For 18 months, the Ukrainian armed forces, with decisive support from working people, have fought courageously to repel Moscowâs invasion. A Ukrainian counteroffensive begun two months ago is aimed at defeating Russian President Vladimir Putinâs drive to crush Ukraineâs independence and re-establish the prison house of nations that existed under the Russian czars.Â
DEFEND UKRAINE’S INDEPENDENCE!
The Ukrainian command shifted tactics after its forces ran up against heavily mined and fortified front line positions backed by Moscowâs greater air power. To reduce Ukrainian losses, Kyiv is using strikes at ammunition depots, command posts and bridges behind Russian lines, including on the Crimean Peninsula occupied by Moscow since 2014. Seaborne drones are attacking Russian warships in the Black Sea. Â
The Kremlinâs response is to step up its murderous airstrikes against civilian targets. A guided bomb hit a blood transfusion center in the northeastern city of Kupiansk, Aug. 5, causing a large fire, killing two people and injuring four.Â
Putinâs government is using hundreds of thousands of workers and farmers in Russia as cannon fodder. It recently lifted the upper age of conscription from 27 to 30 years of age as of Jan. 1, stirring opposition to the war.Â
âFrom next January, I can be called up,â Peter, 27, a salesman in St. Petersburg, told the BBC. âI donât want to take part in this war and die for someone elseâs goals.âÂ
Desperate to hold onto Ukrainian territory, Moscow is thrusting elite forces into combat. Mikhail Teplinsky, commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, admitted at least 8,500 of his troops have been wounded since the war began. The BBC estimates at least 1,800 paratroopers have been killed. Teplinskyâs online posting was quickly deleted by the Kremlin as it tries to keep its devastating losses hidden from working people in Russia.Â
Ukraine health staff protest attacks
While working people overwhelmingly support the defense of Ukraineâs independence, they try to find ways to fight against attacks on their wages and working conditions by the bosses.
Despite the governmentâs wartime ban on protests, a dozen unionists and medical workers in Ukraine demonstrated at the Ministry of Health in Kyiv July 27. They tried to present a letter demanding a halt to wage cuts, but were prevented by officials.Â
Over several years, medical workers and their unions have resisted government efforts â backed by the International Monetary Fund â to cut expenditures on the nationalized hospital system. These have led to hospital closures, job losses, speedup, lower wages and excessive workloads.Â
In recent months primary care workers have gone unpaid, there have been more job cuts and nurses are quitting due to work overload. Social care nurses in residential homes for the elderly or children, or in kindergartens and schools, get especially low wages.Â
These problems are all too familiar to medical workers across the rest of the capitalist world.Â
Before the war BeLikeNina, a movement of medical workers, organized rallies to protest these conditions.Â
Previously âour movement achieved an increase in nursesâ salaries,â Oksana Slobodiana, the head of the organization, told Open Democracy after the July 27 action. âIf there was no war we would have brought a lot of doctors to Kyivâ to protest.Â
Putin jails anti-war opponents
In Russia, Putin has tried to silence opponents. He is fearful that the impact of the war on working people will prompt wider resistance.Â
Dmitry Skurikhin was sentenced to one and one half years in prison Aug. 3 for âdiscreditingâ the Russian military. He was arrested after conducting a one-man protest outside his store on the anniversary of Moscowâs invasion Feb. 24.Â
Skurikhin had painted âPeace to Ukraine, freedom for Russia!â on the front of his store outside St. Petersburg, and listed Ukrainian cities devastated by the war. Despite repeated fines, he persisted with the support of many villagers. âI couldnât not do it,â Skurikhin told his lawyer.Â
A court outside Moscow Aug. 4 added another 19 years to the prison sentence of Alexei Navalny, Putinâs main bourgeois political opponent. He was found guilty of establishing an âextremist organization,â which started as an anti-corruption campaign exposing Putinâs lavish lifestyle. He was already serving a nine-year sentence in a remote penal colony after being arrested in 2021. From prison he has urged supporters to âturn people against the war.âÂ
âThey want to frighten you, not me,â he said after the new sentence, âand deprive you of the will to resist. Putin should not achieve his goal. Donât lose the will to resist.â
Source: Themilitant.com