We go to Ukraine, where Russia continues its assault along a 300-mile frontline in the eastern region. This comes as the U.S. and Western allies promise more weapons for Ukrainian defenses, prompting worry of escalation as Russian President Vladimir Putin abandons negotiations for a ceasefire agreement. We speak with Ukrainian political scientist and historian Denis Pilash, who is a democratic socialist, part of Sotsialnyi Rukh, and is also involved in humanitarian aid efforts in western Ukraine that he calls \u201cthe backbone of Ukrainian resistance.\u201d He says Putin\u2019s imperialist military aggressions should be seen as analogous to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and other nations.<\/p>\n
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/em><\/p>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a blockade of a massive steel complex in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where thousands of Ukrainians are holed up, including civilians and fighters with two regiments, the 36th Marine Brigade and the far-right Azov Brigade. Russia had been considering storming the complex but for now has opted to blockade it. This comes as Putin claims Russia has, quote, \u201cliberated\u201d the rest of the city, which has been devastated by weeks of Russian attacks.<\/p>\n In eastern Ukraine, fighting is continuing along a 300-mile frontline. The governor of Luhansk says Russia now controls 80% of the region. Luhansk is one of two regions that make up the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n The United States and its allies are continuing to funnel weapons to Ukraine. On Wednesday, President Biden met with U.S. military leaders at the White House.<\/p>\n PRESIDENT<\/span> JOE<\/span> BIDEN<\/span>:<\/strong> Weapons and ammunition are flowing in daily. And we\u2019re seeing just how vital our alliances and partnerships are around the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> In other developments, the prime ministers of Spain and Denmark are in Kyiv today for talks with Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has released a report<\/a> accusing Russia of committing war crimes in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. The group said it found extensive evidence of summary executions, enforced disappearances and torture.<\/p>\n We\u2019re joined now by Denis Pilash, a Ukrainian political scientist and historian, member of the Ukrainian democratic socialist organization Sotsialnyi Rukh, or the Social Movement. He\u2019s also an editor at Commons: Journal of Social Criticism<\/em>.<\/p>\n Welcome to Democracy Now!<\/em>, Denis. It\u2019s great to have you with us. If you can start off by talking about the resistance in Ukraine? We hear a lot about the military resistance, but if you can talk about, overall, the kind of resistance that doesn\u2019t get coverage?<\/p>\n DENIS<\/span> PILASH<\/span>:<\/strong> Really, Ukraine, it stands not due just to the military resistance, though hundreds of thousands of people have volunteered to either the Armed Forces or the territorial defense units, but also due to millions of people who are engaged in just these humanitarian efforts and keeping the things running. For instance, the essential workers, the railroad workers, the employees of the state railway company, they did a really heroic job by evacuating millions of people fleeing from the most dangerous regions to the safer ones. And actually dozens of them have been killed. And many were killed while performing their duties. The same applies to healthcare workers, nurses and doctors, who are risking their own lives to save others. And again, Russia is targeting hospitals, as well, and so, many of these people are killed, as well. And, in general, we have these spontaneous networks of nonhierarchical solidarity that emerged on the ground in different regions and cities throughout the country, who helped the people who had to relocate, and also who helped to distribute the humanitarian aid, medicine, food and so on. And altogether, this constitutes the backbone of the Ukrainian resistance.<\/p>\n NERMEEN<\/span> SHAIKH<\/span>:<\/strong> And, Denis, I want to ask about the, just yesterday \u2014 we reported it in our introduction \u2014 the release of this Human Rights Watch report<\/a> on war crimes in Bucha. You had said in March, a month ago, that Putin\u2019s war crimes are following in the footsteps of the war crimes committed by governments like the United States. But since these massacres in Bucha, you\u2019ve said the correct analogy now might be to what Indonesia did following the occupation of East Timor or what Pakistan did in \u2014 West Pakistan did to East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in the war in 1971. Could you elaborate on that? What do you see as the war changed, how the war has changed since March, and why you think these situations are now more accurate?