Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega at the ALBA summit in La Habana province, Cuba, in December 2021 / credit: Cuba’s presidential office
Editor’s Note: This article was first published by Multipolarista.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s top Latin America advisor has admitted U.S. sanctions against Russia over Ukraine intentionally seek to hurt Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
The United States imposed a series of harsh sanctions on Russia following Moscow’s recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region on February 21, and its subsequent military intervention in Ukraine on February 24.
Juan S. González, Biden’s special assistant for Latin America and the U.S. National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, made it clear that these coercive measures against Russia are also aimed at damaging the economies of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba have socialist governments that Washington has long tried to overthrow. All three currently suffer under unilateral U.S. sanctions, which are illegal according to international law.
Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, an architect of the Iraq War, referred to these three Latin American nations as the so-called “Troika of Tyranny.”
Biden’s advisor González did an exclusive interview with Voz de América, the Spanish-language arm of the U.S. government’s propaganda outlet Voice of America, on February 25.
“The sanctions against Russia are so robust that they will have an impact on those governments that have economic affiliations with Russia, and that is by design,” González explained.
“So Venezuela is going to start feeling that pressure. Nicaragua is going to feel that pressure, along with Cuba,” he added.
Biden’s Latin America advisor noted that Washington has imposed sanctions on 13 top financial institutions in Russia, including some of the largest in the country. He proudly said that these coercive measures will, “by design,” harm other countries that do a lot of trade with the Eurasian power.
González also used his interview with the U.S.-funded Voz de América to reiterate Washington’s call for regime change against these three socialist governments in Latin America.
His comments were reported by the independent Bolivia-based news website, Kawsachun News.
Biden advisor: U.S. sanctions against Russia are 'designed' to impact Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. pic.twitter.com/Zbqg3mgB2N
Maduro stressed that Washington and NATO bear responsibility for the conflict, and “have generated strong threats against the Russian Federation.”
Venezuela rechaza el agravamiento de la crisis en Ucrania producto del quebrantamiento de los acuerdos de Minsk por parte de la OTAN. Llamamos a la búsqueda de soluciones pacíficas para dirimir las diferencias entre las partes. El diálogo y la no injerencia, son garantías de Paz. pic.twitter.com/Y7N1lwZfpi
Cuba blamed Washington for the crisis as well. Its Foreign Ministry stated, “The U.S. determination to continue NATO’s progressive expansion towards the Russian Federation borders has brought about a scenario with implications of unpredictable scope, which could have been avoided.”
Denouncing Western governments for sending weapons to Ukraine, Cuba declared, “History will hold the United States accountable for the consequences of an increasingly offensive military doctrine outside NATO’s borders, which threatens international peace, security and stability.”
The U.S. determination to continue NATO’s progressive expansion towards the Russian Federation borders has brought about a scenario with implications of unpredictable scope, which could have been avoided. 1/5
The chairman of Russia’s State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, traveled to Nicaragua to meet with top officials from the Sandinista government, and thanked them for their support against NATO expansion and U.S. threats.
🇳🇮🇷🇺 #Nicaragua recibió a una delegación de alto nivel de #Rusia, encabezada por el Presidente de la Duma Estatal de la Cámara Baja, Vyacheslav Volodín. La visita tiene por objetivo fortalecer la cooperación y la solidaridad bilateral. pic.twitter.com/BMY1AjnviF
An array of people TF contributor Fergie Chambers interviewed in Moldova / credit: Fergie Chambers
CHISINAU, Moldova—Nestled above the Black Sea, between the war zone in Ukraine and the eastern limits of NATO territory in Romania, sits the tiny, oft-forgotten landlocked nation of Moldova. Among the poorest countries in Europe by just about any relevant metric, it has been overwhelmed by Ukrainian refugees in the three weeks since the outset of what Russia calls its “special military operation” (спецоперация) in Ukraine.
More than 359,000 people of the 3.38 million who have fled Ukraine since February 24 have passed in and out of the country, according to the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees. Roman Macovenco of the Moldovan Consular Directorate confirmed at least 300,000 Ukrainians had crossed through Moldova. The vast majority came through the border town of Palanca, just 57 kilometers (or 35 miles) from Ukraine’s Odessa. Many wound up in Chisinau, the tiny country’s capital. As of March 14, roughly 100,000 remained in Moldova.
