Heads of states and governments of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at a 2019 summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan / credit: Kremlin.ru
In an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting held on August 16, following the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul, Nebenzia Vassily Alekseevich—the Russian representative—said the main players and wider international community must pool their efforts to help Afghanistan achieve national reconciliation. He pointed to the important role played by his own country, and by China and Pakistan, as well as the potential contribution of Iran.
Alekseevich’s stress on regional cooperation is important. It echoes past attempts to solve the Afghan problem in a peaceful manner. From 1996 to 2000, Central Asia had witnessed the fomentation of Islamic radicalism in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, with the Taliban taking full control of Afghanistan. The free flow of weapons and drug trafficking worsened this murky state of affairs. Russia remained concerned about the formation of inter-jihadist linkages between the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), which aimed to topple the regime of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan. China experienced internal turmoil in the Xinjiang region—bordering Afghanistan—which witnessed ethnic extremism and anti-government violence; Islamic separatists were using arms smuggled from abroad.
Closer Eurasian Ties
A map of the member states (dark green) observer states (light green) and dialogue partners (yellow) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as of July 10, 2015. It includes what was at the time two new permanent members, Pakistan and India / credit: Wikipedia/MBilal106
In the turbulent context Asia faced in the late 1990s, regional states formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). SCO is the largest grouping in the world in terms of geographical coverage and population, with its territory spanning three-fifths of the Eurasian landmass and nearly half of the human population, encompassing China, Russia, Pakistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia subsequently participated as observer states.
In July 2001, the SCO stated that the “cradle of terrorism, separatism and extremism is the instability in Afghanistan.” Member nations agreed to work together to contain the Taliban and the various political Islamists in the area. The process would be protracted, but potentially effective. None of the countries wished the consolidation and expansion of the Taliban; their national interests hung in the balance. Further, they commanded sway over a country whose only benefactor was a Pakistan deeply wedded to China.
The U.S. Invasion’s Impact
The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan shifted the needle of the regional compass toward the United States; China, Russia, and the SCO were pushed aside. All of the Central Asian states—except Turkmenistan—signed military cooperation and base access agreements with the United States; the Central Asian states saw the security and economic benefits of the sudden U.S. engagement with the region as a bonanza.
While both Moscow and Beijing endorsed the U.S.-led invasion in Afghanistan, an important precondition for the support was the understanding that U.S. and NATO bases in Central Asia would be short-term. With the prolonged stay, the countries developed an increasingly mutual irritation toward Washington. To neutralize Western influence, they attempted to revive the SCO process.
At the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting in Beijing on January 7, 2002, the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers put forward proposals to improve the organization’s anti-terrorism and security capabilities, maintaining the group should assume responsibility for regional security. These plans fell on deaf ears as Central Asian states were busy welcoming the U.S. empire.
In 2005, however, the SCO called for the United States to withdraw from bases in Central Asia. The statement read:
“Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states… consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines for the temporary use [of military bases in the region].”
This was the first indication that the military directives of Western powers would not unilaterally dictate the regional Afghan strategy. Afghanistan soon signed a protocol establishing the SCO-Afghanistan contact group. In 2012, Afghanistan became an observer in the SCO. Three years later, Kabul endorsed the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RAT) of the SCO, later applying for full membership in the group. These arrangements have continued to this day, providing an alternative to belligerent tactics. On July 14, 2021, the Contact Group met in Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe where, inter alia, it was demanded that Taliban pledge a clean break with terrorist outfits.
What’s at Stake for China and Russia?
Regional agendas for Afghanistan will likely be sustained because the SCO heavyweights—China and Russia—continue to have a stake in the happenings of Kabul. Moscow is worried about a) the emboldenment effect that Taliban’s battlefield victory would have for its historically explosive Muslim regions; and b) the possible relocation of U.S. troops to the countries neighboring Afghanistan, which would weaken the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Central Asia.
