As speculation mounts about another Trump-brokered peace plan for Ukraine, much of today’s debate feels like déjà vu. There are the same denunciations of “vested interests” in the conflict, the condemnations of warmongers, and the cries for “urgent talks.” In Ukraine, we didn’t just hear these arguments. We made them ourselves.
In summer 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and the war in Donbass was already flaring, activists from Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus issued a “New Zimmerwald” declaration criticizing the surge of chauvinism and xenophobia in their countries. They called for a broad antiwar movement, an immediate ceasefire, and mutual disarmament. Ukraine’s newly formed Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement) echoed that spirit in 2015, advocating direct negotiations involving trade unionists and rights defenders from both sides, and the disbandment of security agencies. It was a genuine attempt at internationalist peace — and it failed.
None of it stopped Russia’s aggression in 2022. Yet Russian leftists, apart from a brave minority, again retreated into pacifist formulas, blaming the war on both sides and pointing fingers at NATO, Boris Johnson, and the “neo-Nazi oligarchic regime in Kyiv.” Ukrainians, under fire, had no such luxury. They resisted the occupying troops, and too many have already lost their lives.
The Left internationally, when not limiting itself to short boilerplate statements, largely oscillates between instinctive revulsion at injustice and the desperate plea for peace. But can either be a guide to action?
There is no shortage of people denouncing any compromise with the Kremlin as downright betrayal that would set a precedent of rewarding aggression. In absolute terms, they are right. Yet justice always comes at a price: if not for the activist demanding it, then for someone else.
Ukraine’s resources are stretched to breaking point. Defense spending in 2025 has reached $70 billion, exceeding domestic tax…
Auteur: Oleksandr Kyselov