<\/p>\n DENIS<\/span> PILASH<\/span>:<\/strong> I think that it\u2019s really the same crime of military aggressions that was done by numerous other governments and other imperialists, as well. And in this case, Putin\u2019s war in Ukraine or his wars in Chechnya were \u2014 or Yeltsin\u2019s war in Chechnya, were in the same line with, say, Bush and Blair and their cronies attacking Iraq. But the intensity of these atrocities that were revealed with these horrible pictures from Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka and other Kyiv suburbs, they show us all scale of atrocities, starting from sexual violence, from torture and to mass executions. And here we see also some kind of ideological explanation by some of the \u2014 in the Russian propaganda machine that Ukraine, in a way, has to be cleansed.<\/p>\n And this leads us to these analogies not just with, many have recalled, Srebrenica and what happened in the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the \u201990s, but really to what happened, for instance, when pro-American dictator Suharto occupied East Timor and unleashed acts of genocide against the local population in the 1970s. So, we see that in some places the reality of this occupation is so brutal that it leads to a mass obliteration of human lives.<\/p>\n NERMEEN<\/span> SHAIKH<\/span>:<\/strong> And so, Denis, do you support the continued supply of weapons to Ukraine, which is exponentially increasing now, despite the fact that many say supplying these weapons will only prolong the war?<\/p>\n DENIS<\/span> PILASH<\/span>:<\/strong> You see, if, like, making analogies, so maybe supplying Soviet and Chinese weapons to Vietnam, they also prolonged the resistance of the Vietnamese, and thus they prolonged the war, but it was still a unilateral aggression done by an imperialist power \u2014 in that case, the U.S.; in this case, Putin\u2019s Russia. And just in order to preserve human lives that are lost in all these airstrikes and shellings, because civilians are dying massively throughout country, and, actually, no place in the country can be really safe, as objects, including civilian objects, including schools and hospitals, have been hit in many parts. So, for instance, having anti-aircraft weaponry, it really preserves these people who are hiding in their basements, in their apartments and so on.<\/p>\n But in a way, these supplies \u2014 we also have to remember that Russia also used to be supplied with Western weapons, from Germany, France and from other countries, and that even now it\u2019s still fueled by these payments for the Russian oil and gas. So, it can be said that there are more German parts in Russian tanks than American munition in Ukrainian arms.<\/p>\n But, in general, we need to oversee that this military assistance that is needed by the Ukrainian resistance, that it will go to Ukrainians, and it\u2019s not just used as a pretext for this, you know, increasing of military-industrial complexes in the other Western countries, because no one is gaining from more militarized Germany or U.S. It\u2019s really up to the people on the ground, up to the people in the Ukrainian resistance, who need this, not the interests of these companies that have to be preserved.<\/p>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> So, Denis Pilash, let me ask you about the Azov Battalion, because the U.S. has a rule that weapons to Ukraine can\u2019t go to them, but right now with the massive influx of weapons, there\u2019s no way that they can be traced to where. You have been a fierce critic of the far right in Ukraine. What are your thoughts on this? And also a fierce critic of the expansion of NATO<\/span>, and now you have Sweden, you have Finland saying they want to join NATO<\/span>, although it looks like one of the reasons for this invasion, Ukraine being a part of NATO<\/span>, was actually not a possibility for years to come.<\/p>\n DENIS<\/span> PILASH<\/span>:<\/strong> It was really just a pretext. It was brought along by the Russian propaganda. And actually, I think that the main promoter of NATO<\/span> was Vladimir Putin himself, who actually pushed \u2014 and these were the words, for instance, of Ilya Ponomarev, the only MP in the Russian parliament who voted against annexation of Crimea, that this will lead to pushing Ukraine in the arms of NATO<\/span>. And now he\u2019s doing the same with Finland and Sweden.<\/p>\n And regarding the Azov, that is now not a battalion for seven years but a regiment in the National Guard of Ukraine, well, it\u2019s just one unit in the general resistance, that now I think it\u2019s really up to half a million people who are engaged either in the army or in these territorial defense units. And most of it are now really blockaded in the Mariupol, a city that has \u2014 living through a really brutal siege. And maybe the atrocities there, when they are revealed, maybe they will compare to those in Kyiv Oblast. So, I think that, in reality, now this group, it constitutes a tiny fraction in the general Ukrainian military resistance. And I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s so important, both in terms of, like, percentage compared with the rest of the military and the National Guard and so on, neither in the context of its political influence, because, again, the far right in Ukraine never was really popular electorally, and it never had a mass social base for it.<\/p>\n\n