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New Roman',serif;" valign="top"><a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ine-war-began-in-2014-not-2022/mz6jq9/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
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valign="top"><b>By Vijay Prashad</b>
<div><br>
The war between Russia and Ukraine began much
before February 24, 2022—the date provided by
the Ukrainian government, NATO and the United
States for the beginning of the Russian
invasion of Ukraine. According to Dmitry
Kovalevich, a journalist and a member of a
now-banned communist organization in Ukraine,
the war actually started in the spring of 2014
and has never stopped since.<br>
<br>
He writes to me from the south of Kyiv/Kiev,
Ukraine, and recounts an anecdote: “What’s
there at the front line?” asks one person.
“Our troops are winning as usual!” comes the
response. “Who are our troops?” the first
person inquires and is told, “We’ll soon see…”
In a war, everything is in dispute, even the
name of Ukraine’s capital (Kyiv in Ukrainian,
and Kiev in Russian, goes the <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-03-war-of-words-kiev-vs-kyiv-/mz6jqc/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">debate</a> online).<br>
<br>
Wars are among the most difficult of <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/here-war-reporting-goes-wrong-/mz6jqf/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">reporting</a>
assignments for a journalist. These days,
especially, with the torrent of social media
and the belligerence of network news
television channels, matters on the ground are
hard to sort out. Basic facts about the events
taking place during a war are hard to
establish, let alone ensuring the correct
interpretation of these facts. Videos of
apparent war atrocities that can be found on
social media platforms like YouTube are
impossible to verify. Often, it becomes clear
that much of the content relating to war that
can be found on these platforms has either
been misidentified or is from other conflicts.
Even the BBC, which has taken a very strong
pro-Ukrainian and NATO position on this
conflict, had to
run a <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/news-60554910/mz6jqh/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">story</a> about how
so many of the viral claims about Russian
atrocities are false. Among these false
claims, which have garnered widespread
circulation, is a video circulating on TikTok
that wrongly alleges to be that of a
“Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian
soldier,” but is instead a video of the
then-11-year-old Palestinian <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ews-world-middle-east-42612666/mz6jqk/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">Ahed Tamimi</a>
confronting an Israeli soldier in 2012; the
video continues to circulate on <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/eo-7069740585371962630-lang-en/mz6jqm/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">TikTok</a> with the
caption, “Little [girls] stand up to Russian
soldiers.”<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, disputing the date for the
beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war as
February 24, Kovalevich tells me, “The war in
Ukraine didn’t start in February 2022. It
began in the spring of 2014 in the Donbas and
has not stopped for these eight years.”
Kovalevich is a member of Borotba (Struggle),
a communist organization in Ukraine. Borotba,
like other communist and Marxist
organizations, was <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/news-id-7083272-/mz6jqp/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">banned</a> by the
previous U.S.-backed Ukrainian government of
Petro Poroshenko in 2015 (as part of this
ongoing crackdown, two communist youth
leaders—Aleksandr Kononovich and Mikhail
Kononovich—were <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/rrest-young-communist-leaders-/mz6jqr/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">arrested</a> by
Ukrainian
security services on March 6).<br>
<br>
“Most of our comrades had to migrate to
Donetsk and Luhansk,” Kovalevich tells me.
These are the two eastern provinces of mainly
Russian speakers that broke away <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/raine-regions-mean-2022-02-21-/mz6jqt/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">from</a> “Ukrainian
government control in 2014” and had been under
the control of Russian-backed groups. In
February, however, before the Russian invasion
of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/raine-regions-mean-2022-02-21-/mz6jqt/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">recognized</a> these
“two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as
independent,” making this contentious move the
stepping stone for the final military invasion
by Russia. Now, Kovalevich says, his comrades
“expect to come back from exile and work
legally.” This expectation is based on the
assumption that the Ukrainian government will
be forced to get rid of the existing system,
which includes Western-trained-and-funded
anti-Russian right-wing vigilante and
paramilitary agents in the country, and will
have to reverse many of the Poroshenko-era
illiberal and anti-minority (including
anti-Russian) laws.<br>
<br>
<b>‘I Feel Nervous’</b><br>
<br>
“I feel quite nervous,” Kovalevich tells me.
“[This war] looks very grim and not so much
because of the Russians but because of our
[Ukrainian] armed gangs that are looting and
robbing [the country].” When the Russians
intervened, Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/t-promises-weapons-2022-02-24-/mz6jqw/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">handed out</a>
weapons to any citizen who wanted to defend
the country. Kovalevich, who lives in central
Ukraine just south of the capital, says, “My
area was not affected by military actions—only
by the terror of [right-wing] nationalist
gangs.”<br>
<br>
During the first days of the Russian military
intervention, Kovalevich took in a Roma family
who had fled from the war zone. “My family had
a spare room,” Kovalevich tells me. Roma
organizations <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ne-PDF-Roma-of-Ukraine-eng-pdf/mz6jqy/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">say</a> that there
are about 400,000 Roma in Ukraine, most of
them living in the western part of Ukraine, in
Zakarpatska Oblast (bordering Hungary, Poland,
Romania and Slovakia). “The Roma people in our
country are regularly assaulted by
[right-wing] nationalists,” Kovalevich says.
