By Ruben Tzanoff
“Monday night in Kiev was the most terrible night of the whole war. We are fine. But many Kiev residents were killed or injured. The attack started around 1:00 a.m. with drones. Then, around 3:30, came the ballistic missiles. And at 5:30, drones again. The destruction in Kiev is overwhelming. The moment when all the world public opinion is focused on the events in the Middle East, is the one Putin chose to lauch his attack.”
Those are the words of our comrades of the Ukrainian Socialist League (LSU) and the videos they sent us.
This Monday, June 17, a new Russian air strike against Kiev left at least 14 dead and more than 40 wounded. The missiles hit several districts of Kiev, impacting residential buildings, sanitary infrastructures and power lines. This is a criminal bombardment—Russian attacks against Ukrainian cities have intensified in parallel to the military escalation on the eastern front—Putin has also taken advantage of the fact that the world is mainly looking at the new conflict between Israel and Iran.
The modern anti-aircraft defense systems that Ukraine lacks are those that the United States gives to genocidal Israelis to arm their colonialist project against Iran, Palestine and the peoples of the region. Although U.S. imperialism questions Russia, it has always acted to prevent its defeat. Since the arrival of Trump, it has divided Ukrainian natural resources with Putin.
For its part, Russia continues to justify its bombings as “attacks on military infrastructure” or “reprisals”, although they systematically affect civilians. In Moscow, Putin’s regime keeps funding nationalist propaganda to keep up an increasingly unpopular war among sectors of Russia’s working-class youth.
The Ukrainian people continue to pay with their blood Russia’s imperialist invasion and Putin’s authoritarian and repressive regime.
The International Socialist League (ISL) stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and demands an immediate halt to Putin’s criminal bombardment of the civilian population.
We must stop these constant aggressions of Russian imperialism against Ukraine and also those of Netanyahu with the endorsement of Trump against Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen, by multiplying solidarity and mobilization in the streets around the world.