Countries in blue have signed onto China’s Belt and Road Initiative / Wikipedia/Owennson
Beijing is anxious that religious militancy in Afghanistan will fuel a domestic Islamist insurgency by invigorating the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)—an ethnic Uighur extremist group responsible for past terror attacks in China and which seeks to transform Xinjiang region into an independent Islamic state. This could negatively affect China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—a project to build a network of overland road and rail routes, oil and gas pipelines, and other infrastructure projects from West China through Central Asia to Europe.
As the Taliban retakes control of Afghanistan, China and Russia won’t make timid pleas to Washington to place forces on the ground in the country. The militarist path has been deemed a flawed move by both sides. In the coming days, the Sino-Russian bloc will likely prioritize political solutions, thereby promoting a more proactive position for the SCO and emphasizing the importance of regional frameworks.
Yanis Iqbal is an independent researcher and freelance writer based in Aligarh, India, and can be contacted at [email protected].
An Apache attack helicopter in approach in September 2020, Afghanistan / credit: Andre Klimke on Unsplash
A dizzying amount of commentary, both solicited and not, has been spared on the Taliban’s brutal, unilateral recovery of power in Afghanistan. Unlike a great majority of political events, it is far from unwarranted. Any sane person observing such a horrific spectacle, certainly amplified by sharp memories of the Taliban’s appalling human rights record prior to the U.S. incursion, would feel compelled to offer an observation or two, despite how redundant it may be.
Coincidentally, exactly 23 years ago, as part of a wider effort to “counter an immediate threat from the Bin Laden network,” known officially as Operation Infinite Reach, the Clinton administration struck “terrorist facilities and infrastructure” in Afghanistan, where it believed “a gathering of key terrorist leaders” was to take place. The attack failed according to then counter-terrorism czar, Richard A. Clarke, who later lamented that the public backlash made it more difficult to continue counter-terrorism operations in the region. [1] The Taliban, on the other hand, in the months following Infinite Reach, while officially condemning the attack and stating that the endeavor’s main target, Osama Bin Laden, would never be handed over to the United States, resolved to secretly negotiate with President Clinton and his staff over the extradition of the al-Qaeda leader. Notwithstanding their rhetoric, the group was not too fond of him; in fact, Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, once stated that Bin Laden “is like a chicken bone stuck in my throat; I can neither swallow him nor spit him out.” [2] For their part, the United States “was willing to pay almost any price for Bin Laden” as well as grant diplomatic recognition to the government (which the Talib regime craved) and “millions of dollars in cash plus millions in humanitarian aid,” eclipsing the so-called prevailing issue of “women’s rights,” which U.S. negotiators intimated they could be flexible on. [3] The dynamic, as universally acknowledged, changed drastically after the attacks of September 11. There was no longer any compromise to be had; the Taliban were either to hand over Osama Bin Laden or they would be taken out. The United States simply would not tolerate this massive affront to its “national security”.
What followed needs no recounting, though it did receive its fair share of critics at the time, quite markedly, from opposition groups within Afghanistan. In an interview with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former mujahideen fighter and major Taliban adversary (as well as later victim) Abdul Haq argued that the United States “is trying to show its muscle, score a victory, and scare everyone in the world”; his view was shared by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, otherwise known as RAWA, who, in a rallying cry to the Afghan people, condemned United States for “launching a vast aggression on our country” after supporting harmful policies in the region for years. Haq and RAWA also came to a chilling conclusion in deriding the Western military blitz: namely, that the invading powers did not care what would happen to ordinary Afghans. The observation seemed fair enough; after the U.S. assault had begun, the Taliban all but backed off, or, in the words of one Afghan, had “vanished like ghosts”. [4]
However, as the highly respected Pakistani foreign policy commentator and journalist Ahmed Rashid chronicles in his excellent series on the war, the United States’ gross incompetence bordering on indifference, lack of strategic (and sufficient) financial investment as well as adequate military support beyond indiscriminate bombing, and overall willful ignorance of the complexities in Afghan society, doomed the venture before it could have any meaningful impact, thus inadvertently restoring the Taliban’s political viability. Narrating how the conflict was treated as a “sideshow” by the Bush administration in favor of the war in Iraq, made abundantly clear by the West’s “dependence on warlords” for Afghanistan’s security, and the way President Obama, while making superficial plays to portray some level of commitment to “fighting terrorism” (such as increasing troop presence), ultimately showed little interest in improvements to policy, Rashid paints a picture of extreme dysfunction spawned by a startling lack of seriousness in regards to the 20-year war effort. [5] This not only guaranteed anti-U.S. sentiment amongst Afghans, but, with some help from neighboring Pakistan, allowed the Taliban to take advantage of the weaknesses in the Western-backed government. [6] Rashid’s grim assessment was shared by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s office (SIGAR), who, in its final report, also noted a fundamental defect of the entire “nation-building” process: The metric of the project’s success, for no other reason than it was easier for Congress to monitor, was based on “money spent” rather than “program effectiveness.”
