Statement from the International Peoples’ Front
The world is marking one year since the start of the war in Ukraine, and the people living at every corner resolutely demand an end to the carnage and crisis. The International Peoples’ Front calls on the people to unite, organize, and militantly struggle to end the US-NATO war in Ukraine!
This is a war initiated by the US via its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, and despite taking place in Eastern Europe, the US has vested interests in the outcome of the conflict and has been actively instrumenting and influencing its development. The US used covert operations to enact a coup to install a US and EU-friendly president in 2013 and began massively arming the Kyiv military against Russian-speaking separatists in the Eastern Donbas, an iron and chemical-producing region key to the US’s desired supply chain. When Ukraine actively sought NATO membership, Russia took military action. Even before, CIA advisors have advised Kyiv and its fully Western-supplied military against Russian forces, with no end in sight. The recent decision by Germany, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands and other countries to send tanks to Kyiv marks a dire sign of escalation to come.
In this way, the Russian military operation has been defensive as its government moves to halt NATO expansion, given that NATO’s mission has been to counter strategic threats to the US such as Russia. For Moscow, this preemptive strike has been necessitated by the US and NATO’s decisive plans to destabilize Russia into submission and sweep all of Eastern Europe into its sphere of influence. Nonetheless, Russia’s operation has been one of counter-aggression since its defensive nature has not spared attacks against the people and infrastructure of Ukraine.
This US proxy war must end. Various sources indicate a death toll over a hundred thousand, not to mention the thousands of displaced and suffering civilians due to incessant shelling on border territories. As bad as it currently is, the conflict can still escalate to catastrophic levels considering that both the US and Russia have access to nuclear arms. But even without nuclear fallout, the conflict has significantly contributed to the global economic crisis which affects millions all over the world. This has included skyrocketing prices of food and fuel due to severe economic sanctions and the arbitrary decisions of monopoly capitalists to cut off production to influence the war but keep prices high to attempt to retain a profit. This has also led to what could have been an avoidable energy crisis in which industrialized countries have deregulated their caps on carbon emissions to maintain production in direct opposition to UN-agreed mandates on the climate crisis.
The call to end the war does not fall solely on the shoulders of the people of Russia and Ukraine – that daunting task belongs to all of us, regardless of our distance from the conflict’s epicenter. Governments, organizations, and institutions have been demanding for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, but a year of lobbying has proved that it is not enough. Fierce speeches fall on deaf ears, while sanctions just add to the suffering of the innocent.
Without militant pressure from below, the powers that be can simply ignore our demands for peace and justice. Because of these governments’ desire to keep the conflict going, diplomacy will not work. The people must pressure and force NATO governments to end the alliance’s eastward march and dismantle it entirely.
In the face of governments assembling their military alliances such as NATO, then the people must organize themselves to overcome and defeat the US-led war machine. Our shared aspiration for just and lasting peace must translate into concrete action to end all wars and conflicts of aggression
The people say no more! The International Peoples’ Front carries the call to end the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine! Peoples of all countries, unite and struggle militantly against the forces that engender endless war! We cannot beg our governments for peace, but we can win it through grassroots action!