Map showing migration trend out of Ukraine. Striped countries are part of the EU’s passport-free Schengen Area / credit: United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees’ Operational Data Portal
Primarily due to its limited capacity and even more limited financial resources, Moldova is a transitional zone for refugees. Though, the length of their stay depends on their economic status. Moldovan Ministry of Interior Principal Specialist Olesea Sirghi and Macovenco said the refugees who remain for more than two days cannot afford passage to EU countries.
‘Oligarchs Who Drink, Complain and Chase Women’
This reporter learned from local people that the first wave of refugees was made up of almost exclusively wealthy elites.
Misha Tsarkisan, a Georgian who had migrated to Moldova years ago, complained the first wave of Ukrainian refugees were “oligarchs” / credit: Fergie Chambers
Misha Tsarkisan is a Georgian migrant who has lived for years in Moldova and does maintenance work near one of Chisinau’s primary refugee centers. He described the initial wave as “oligarchs, who came to drink, complain and chase women.”
Similar sentiments can be heard everywhere in the capital, though they are often expressed with more nuance. Ion Popov, 25, moved his coffee truck near a bus depot that dealt with the influx of refugees. He told Toward Freedom the arrivals were as mixed in their attitudes and temperament as any group might be.
“The rich loaded their things up in their cars with as much money as they could gather, and have generally behaved rudely,” Popov said. “I don’t know how you can be in such a situation and expect to make demands. But you know, many of these people are just caught in a bad situation, and many of them are perfectly decent.”
Moldova’s split identity, vacillating between former Soviet, Russian, Romanian and independently Moldovan, lends to these simmering tensions.
For less affluent refugees, the primary destination is the International Exhibition Center MoldExpo, the largest complex of any sort in the country. The scene on March 14 featured police checkpoints, buses coming and going, and makeshift kiosks-turned-sleeping-quarters. Visitors ranged from young volunteers to European reporters, as well as a troop of “Dream Doctors.” These entertainers were dressed as clowns to provide limited medical care. An Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) had flown them in from Tel-Aviv (Occupied Jaffa).
A view inside the MoldExpo, where about 200 Ukrainian refugees live permanently because they cannot afford passage to other countries / credit: Fergie Chambers
The center itself is a collection of concrete buildings, offset from a wooded park that boasts a Soviet-era “Hall of Fame” featuring a collection of statues: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and the towering centerpiece, Vladimir Lenin.
Inside the center, refugees are served food and drink, and can access donated items, such as clothing, diapers and medical equipment. About 200 people appeared to be in that case, sleeping on cots. The majority came from the southwestern Ukrainian cities of Odessa and Mykolayiv, but also from the capital, Kyiv.
From Chisinau, NGO-sponsored buses take off to EU countries, but most especially to Germany and Poland. In some cases, the embassies of EU countries are paying for the buses. According to the aforementioned Moldovan officials as well as an NGO representative, the EU has pledged about $20 million in support funds to Moldova. Far more buses await at the Romanian border, as Romania simply has more infrastructure as well as the presence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations. People with even modest means appeared able to find a way to arrange passage to Romania. But those Ukrainians who are completely destitute often remain in the shelter.
Ukrainian children play in the MoldExpo, a complex that has been transformed into a refugee hub, as they await passage out of Moldova / credit: Loris Capogrossi
Refugees Speak Out
Contrary to the narratives with which the Western public has been inundated, Ukrainian refugees expressed largely divergent positions on the causes and potential outcomes of the conflict. This reporter witnessed EU-zone reporters gravitating toward the far fewer refugees who held pro-Kyiv positions. Not a single foreign press crew had a Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking member in tow, making it less likely they would hear from working-class Ukrainians, who mainly spoke Ukrainian or Russian.