“The nationalists used to attack them [Roma]
publicly, burning their encampments, calling
it ‘cleansing garbage.’ The police didn’t
react as our far-right gangs always work in
cooperation with either the police or with the
security service.” This Roma family, who
was being sheltered by Kovalevich and his
family, is on the move toward western Ukraine,
where most of the Ukrainian-Roma population
lives. “But it is very unsafe to move,”
Kovalevich tells me. “There are nationalists
[manning these] checkpoints [along] all roads
[in Ukraine, and they] may shoot [anyone] who
may seem suspicious to them or just rob
refugees.”<br>
<br>
<b>Minsk Agreements</b><br>
<br>
The war in the Donbas region that began in
2014 resulted in two agreements being signed
in Belarus in 2014 and 2015, which were named
after the capital of Belarus, and were called
the <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/s-ukraine-conflict-2022-02-21-/mz6jr1/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">Minsk agreements</a>.
These agreements were aimed at “[ending] the
separatist war by Russian speakers in eastern
Ukraine.” The <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/A-150212-MinskAgreement-en-pdf/mz6jr3/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">second</a> of these
agreements was signed by two leading political
figures from Ukraine (Leonid Kuchma, the
president of Ukraine from 1994 to 2005) and
from Russia (Mikhail Zurabov, the ambassador
of the Russian Federation to Ukraine,
2009-2016), respectively, and was overseen by
a Swiss diplomat (Heidi
Tagliavini, who <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/HUDOC-38263-08-Annexes-ENG-pdf/mz6jr5/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">chaired</a> the
Independent International Fact-Finding Mission
on the Conflict in Georgia, 2008-2009). This
Minsk II agreement was <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/press-en-2015-sc11785-doc-htm/mz6jr7/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">endorsed</a> by the
UN Security Council resolution 2022 on
February 17, 2015. If the Minsk agreements had
been adhered to, Russia and Ukraine would have
secured an arrangement that would have been
acceptable in the Donbas.<br>
<br>
“Two Ukrainian governments signed the Minsk
agreements,” Kovalevich tells me, “but didn’t
fulfill it. Recently Zelenskyy’s officials
openly mocked the agreement, saying they
wouldn’t fulfill it (encouraged by the U.S.
and the UK, of course). That was a sheer
violation of all rules—you can’t sign [the
agreements] and then refuse to fulfill it.”
The language of the Minsk agreements was, as
Kovalevich says, “liberal enough for the
government.” The two republics of Donetsk and
Luhansk would have remained a part of Ukraine
and they would have been afforded some
cultural autonomy (this was in the footnote to
<a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/A-150212-MinskAgreement-en-pdf/mz6jr3/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">Article 11</a> of the
February 12, 2015, Minsk II Agreement). “This
was unacceptable to our nationalists and
[right-wing
nationalists],” Kovalevich says to me. They
“would like to organize purges and vengeance
there [in Donetsk and Luhansk].” Before the
Russian military intervention, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/en-story-2022-02-1112202/mz6jr9/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">found</a> that more
than 14,000 people had been killed in the
ongoing conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk
despite the Minsk agreements. It is this
violence that provokes Kovalevich to make his
comments about the violence of the
ultra-nationalists and the right-wing
paramilitary. “The elected authorities are a
cover, masking the real rulers of Ukraine,”
Kovalevich says. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy
and his allies in the parliament do not drive
the governing process in their country but
have “an agenda imposed on them by the
far-right armed
groups.”<br>
<br>
<b>Peace?</b><br>
<br>
Negotiations are <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ne-talks-belarus-31727584-html/mz6jrc/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">ongoing</a> on the
Ukraine-Belarus border between the Russians
and the Ukrainians. Kovalevich is, however,
not optimistic about a positive outcome from
these negotiations. Decisions, he says, are
not made by the Ukrainian president alone, but
by the right-wing ultra-nationalist
paramilitary armed groups and the NATO
countries. As Kovalevich and I were speaking,
the Washington Post published a <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-05-russia-ukraine-insurgency-/mz6jrf/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">report</a> about
“Plans for a U.S.-backed insurgency in
Ukraine”; former U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/l-maddow-show-2-28-22-n1290370/mz6jrh/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">implied</a> an
Afghanistan-style guerrilla war in Ukraine,
saying, “We have to keep tightening the
screws.” “This reveals that they [the U.S.]
don’t really care about Ukrainians,”
Kovalevich says. “They want to use this as an
opportunity to cause some pain to the
Russians.”<br>
<br>
These comments by Clinton and others suggest
to Kovalevich that the United States wants “to
organize chaos between Russia and the
Europeans.” Peace in Ukraine, he says, “is a
matter of reconciliation between NATO and the
new global powers, Russia and China.” Till
such a reconciliation is possible, and till
Europe develops a rational foreign policy, “we
will be affected by wars,” says Kovalevich.<br>
<br>
<em><b>Vijay Prashad</b> is an Indian
historian, editor and journalist. He is a
writing fellow and chief correspondent at <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-03-10/mz6jrk/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">Globetrotter</a>.
He is the chief editor of <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-03-10/mz6jrm/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">LeftWord Books</a>
and the director of <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-03-10/mz6jrp/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">Tricontinental:
Institute for Social Research</a>. He is a
senior non-resident fellow at <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/y2hdjcpo/mz6jrr/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">Chongyang Institute
for Financial Studies</a>, Renmin
University of China. He has written more
than 20 books, including</em> <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1595583424--tag-alternorg08-20/mz6jrt/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">The Darker Nations</a>
<em>and</em> <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1781681589--tag-alternorg08-20/mz6jrw/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">The Poorer Nations</a><em>.
His latest book is</em> <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/catalog-product-view-id-21820/mz6jry/1011380940?h=Ogc1qvuOolw5nRLbfP5SqjuBywLAXOEssWc5Emm4wZ4"
moz-do-not-send="true">Washington Bullets</a><em>,
with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.</em></div>
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