Predictably, while allowing political leaders and top military brass to spout the rhetoric of “progress,” this framework left little room for robust monitoring-and-evaluation (M&E) mechanisms, thereby blocking “honest assessments” of reconstruction work. All of this at the expense of $2 trillion in U.S. taxpayer cash (a sizable chunk of it consumed by corruption) and the hopes of “30 million Afghans and the U.S. soldiers fighting for them.” [7] Yet, curiously, the standard judgment across the board characterizes the Afghanistan adventure as a “mistake,” “massive failure” and “defeat” for the United States, as opposed to what indeed sounded like a way for United States “to show its muscle,” without considering the consequences, and then consciously neglecting the fallout.
Of course, the questions that immediately arise are why so many years and why so much money. Some say for profits of the defense industry/private contractors (Eisenhower’s famous “military-industrial complex”), others cry imperialism/hegemony, or perhaps it truly was a noble cause that went awry. Probably the most cynical of these theories, and thereby, the most popular, is the first. Yet the profits that the defense industry or, for example, the Department of Defense (DoD)’s top five military contractors, Lockheed Martin (LM), Boeing, Northrop Grumman (NG), General Dynamics Co (GDC), and Raytheon made off of Afghanistan, look fairly unremarkable when their revenues are explored more carefully.
It is certainly true that all five of these companies not only reported a significant uptick in their stock value but also their profits during the Global War on Terror. However, the United States’ intervention in Afghanistan played little, if any, direct role in their fortunes. According to an analysis done by Avascent (a management consulting firm well-known for advising the defense industry), while defense stocks “provided annualized returns of 14 percent versus a broader market that was up only one percent” from the time the War on Terror was declared in 2001 to the 2008 election campaign (which oversaw substantial increases in spending by the DoD), they fell below the broader market after “rising concern over the federal budget deficit” led to a disruption in investor confidence over “growth prospects for defense.” To compensate for this, the industry focused on different strategies such as “divesting less profitable businesses” and stock buybacks, as opposed to relying on Pentagon spending, eventually returning the industry to a 12 percent profit margin by 2014; then, when the Trump Administration arrived in 2015, significantly increasing the defense budget to serve “a National Defense Strategy that focused squarely on China” (which did not come close to post 9/11 spending), the defense industry reverted to its original blueprint. Beyond this, Afghanistan’s meager role is illustrated even more vividly when one probes how exactly the $2 trillion was spent. Although the DoD has never been particularly clear on this point (for reasons one could guess), it has repeatedly been pointed out that perhaps the most bizarre feature of the Pentagon budget is how much of it is unrelated to actual military engagements. Indeed, there is a massive figure presented every year for both congressional approval and the public eye, but these funds are reserved for the Pentagon’s more bureaucratic functions such as paying salaries, endowments for research and development, weapons procurement, etc., otherwise known as the “base budget”. It is also where the money for contracts with “defense hardware” firms such as LM, Boeing, GDC, NG and Raytheon comes from. Funds reserved exclusively to “theaters of war” such as Iraq and Afghanistan are part of what is called the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget, and though the money provided, usually upwards of $100 billion annually, pales in comparison to the base budget, it is surely nothing to take lightly. In fact, the main targets for criticism in (rightly) highlighting the role of the private sector in Afghanistan, that is, private mercenary companies such as Dyncorp Intl., (now Amentum) and construction companies, such as Fluor Global, receive their funds from the OCO budget ($107 billion since 2002). It should be understood, however, that these companies are international in scale and reach. There is no doubt that Afghanistan presented a number of payday opportunities and, according to most sources, will continue to do so; this does not make U.S. involvement there a necessity. More than anything, to say that the United States launched a ground invasion of an already unstable country, and wasted a few trillion dollars so private contractors could make a few billion, sounds like lazy analysis at best, and regurgitating ideological doctrine at worst. This is not to say that ideological doctrine is inaccurate, lest we forget the age-old adage of the broken clock. Those decently familiar with the history of U.S. foreign policy in the past 100 years are well aware that the United States has deliberately intervened in other countries to install governments favorable to its interests (such as controlling resources) and given support to authoritarian regimes for the same reason; in truth, one would be hard pressed to find examples (barring the Second World War) of U.S. intervention where neither of these are the case. As such, arriving at such conclusions about the War On Terror is completely fair, but in the case of Afghanistan, it is wrongheaded.