Toward Freedom spoke at length in Russian with several refugees. What stood out was how few of them lent unequivocal support to the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Alex Kirillov, 40, originally of Donetsk, said Ukraine has a “real problem with nationalist aggression” / credit: Fergie Chambers
Alex Kirillov, a 40-year-old restaurateur originally from Donetsk, had left Kyiv four days earlier with his wife and three children. His main focus on the situation back in Ukraine was what he called a “real problem with nationalist aggression.” He saw no way out of the war without compromise and neutrality. Kirillov said the war had begun eight years ago. “Zelensky’s breaking of the Minsk agreements [ceasefires in Donbass brokered between Moscow and Kyiv] was the only reason this new stage of the war began.” He described pre-2014 Ukraine as “very calm, not as stable as the USSR, but much better than after Maidan, when things became economically unstable and full of war.” Maidan was the series of 2013-14 protests that led to the coup that ousted democratically elected President Victor Yanukovych. Kirillov said the U.S. and NATO supply of weapons to Ukraine worsened the situation. “But, then of course, allies must do this.” He was adamant that Putin, whom he disliked, had zero intention of going past Ukraine, or of even annexing Ukraine itself, and that it was naive to believe otherwise.
Oksana Novidskaya, from the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv, arrived in the MoldExpo center with her two teenage children / credit: Fergie Chambers
Claims have emerged that Russian and Ukrainian troops are being violent toward civilians and journalists. “We have no idea about any of this, as there is so much propaganda,” Kirillov said. “My house is safe, but we did hear bombs, and wanted to leave with the children.” Zelensky, in his eyes, had unwittingly allowed the United States to “poke the Russian bear.” He reiterated Ukrainians and Russians had always seen one another as brothers, a refrain this reporter repeatedly heard from refugees living at the MoldExpo. Then a large white charter bus appeared, he and his family said their goodbyes, and they were off to Belgium.
Oksana Novidskaya, from the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv, found herself in the center with her two teenage children. Her 19-year-old daughter, Sofia, carried a 2-year-old. Novidskaya said a bomb went off near her former classmate’s house. That’s when she decided to leave with her children. “I am not interested in politics, nor do I understand them,” she said. “But I want Russia to stop attacking. All I know is that Russians and Ukrainians should help each other.” Her brother stayed back to fight with the Ukrainian army. As of March 11, he was still okay. When this reporter inquired about her thoughts on the Donbass, Novidskaya did not wish to discuss. Later, she secured a ride to Romania, so she could get to where her mother lives in Italy.
‘The West Was Silent’
Meanwhile, emphatic in opposition to the Ukrainian government was Alec Shevchenko, a 70-year-old former prosecutor from Kharkiv. He approached this reporter, eager to share his perspective, speaking with such vigor that a few dozen other refugees gathered around to witness the conversation.
Alec Shevchenko, a 70-year-old Ukrainian refugee and former prosecutor from Kharkiv, kept on his surgical mask for the photo, out of fear of repercussions for expressing his views / credit: Fergie Chambers
“This war started when the Ukrainian government began bombing homes in Donbass! The West was silent then. Millions of people live there, you know?”
A civil war began in Ukraine in 2014 after the majority Russian-speaking Donbass region containing two provinces, Donetsk and Lugansk, began breaking away from Ukraine after witnessing the neo-Nazi and nationalist-infused Maidan protests. The provinces announced their secession as independent republics after holding successful referenda. The 2015 Minsk agreements were intended to end the fighting. However, the Ukrainian government has violated the agreements to appease nationalists and neo-Nazis. Since then, more than 14,000 people have been killed in the eastern Ukrainian region and 1.5 million have been displaced.
Shevchenko, who had lived in Ukraine his entire life, then lit a cigarette and demanded this reporter take one as well. “After the Nuremberg Trials, there were no more fascists in the USSR. People from all the Soviet republics—Tajiks, Georgians, Russians, Ukrainians—all lived together happily. But after 1991, suddenly there were some Nazis again. And after 2014, they began to dominate things in Ukraine.”
Alec Shevchenko, a 70-year-old Ukrainian refugee, grabbed this reporter’s notebook, and wrote down in Roman letters: “AYDAR, AZOV, DNEPRI, TORNADO,” the names of Ukrainian military batallions / credit: Fergie Chambers
He grabbed this reporter’s notebook, and wrote down in Roman letters: “AYDAR, AZOV, DNEPRI, TORNADO”
Those are the names of Ukrainian military battalions. Then Shevchenko drew a swastika, and said in English, “These guys!” In his view, explicit Nazis were a minority in the government itself, which he described as full of “actors, athletes, ballerinas and clowns.”
