The only power to stop Putin: The Russian Anti-War Movement
Putin’s horrific invasion of Ukraine has provoked global anger. The scenes of cities being bombarded by Russian planes have brought home to many the horrible reality of war. Many now ask: how can Putin be stopped?
The hard right-wing say there can be no ‘appeasement’ – there needs to be a military response. They want NATO to impose a no-fly zone or to send troops to Ukraine.
But Putin is moving quickly and may overwhelm Kyiv in a few days. The intervention of NATO would lead to even more bloodshed and the escalation of war beyond the boundaries of Ukraine.
Moreover, NATO is a military alliance that is dominated by the US. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, promises were made to Russia that NATO would not expand eastwards. But the US is terrified about its economic declining role and wants to use its military prowess to gain extra leverage for its corporations.
Far from being an innocent party that defends democracy, NATO is the armed wing of Western imperialism. Its expansion has been a key factor in heightening tensions, leading now to all-out war.
If NATO is not the answer, what about sanctions? This is the main approach coming from EU leaders.
Yet even while calling for sanctions, they also acknowledge that they will not stop Putin. Rather they claim that there must be a punishment, after the fact, for his invasion.
But the people who will be punished will be ordinary Russians. There is no sign that the Irish state, for example, will trawl through secret banks accounts in the IFSC and impound the money of wealthy oligarchs. Moreover, the sanctions will rebound on the EU population as gas and wheat prices escalate.
The harsh truth is that the EU leaders know that sanctions will not stop Putin but are determined to use the crisis for their own agenda. They want to increase military spending and create an EU army. So they try to project the conflict as one between ‘democracy’ and ‘authoritarianism’.
Yet their double standards are there for all to see.
Even while they talk of sanctions against Russia, they refuse to do anything against Israel’s fifty-year occupation of Arab countries.
Putin is, of course, an authoritarian dictator – but there is also a vibrant civil society in Russia that has come out against his war.
In late January, 150 well-known people penned an open letter titled ‘ If only there is no war’. They addressed themselves to the “party of war,” and claimed to speak on behalf of “those in Russian society who reject war, and see as criminal the use of military threats and the deployment of a blackmailing style in foreign policy.”
“You do not speak in the name of the Russian population — we do,” it added. “For decades, the Russian people, who lost millions of lives in past wars, have lived by the saying: ‘If only there were no war.’ Have you forgotten this?’
Once the war was declared, thousands of people came out on the streets, with the largest demonstrations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.] Over 950 people were arrested in Moscow, and hundreds demonstrated in Saint Peterburg and Yekaterinburg. By the evening of the day of the invasion, there had been at least 1,700 arrests in 53 cities.
This is where the real power to stop Putin lies. Even before the war, there was massive discontent inside the country. But as Russians watch in horror as his planes bombard cities many have travelled to, the outrage will grow.
The bluster of the EU leaders is designed for home consumption, to stoke up support for their political leadership over their citizens. Only a massive show of people power in Russia itself will stop Putin.
And what is the best way that we in Ireland and Europe can help this movement?
Not by calling for NATO or sanctions which hit the population. Every call by a Western leader for NATO action is grist to the mill of Putin. It will help him to isolate and crush the anti-war movements.
By contrast, every peace movement in the West that challenges its own rulers’ imperialist designs will help the Russian anti-war movement.
Just as Putin and NATO feed off each other, anti-war movements that cut across the East-West divide support each other.
