Ukraine has the right to defend itself!

All peoples, whether they are from Palestine, Kanaky or Western Sahara, have the right to self-determination, a principle derived from international law. The same applies to Ukrainians who have been suffering aggression from Russia since 2014. Since the beginning of the war, all French trade union organisations have mobilised together to provide aid to the population in distress, in coordination particularly with the two Ukrainian trade union organisations, the FPU and the KPVU, affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). The Union syndicale Solidaires has taken part in several solidarity convoys organised by the French inter-union coalition for some and by the International Trade Union Network of Solidarity and Struggle (RSISL) of which we are members for others.

Solidarity with the Ukrainian population

The Union syndicale Solidaires builds solidarity with Ukrainian workers and their trade union organisations. Support for Ukraine is not support for the Ukrainian government, which has taken advantage of the state of war and martial law that prohibits strikes and demonstrations to take anti-social measures and reform the Labour Code. We know that the working classes are the first victims of the war. In Russia, soldiers sent to their deaths are recruited from the minorities of the Russian Federation rather than from the Moscow and St. Petersburg bourgeoisie. In Ukraine, it is the workers and their trade union organisations who have massively mobilised to defend their country and their social gains, even if many are bitter to see that they are the ones paying the blood price, with the children of the oligarchy most often escaping mobilisation.

We must prevent Ukraine’s defeat

War is a horror that should be avoided at all costs. While both sides are reluctant to communicate about their losses, estimates of 1 million victims (dead or wounded) are circulating. And blind air strikes do not spare civilians.

While the Union syndicale Solidaires is part of the pacifist tradition of the labour movement, we are aware that a just and lasting peace cannot be built on Ukraine’s capitulation. Russia is pursuing an expansionist policy. Its annexation of entire sections of Georgian territory during a military offensive in 2008 proves this. It constitutes a threat to the security and sovereignty of the former Soviet countries, with Vladimir Putin making no secret of his objective to restore the influence of the Russian Federation over at least this entire area. The turn taken by Trump puts Europe in the face of its responsibilities.

We could have escaped the alliance between Trump and Putin if the Ukrainian popular resistance had been sufficiently supported for three years to expel Russian troops from all of Ukraine. A defeat of Putin in his war of annexation would have contributed to weakening, or even overthrowing, his regime. But while government and political announcements have followed one another, the reality of support has remained below Ukrainian needs.

Is Trump an irrational impulsive?

Annexing Greenland or renaming the Gulf of Mexico may seem like eccentric whims. However, we should not see this as random. Greenland’s subsoil is rich in mineral resources, while the Gulf of Mexico constitutes an important hydrocarbon deposit. Just as the USA is eyeing the metals in the Ukrainian subsoil, it is indeed resources that interest them.

What we are witnessing is the acceleration of a struggle for control of resources in a world in crisis in which demand is growing exponentially. Thus, rather than committing to a change in the productive model, the United States is positioning itself to take control of as many resources as possible.

The situation must be viewed in this light: the billions committed to military spending are that much not invested in ecological transition but in extremely polluting products. Yet our collective security primarily depends on preserving a habitable planet.

For industrial sovereignty and social justice measures

While we support giving Ukraine the means to defend itself, we warn against a mad arms race:

When one has weapons, one is tempted to use them. The responsibility of France as well as Europe is to do everything to prevent a dramatic escalation, without equating the aggressor and the aggressed.

While far-right regimes are coming to power in more and more European countries (Belgium, Italy, Hungary...), it is irresponsible to take this risk. Especially since Meloni or Orbán have shown sympathies for Vladimir Putin’s regime... not to mention Donald Trump who openly inspires the European far right while Elon Musk campaigns in their favour.

Providing ammunition to Ukrainian troops should not lead to procuring it from the arms industry of the United States, which is abandoning Ukraine today.

For Solidaires, there should be no private profits on public expenditure. The arms industry must be subject to debate on its democratic control and the allocation of its profits. This is a question of social justice but also of sovereignty and democratic control. The United States has shown that it can render weapons already supplied to Ukraine unusable. A credible defence must be sovereign. This requires leaving NATO and the immediate cessation of layoffs and factory closures in strategic sectors. It’s a matter of consistency.

Before arming ourselves, we must use all the levers at our disposal. Money is often a much more powerful weapon than cannons. Before engaging in bellicose logic, we should mobilise all the levers at our disposal. Today, the sanctions against Russia are not at the maximum of what the government could do since:

• Russian gas arrives at French LNG terminals;
• French companies continue to operate in Russia;
• we refuse to touch the hundreds of billions of Russian assets frozen in Europe.

Financing and imposing the decarbonisation of our economy would moreover be the best way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, Russia’s main commercial vectors.

Hitting Russia in the wallet is probably the most effective way to make it give up its war of aggression against Ukraine. This also allows funding Ukraine’s defence. Beyond that, any financial effort can only be based on a contribution from companies that profit from the situation. For if we no longer receive the dividends of peace, some are counting on profiting from the dividends of war. The voracity of the United States, which is trying to force Ukrainians to allow them to exploit metals, is one of the illustrations of this.

l’Union syndicale Solidaires

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