The former prosecutor went on to say the United States and Kyiv had protected and encouraged the military battalions. Putin, in his eyes, was someone who moved deliberately. “He protects his people and his borders. If he was aggressive, like Hitler—as they are saying in Europe—he would have invaded Ukraine 8 years ago.” He gave a strong stare, and said, “Write this down: 80 percent of the Ukrainian people are glad that the Russian army has come. But they are terrified to say so publicly, especially now, because these Nazis will kill them.” The surrounding crowd appeared unfazed at his commentary.
Recent polls on the war have relayed Russian and U.S. public opinions. However, one poll conservative British billionaire Michael Ashcroft conducted March 1 to 3 claims most Ukrainians disfavor Russia, see Russians as kin, favor Europe, approve of NATO expansion, prefer not to leave Ukraine and wish to pick up arms to defend Ukraine.
What was clear in these and other exchanges is the reality of the East-West split in Ukraine, with anti-Russian sentiment the strongest in the west. “[Russians] would never want to kill Ukrainians for no reason,” one refugee, Dima Chumak, 48, of Mykolayev, told Toward Freedom during the conversation with Shevchenko. “But the nationalists want to kill Russians in the east for fun.” What is certain is, like in Syria, Iraq and other U.S.-inspired conflicts, public opinion on the ground is not as uniform as the Western press makes it seem.
Fergie Chambers is a freelance writer and socialist organizer from New York, reporting from eastern Europe for Toward Freedom. He can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Substack.
The Trinity test of the Manhattan Project was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon / credit: U.S. Department of Energy
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writer’s opinion.
“This a critical moment for nuclear disarmament, and for our collective survival,” wrote Ray Acheson of Reaching Critical Will, commenting on the 10th Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference taking place since August 1 and ending August 26 at the United Nations.
I attended the conference for several days last week as an NGO delegate from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and have been closely watching the negotiations going on for the entire month over an outcome statement for the conference.
After two weeks, a draft preamble was submitted that reaffirms, among other things, “…that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, and commits to ensuring that nuclear weapons will never be used again under any circumstances.”
This could be an extraordinary breakthrough toward global nuclear disarmament. Right now, 191 countries are represented in this treaty and are seated in the General Assembly hall listening to each other. In the first week, we heard urgent warning statements from the nations without nuclear weapons, such as, “The clouds that parted following the end of the Cold War are gathering once more.” Meanwhile, a representative from Costa Rica scolded, “The lack of firm deadlines has provided the nuclear-armed states with a pathway to disregard their disarmament commitments as flagrantly as they have since the last Review Conference.”
In a hopeful step, 89 non-nuclear states in the last year have either signed or ratified a binding disarmament agreement called the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which requires disarmament commitments. These states no longer tolerate the double talk from the nine-nation nuclear mafia made up of UN Security Council member states China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), India, Israel and Pakistan.
How can the United States consider signing the draft preamble while the House and Senate are finalizing the National Defense Authorization Act, which calls for the modernization of its nuclear arsenal? How can the U.S. government even take part in this conference while it is seeking funding for a renewed nuclear edifice of destruction, including Modernized Strategic Delivery Systems and refurbished nuclear warheads? Over the next decade, the United States plans to spend $494 billion on its nuclear forces, or about $50 billion a year, according to a 2019 Congressional Budget Office report. Trillions of dollars for submarines, bombers and buried nuclear missiles. Things they are committing to not use. Please, does this make sense?
At one of the NGO meetings I attended in the basement of the UN, I blurted out, “This conference IS A FRAUD.” The nuclear mafia have no serious plans to disarm, as required by Section 6 of the NPT Treaty. Their duplicity could be rebuked to the world by a walkout in the final days of the conference by the countries that have signed and ratified the agreement, as well as by their supporters.
For the NPT Treaty to collapse would be tragic. But for it to continue when everyone knows it is a lie is a moral and mortal affront to the people of the world.
Robin Lloyd is secretary of the Toward Freedom Board of Directors. She is a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in the United States.
Paul Sankara, consultant, activist and brother of assassinated Burkina Faso leader Thomas Sankara; Eugene Puryear, community organizer and host at BreakThrough News; Erica Caines, a Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee member, co-editor of Hood Communist and founder of Liberation Through Reading; and Nebiyu Asfaw, co-founder of both the Ethiopian American Development Council and the #NoMore Movement discussed connecting African peoples’ struggles across the continents at the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum. The event was held December 11 at the Eritrean Civic & Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. Journalist Hermela Aregawi and activist Yolian Ogbu moderated.
