the regime instituted a deliberate policy of historical narrative construction, aimed at grounding its legitimacy in a vision of the nation as under siege. Faced with widespread protests against growing authoritarianism, the authorities chose to portray Russia as surrounded by enemies—and Putin as the only bulwark capable of defending the homeland. There was no need to invent a new ideology: the already well-established myth of the Great Patriotic War naturally emerged as the regime’s strategic narrative, functioning on every level.

The glorification of the 1945 victory allowed the regime to purge the collective memory of its specifically socialist elements: by retaining only the narrative of national triumph, the Soviet period could be seamlessly integrated into a continuous national history without any revolutionary rupture. At the same time, the rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin as a legitimate victor served to validate autocracy. The mass repressions and genocidal policies that claimed millions of lives were reframed as a tragic but necessary step: they had made the USSR a global superpower, capable of defending civilisation against the “brown plague.”

The Kremlin has multiplied its legal instruments to enforce this narrative. Since 2020, the Russian Constitution mandates “respect for the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland” and prohibits “diminishing the importance of the heroism” of the Soviet people. In April 2021, Putin signed a law increasing penalties for “insults” or “false claims” about the Second World War and its veterans. In December 2019, Putin himself gathered some leaders of post-Soviet states around a pile of archival documents that he said proved historical truths long ignored in the West—selectively quoting them to justify, in retrospect, the USSR’s annexation of Poland and the Baltic states. In this way, Putin has weaponised history, which has become inseparable from national interest. To challenge his interpretation is tantamount to treason.

The national imagination built around the cult of the Great Patriotic War now allows all of Russia’s actions on the international stage to be framed as part of an eternal war against fascism. Within Russian media discourse, it would have been unthinkable to describe the Ukrainian government as a “fascist junta” or a “Nazi clique” outside the narrative framework imposed by the state over the past decade. The 2022 full-scale invasion is thus portrayed merely as a continuation of the Great Patriotic War: a conflict embedded in a cyclical conception of time in which Russia, eternally under threat from a Western enemy, fights for its very survival—on Ukrainian soil.

9, Russians march in the Immortal Regiment carrying portraits of relatives who fought between 1941 and 1945. Increasingly, the faces of those who fought—or died—in the war against Ukraine are added to these ranks, as though both wars were part of a single, endless struggle. Past and present warfare are merged, and the victory of 1945 becomes the lens through which all events—past, present, and future—are interpreted in a continuous historical timeline.

This symbolic fusion also explains the surreal images of Russian occupation forces who, in recent weeks, have placed propaganda banners in destroyed Ukrainian cities. An uninhabitable Bakhmut was transformed into a stage for celebrating the 80^th anniversary of Russia’s victory in the “Great Patriotic War.” The cult of victory is not only a central element of the Putinist imaginary—it functions as an operating system for domestic governance and external aggression.

Expanding the war narrative: from Ukraine to Europe

This mythological framework also shapes Moscow’s foreign policy. It fuels the belief in a moral right to “punish” people accused of collaborating with the enemy; the war narrative becomes a disciplinary tool used against “rebellious” neighbouring countries. A telling example of this is the installation of a giant screen on the Estonian border, broadcasting Victory Day celebrations in a loop—an attempt to remind Estonians, as well as Latvians and Lithuanians, that the Soviet victory represents an unassailable moral superiority. Identifying with the discourse of the Great Patriotic War thus becomes a mark of loyalty and virtue; to reject or question it is to prove one’s treachery, to expose oneself as corrupted by the enemy, and therefore to be branded a fascist. Through this mechanism, the Russian regime does more than control collective memory—it controls the political and social sphere.

In the Russian collective imagination, the word “fascism” has lost all connection with a specific political ideology and now refers only to an abstract, absolute threat: the desire to destroy Russia. It has become synonymous with “enemy” or “Russophobe,” always denoting the Other, never a historically defined movement. This separation between word and meaning allows the regime to simultaneously glorify the antifascist victory and openly promote xenophobic, homophobic, or ultraconservative rhetoric, without any perceived contradiction.

The word “denazification,” used by Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022, to justify the invasion, initially puzzled many Russians, most of whom were unfamiliar with the term in this context. Shortly afterwards, the state news agency RIA Novosti published an article by Timofey Sergeytsev – What Russia Should Do with Ukraine – aimed at clarifying its meaning: “denazification” was described as a “total cleansing,” targeting not only alleged Nazi leaders but also “the popular masses who are passive Nazis,” deemed guilty of having supported the “Nazi government.” According to Sergeytsev, modern Ukraine hides its Nazism behind aspirations for “independence” and “European development.” To destroy this Nazism, he argues, is to “de-Europeanise” Ukraine. In this logic, denazification becomes synonymous with eliminating all Western influence from Ukraine and dismantling the country’s existence as a nation-state and a distinct society. Incubated on official state platforms, this narrative reveals the true scope of “denazification”: a large-scale project aimed at erasing any trace of Ukrainian singularity, a blueprint for the genocide.

The article recently published on the official website of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), entitled “Eurofascism, Today as 80 Years Ago, Is a Common Enemy of Moscow and Washington,” strikingly illustrates the expansion of the “denazification” discourse far beyond Ukraine. The accompanying image depicts a grotesque hybrid monster: its body is shaped like a black swastika with the EU’s circle of stars in the centre, while its head is a caricature of Ursula von der Leyen. The creature, with its blood-stained claws outstretched, is caught between two bayonets—one American, the other Russian/Soviet. This grotesque image is not merely a provocation: it reflects a narrative deeply entrenched in Russian state propaganda, where “Eurofascism” becomes an operational concept encompassing all European societies.

Such a message, endorsed by the highest levels of the state, might have seemed absurd or even comical just a few years ago—much like the rhetoric around “Ukronazis,” which even Russian opposition figures failed to take seriously, dismissing it as a cynical smokescreen. But the 2022 tipping point revealed these discourses for what they truly are: the ideological foundation of a large-scale invasion, long prepared within the informational sphere. Today, part of European society—especially elements of the pacifist left—is falling into the same trap: underestimating or ignoring the ongoing propaganda dynamic. But the machine is already in motion. The language of fascism is being broadened daily to include new designated enemies, and the ideological war is shifting: it is no longer stopping at Ukraine—it is now targeting all of Europe. In the face of this brutal reconfiguration of the official Russian narrative, complacency or passivity have themselves become forms of strategic blindness.

 See also: Silenced memories: the Holocaust Narrative in the Soviet Union