Firstly, while there has been significant hype over the “trillions” of dollars in mineral reserves the Taliban now has control over, there is also a significant amount of uncertainty regarding their extraction potential, especially since “large foreign investments” (including a few by China) over the years have “largely failed”. This is not to say it is an impossibility. Perhaps the Taliban’s authoritarian streak will provide the level of order required to make them a major player in rare-earth and natural gas markets, but before that happens, they will require international legitimacy. This is where power matters, and in the current international order, where U.S. power is decisive.
When the U.S. withdrawal commenced, many declared the end of “liberal imperialism”, that Afghanistan was truly “the graveyard of empires”, and U.S. power/credibility had finally reached its limits. Interestingly, these statements go little beyond ideological cliches, peripheral knowledge of Afghanistan as well as its history, and Western-variety sentimentality, which, ironically, attempt to condemn the same type of statements that many say lit the spark for and sustained the invasion. One should recall, though, the relationship between the United States and the Taliban prior to the 9/11 attacks, and examine what exactly has changed. As laid out above, the Taliban had no principled commitment to sheltering Bin Laden and his fellow Al-Qaeda operatives; a fledgling “Islamic Emirate” at the time, diplomatic recognition from the United States would, de facto, grant them international legitimacy as a state and most likely, a spot in the international economy. 20 years later, Osama Bin Laden has been assassinated by U.S. Navy Seals (shockingly, he was not in Afghanistan), the “nation-building” project in Afghanistan is supposedly a “failure”, and the Taliban has revived its Islamic Emirate. Have their goals changed in any significant way? According to the treaty (known as the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan) negotiated between the Trump Administration and Taliban representatives in Qatar last February (notably, without the presence of the Ghani government), not at all. In exchange for pulling out U.S. troops, a pledge not to intervene in internal Afghan politics, and (reviewing) the easing of sanctions, the Taliban has agreed to adopt U.S. security interests and abide by them to a tee. Rather strange terms for a group that “defeated” the United States; one would think they might demand a bit more than an “official withdrawal” (while saying nothing about U.S. private contractors), and a promise not to intervene in a politics that U.S. officials, by their own admission, were already quite ignorant of. Most importantly, the lifting of sanctions, crucial for the Taliban if they hope to avoid famines and take the first step towards official diplomatic recognition, looks as though it will happen slowly at the whim of U.S. President Joe Biden, rightly or wrongly. Indeed, the future of Afghanistan looks like it will be made on the United States’ terms.
As the population of Afghanistan becomes ensnared in the mayhem of U.S. evacuations, harsh offensives by a looming Islamic State, and the Taliban’s violent struggle to solidify their control, it is imperative that we ask ourselves whether or not the U.S. withdrawal, much like the invasion itself, was a wise decision. Whatever the present theatrics of international news outlets may suggest, there is no doubt that the 20 years of callousness displayed towards Afghanistan by four U.S. presidential administrations as well as the U.S. media indicates that a quick exit from the country was not only inevitable but desirable. Incredibly, the reaction of ordinary Afghans, especially Afghan women, again, much like the invasion itself, seems to demonstrate otherwise. Though, at the end of the day, they should realize that U.S. power is as forceful as it ever was. If it was not so, perhaps their objections would have been heard and possibly heeded.
