Russia’s large-scale invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine is among the most dangerous and disturbing events in recent European history and has occasioned an international crisis. Putin appears hell-bent on occupying all of Ukraine and setting up a puppet regime. While the situation is in flux and it's unclear how it will play out, it is certain that the human consequences of the war will be horrendous, and the geopolitical consequences perilous.

How should we make sense of this crisis? What are the historical dynamics behind the current juncture? What are the ideological components of Putinism? What's wrong with the responses of many leftists and antiwar activists? In contrast, what would a genuine socialist-internationalist perspective on the issue look like? How do Ukrainian and Russian leftists view the situation, and why are their perspectives missing from so much of the discussion on the Western left?

This forum will address these and related questions.

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Speakers:

Denys Pilash is a political scientist and leftist activist in Kyiv. He is a member of the Social Movement (Sotsialniy Rukh) democratic socialist organization and serves on the editorial board of Commons: Journal of Social Criticism, a publication of the Ukrainian left that offers critical analysis on economy, politics, history and culture.

Hanna Perekhoda is a doctoral student at the Institute of Political Studies at the University of Lausanne and a member of solidaritéS in Vaud Canton, Switzerland. Her research examines debates over the Ukrainian question among the Bolsheviks. She is a native of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.

Catherine Samary is the author of Yugoslavia Dismembered. She is a frequent contributor to Le Monde diplomatique and is associated with the journal and network Balkanologie. She is a member of the scientific council of Attac France and serves on the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Stephen R. Shalom (moderator) is on the editorial board of New Politics and a member of Internationalism from Below. He is the author of The United States and the Philippines: A Study of Neocolonialism and Imperial Alibis: Rationalizing U.S. Intervention After the Cold War and editor of Socialist Visions.

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This event is sponsored by Internationalism from Below, LeftEast, New Politics magazine, Commons: Journal of Social Criticism, Sotsialniy Rukh (Social Movement) Ukraine, Solidarity, the Tempest Collective and Haymarket Books.