An example of the opposition brewing across Russia to Moscow’s war in Ukraine is the statement by Ivan Fedoseyev, who resigned his position as deputy in a village of 200 in the Perm Krai region March 14.
“If I had remained in office, then I would have been involved in what I consider a crime,” he said. ”I am not against Russia, in no way am I against its people who have been for the most part misled. I am against the regime that has now been established in the country.”
It has “unleashed aggression against a sovereign neighboring state, an action which they are forcing us to call a military special operation.”
Fedoseyev said he was raised “on the propaganda of peace” and “on friendship between peoples, and I can’t support the current course of the authorities.”
His comments show the fraternal bonds that exist between Ukrainian and Russian working people — the main forces that can defeat Moscow’s brutal war — and the potential to summon them to united action.
But the punishing economic sanctions targeting Russia by Washington and its imperialist allies are the very opposite — measures that fall hardest on working people. They open the door for Vladimir Putin’s regime to portray itself as defending Russia’s people against foreign economic assault. They cut across building the working-class solidarity and action needed to defeat the invasion by Moscow.
The U.S. rulers use their economic power not in the interests of toilers in Ukraine, but to defend their own imperialist interests. These interests are sharply counterposed to those of workers and farmers here, in Ukraine, in Russia and worldwide. That is why workers need our own independent foreign policy, above all on the question of war.
Strengthen the bonds of solidarity with Ivan Fedoseyev and many thousands like him across Russia. End Moscow’s war on the people of Ukraine!