Vol. 79/No. 6 February 23, 2015
BY NAOMI CRAINE
The escalating war in eastern Ukraine, combined with an accelerating economic crisis that the country’s bosses and government are trying to resolve at workers’ expense, is having a punishing effect throughout Ukraine. In this situation, layers of workers are trying to find ways to simultaneously defend Ukraine’s national sovereignty, their livelihoods and the country’s industrial capacity.
The Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, fell 50 percent against the dollar in two days, Feb. 5-6. Government ministers are scrambling to restructure the country’s debts and secure new loans from the International Monetary Fund, which demands more “austerity” from workers as the price.
The government has not resolved the widespread problem of unpaid wages, despite protests by miners from across the country in Kiev Jan. 28-29. Mykhailo Volynets, chair of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, which called the actions, issued a statement Feb. 9 rejecting a memorandum prepared by a commission the government set up following the protests.
“The minister of energy reported that half of the trade unions signed, which is true,” Volynets said. “I did not sign because it does not specify a schedule of payments. It has no calculations, no numbers.” He noted that it does not include paying back wages prior to December. “Rescue Service crews have not received pay for August to November,” he said.
The draft memorandum has lines for signatures from representatives of various government bodies, several different miners unions, administrators of the state-owned mines, and by DTEK, the giant private coal and energy company owned by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.
In addition to abstract promises to pay some back wages, the memorandum includes special concessions to DTEK, which owns a lot of Ukraine’s electrical power plants, to buy coal from state-owned mines at a discount, as well as authorizing the company to import foreign coal “if necessary.” The miners have been fighting to stop coal imports and cancel plans to close state-owned mines, defending workers’ jobs and crucial energy resources.
DTEK mines account for nearly half of Ukraine’s coal production. The largest are in Pavlograd, 90 miles from the capital of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk.
Akhmetov, whose main base of operation is in eastern Ukraine, was a major backer of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Moscow president of Ukraine who was forced to resign a year ago amid mass popular protests. When pro-Russian separatists began seizing territory, Akhmetov opposed them in what the Kiev Post at the time described as a “business decision.”
Intensified fighting in east
One of the key battles taking place between Ukrainian government forces, backed by volunteer brigades, and the pro-Moscow separatists, backed by Russian troops and weapons, is over the town of Debaltseve. Capturing the rail hub would give the various separatist forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions a more contiguous area under their control.
During a cease-fire Feb. 6 for evacuation of civilians, about 600 chose Kiev-controlled areas outside the war zone, and 50 went to separatist-held areas. More than 2,000 said they would stay.
Ukrainian forces have launched an effort to regain ground outside Mariupol, a port city of 500,000 on the coast of the Sea of Azov between the Russian border and the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow last March.
More than 5,300 have been killed over the past 10 months, with casualties rising since the latest separatist offensive began in mid-January. The war is being fought largely with artillery, with most of the shelling hitting working-class districts.
A summit meeting on a proposal for a cease-fire in Ukraine was scheduled for Feb. 11 in Minsk, Belarus, by officials from Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine. Some U.S. politicians, including Republican Sen. John McCain and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, have called for Washington to provide weapons to Kiev. President Barack Obama said that “the possibility of lethal defensive weapons is one of those options that’s being examined.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made clear she would oppose providing weapons to the Ukrainian government, saying it would escalate the conflict. After meeting with Merkel in Washington, Obama said he would postpone any decision on providing weapons until after the Minsk meeting.
Russian officials announced Feb. 10 that about 2,000 Russian soldiers would carry out monthlong exercises along the border with eastern Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denials that Moscow is sending fighters and weapons to back the separatists sound increasingly hollow, especially with some of the fighters on the combat fronts pointedly telling reporters they come from Russia.
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home