Bharat Tangellamudi is a freelance writer.
Footnotes
Richard A. Clarke. Against All Enemies: Inside United States’s War on Terror. (New York: Free Press, 2004)
Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn. An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 164-179.
Jonathan Cristol. The United States and the Taliban Before and After 9/11. (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019), 51-60.
Anand Gopal. No Good Men Among the Living: United States, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes. (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2014), 8.
Ahmed Rashid. Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. (New York: Viking Press, 2008), 196-200; Ahmed Rashid. Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. (New York: Viking Press, 2012).
Ahmed Rashid. Taliban: The Power of Militant Islam in Afghanistan and Beyond. (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010).
Toward Freedom’s online panel discussion, “Breaking the Colonial Grip on African Journalism,” launched the Africa Reporting Fund. The fund is designed to enable Toward Freedom to publish more reports from and about Africa. The discussion took place on May 24—the day of Eritrea’s 32nd independence anniversary and one day before African Liberation Day—to hear from African journalists about how they best see to break the colonial grip on African journalism. Panelists included Washington, D.C.-based Ivorian journalist, professor and author Gnaka Lagoke and Nairobi-based Kenyan journalist Erick Gavala, the operations manager at digital Pan-African media outlet, African Stream. Toward Freedom editor Julie Varughese moderated this discussion. To support the Africa Reporting Fund, contribute here.
Protesters on February 10 holding signs that read, “No war with Russia” / credit: Facebook / Ukrainian Peace Movement
Since Russia began what they call the “special operation” on February 24 in Ukraine, the corporate media has reported the Ukrainian population is united in resistance against the Russian military offensive. Aside from reports of civilians volunteering in a variety of non-military support roles, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and other state officials have urged civilians to take up arms. Then, on March 9, Zelensky approved a law that allows Ukrainians to use weapons during wartime and negates legal responsibility for any attack on people perceived to be acting in aggression against Ukraine. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense even posted a graphic online with instructions on how to launch Molotov cocktails at tanks.
We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities.
A poll conducted in early March by the Ukrainian sociological group, “Rating,” indicated that, of those Ukrainians surveyed, over 90 percent supported their government’s war effort, and 80 percent claimed willingness to participate in armed resistance. However, this survey excluded people who live in the self-proclaimed independent republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region. It also did not include the 1 million Ukrainians who had by then already fled the country. Since the survey, an additional 3.6 million have fled.
Beneath the façade of chest-beating patriotism, however, lies an anti-war movement. Just as it is diverse in its motivations to oppose the war, this movement is decentralized geographically and appears not unified enough to move as one force.
Ruslan Kotsaba, Ukrainian journalist and conscientious objector, in a cage during a recent court trial / credit: friendspeaceteams.org
In post-Maidan Ukraine, opposition to militarism had already been a slippery slope, well before the current Russian incursion. The case of Ruslan Kotsaba, a Ukrainian journalist and conscientious objector, was perhaps the first such of state suppression under military law that had gained some degree of international attention, at least from human rights and pacifist organizations. Kotsaba was originally a proponent of the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests against the government of later-ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. But he began changing course when he spoke out against the 2014 violence in the majority ethnic Russian Ukrainian region of Donbass. He posted a now-notorious YouTube video in 2015, calling for a mass boycott against the mobilization in the far eastern region. After garnering hundreds of thousands of views, Youtube yanked it. For these statements, Kotsaba was arrested, detained, and charged with treason and “obstruction of the legitimate activities of the armed forces of Ukraine.” After being sentenced to 3-1/2 years on the latter charge, and spending more than a year in prison, his conviction was overturned on appeal. But, in 2017, a higher court reopened the case and his trial recommenced in 2021. Shortly before the recent escalation with Russia, the state prosecution was suspended, though not entirely concluded. This article provides a glimpse into the prevailing sentiments toward anti-war expressions in Ukraine. It comes from a Kharkiv-based “human rights protection group,” yet it describes the suspension of his prosecution as unjust, given his “active collaboration with the Russian state.”
