Ukraine - February 22nd, 2022

 The life of the workers and masses of Ukraine:
A hell in Kiev, a hell in the Donbas

 Between the end of 2013 and 2015, the Ukrainian masses, from Kiev to Donbass, tried to set up their revolution.  They were a thousand times betrayed.  In the western zone, fascism and in the Donbass the popular front were the two ends of the same rope to strangle and crush the Ukrainian revolution that threatened to spread to the Europe of Maastricht and to the Russia of Putin.

 The revolution was removed from the scene with a well-aimed blow by imperialism, which concentrated its forces there so that this possibility would not become a reality.  It made all its agents play for this objective and with the agreements of the Minsk Pact between Kiev, France, Germany and Putin, and managed behind the scenes by the US, Ukraine was left as a divided nation and turned into a true protectorate, doubly plundered and subjected to imperialism, even more than before the revolution.

 Ukraine remains one of the poorest nations in Europe.  The country's external debt still constitutes 51% of its GDP and the imperialist powers and the World Bank continue to inject millions to redouble the plundering and subjugation of the nation.

 And once the counterrevolution was imposed, what remained for the masses was hell on both sides of the line of fire imposed by imperialism and its henchmen to strangle the revolution.  Inflation is high and eats away at the meager salaries of the starving masses.  But the greatest impact occurs in food, with an inflation of 20%.  One fact is conclusive: Ukraine has one of the worst suicide rates in the world per inhabitant.

Life in the region controlled by the Zelensky government is very difficult.  In the region controlled by Putin and the pro-Russian oligarchy, it is impossible.

 In the Donbass, many of the mines are exhausted or has been abandoned and the miners are forced to exploit them outside any framework and legal protection in order to eat, and in the area that depends on Kiev, the conditions are not much better and the mineworkers' wages are sent to the mines, which remain state-owned, every four to six months, as authorized by the Kiev Parliament, which refuses to raise wages despite inflation.  Last December, hundreds of miners in Kiev carried out protest actions to get their wages back.  After the protests that were seen in cities like Lviv or Dobropolye, most of the state-owned coal mines received budget funds and miners' back wages were partially paid, totaling UAH 335.8 million (US$ 12.4 million).  However, unpaid wages still exceed UAH 2 billion (US$74.3 million).

 The Don Basin is one of the largest mining basins in the world.  2 of the 5 million inhabitants of the region work in the mines, hundreds of meters deep, in unsanitary conditions.  Many of them have silicosis at an early age and their life expectancy barely exceeds 60 years.

As we said, living in the Donbas today is living daily martyrdom.  Actually, the cities that make up this region, hit by the scourge of the Kiev bombings, are true ghost cities.  Hundreds and hundreds of buildings, factories and establishments were abandoned and shell impacts can still be seen on the walls left standing.  A nightly curfew that lasts from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. still today leaves the streets of Donbass deserted.  This is strictly enforced and people have been known to be pulled over at night just for going out to take out the trash.

 After the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 and the civil war that broke out, around 1.5 million Ukrainians were initially forced to leave their homes and move within the country.  To date, it is estimated that there are more than 800,000 IDP.  Thousands and thousands of Ukrainian workers are enslaved in Western Europe for a few euros that they send to their relatives in Ukraine.  Remittances are a significant factor in the country's economy.  Only last year these rose to the exorbitant figure of USD 15 million.

 Basic and essential services for life are a luxury good.  According to estimates, around 400,000 inhabitants of Donbass are in a "food emergency", that is, they do not even have access to a crust of bread.  1.6 million inhabitants of the Don region do not even have access to water, which means there is no possibility of heating in a region where frost and snowfall are common currency and the temperature quickly drops below zero.  The water and sanitation infrastructure is practically non-existent: it was destroyed by the Kiev bombings and was never rebuilt.

 Meanwhile in the Donbass the average salaries are around 50 euros per month.  Donbass pensions are an absolute pittance: they are around 46 dollars.  In Kiev things do not improve much: they are around 65 dollars.  Ukrainian banks do not operate in separatist territory and to be entitled to receive a pension from the Kiev government you have to pretend to live in an area controlled by it.  If you manage to register successfully, be prepared for someone to knock on the door of that address every 60 days to make sure that, in fact, you live there.  That is why several thousands of Ukrainians crowd into checkpoints every day in very long queues trying to cross the contact zone to collect their pensions.  Many times the cost is high: hundreds of people have died queuing for hours on end.  But the option of not doing this is death by starvation.
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If a starving citizen from Donbass asks the Kiev government for help, he/she will find that they are offered 26 euros.

 In the Donbass region they first banned the use of hryvnias - the currency - then people started using Russian rubles.  Then repeated problems with communications ended with local governments creating their own telecommunication companies and their own networks.  Later they made it difficult to obtain any type of documentation and the republics began to make their own documents.

 What is happening in Donbass is an unprecedented suffering for the masses and can only be understood in the following way: it is the punishment for having dared to rise up for bread, setting up workers' and soldiers' committees.  It is the punishment for the uprising of the masses and who imposed it was Putin, along with the pro-Russian oligarchy in the region.  They imposed the partition of Ukraine and the tearing apart of the ranks of the working class of the nation who faced the same enemy and had the same demands.

 With the boot of his government and his Black Hundreds, Putin crushed the masses of Donbass in a way that the government of fascism in Kiev could not have done. The pro-Russians with hundreds of Stalinist militants who traveled from Europe and Russia, like a fifth column, liquidated the vanguard of Donbas who had sought their victory in Kiev and did not submit or accept the partition of the nation.  With massacres and blacklists, dividing the Donbas working class from their Kiev brothers, they crushed the proletariat and imposed a veritable hell on earth.

And the workers who in the Don region rose up in these years against such ignominy, were persecuted, tortured and imprisoned like the Antrstit miners in 2020. Images of one of Putin's secret prisons in the Don River basin were recently released. Having the nickname of 'Abu Ghraib', it's a prison for political prisoners where they are brutally tortured.

 The more Putin crushes and subdues with his boot the Ucrainians, the more the masses fall in the arms of the democratic counter-revolution.  Later, those who dress Putin as "anti-imperialist" will speak of the "backward consciousness" of the masses who do not propose an "independent way out".

 Today the butcher Putin has declared the Luhansk and Donetsk regions under his control as “independent”.  His troops are already walking the streets.

 DOWN WITH THE MINSK COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY PACT!

 NATO out of Ukraine!  Out with the troops of Putin's fascist black centuries from the Donbass!  Out with the Russian military base in Crimea, Crimea is Ukraine!

 The only class that is capable of conquering independence and freedom, work and bread, is the working class, by uniting its ranks from Donbass to Kiev and setting up the revolution again.

 From Donbass to Kiev, the same class, the same enemy!

 For an All-Ukrainian National Congress and National Workers' and Peasants' Assembly!

 In the Ukraine divided and colonized by imperialism and its henchman Putin, life is a martyrdom for the working class. For a working class, united, Soviet and independent Ukraine!