Protesters holding signs that read, “No war with Russia” (right) and “No war with Ukraine” / credit: Deutsche Welle / Ukrainian Peace Movement
‘Anyone Will Rat You Out’
This reporter spoke with someone who would only go by the name, “Pavel.” He belongs to a now-banned Kyiv-based Ukrainian Marxist group. Pavel recently moved from Ukraine to Bucharest, Romania, and declined to give his real name or the name of his group. In 2015, the Communist Party was outlawed in Ukraine, on grounds it promoted “separatism.” More recently, on March 22, a month into the Russian incursion, Zelensky banned 11 mostly left-wing opposition parties. Pavel cited these bans, and the well-being of his family remaining in Ukraine, as reasons for his anonymity.
“Anyone who says anything against the military, protests against NATO, or really, opposes the government from any direction, is immediately labeled ‘pro-Russian,’” the 26-year-old told Toward Freedom. “Anyone is bound to rat you out as a Russian spy if they disagree with you: Nationalists or even other ‘leftists,’ like anarchists or progressives. Most of the country has joined forces with the nationalists. SBU [Ukrainian Secret Service] will catch wind of a protest, a meeting, or an article, and they’ll speak to their friends in the ‘civil society,’ who will send armed nationalists to ‘handle’ you.”
He spoke of a close comrade from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, who had made statements on Facebook before February 24 against NATO interference in Ukraine and in support of the Minsk Agreements. These are 7-year-old brokered cease-fire accords between the Ukrainian government and Donbass separatists, who had declared independence for two Ukrainian oblasts (states), Donetsk and Lugansk. Pavel said this person had gone into hiding in early March because nationalist groups had threatened their life. The person believed nationalists were still searching for them. Pavel and the person in hiding know of others who had disappeared in years prior.
Beyond this exchange, and a handful of correspondences on WhatsApp and Telegram, it has been next to impossible to find Ukrainian war resisters who had left the country to speak on the record. This is unsurprising given that one month ago, Zelensky issued a decree of martial law, banning most men ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country.
Military Service a ‘Form of Slavery’
Ukrainian pacifist leader Yurii Sheliazhenko told this reporter the pre-wartime penalty for evading military service had been up to three years in prison, but penalties have been increasing indefinitely since February 24. It’s impossible to verify what the exact penalties are, he said, as such hearings and verdicts are now closed to the public, ostensibly for the “safety of the judges” involved. As of April 10, Ukraine’s border guard reported roughly 2,200 detentions of “fighting age” men who were trying to escape the country. Many reportedly used forged documents or attempted to bribe officials, and others have been found dead in rural border areas.
Yuri Sheliazhenko / credit: Twitter
The 31-year-old Sheliazhenko, on the other hand, has not left Kyiv. Instead, he is working tirelessly with his organization, the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement (UPM), to promote a message of worldwide non-violent resistance to all forms of armed conflict, including on behalf of his own country. His organization was founded in 2019, initially to oppose mandatory military service, which he calls a “form of slavery.”
Toward Freedom had the opportunity Sunday to speak by phone for two hours. He noted that he was equally opposed to the practice in Russia, or in any other country. But, in 2019, as the war raged on in the Donbass region, conscription in Ukraine began to take on an “especially cruel nature. Young men were being given military summonses off of the streets, out of night clubs and dormitories, or snatched for military service for minor infractions such as traffic violations, public drunkenness, or casual rudeness to police officers. In Ukraine, if you do not respond to such a summons, you will be detained.”
Sheliazhenko’s pacifism developed in childhood, where in the final days of the former Soviet Union, he immersed himself in the works of authors Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov at “peaceful” summer camps in the Ukrainian countryside. These were a contrast to today’s militarized, nationalist-themed summer camps springing up all over the country since the Euromaidan.
Now, he is a conscientious objector. “[There is] no exemption for conscientious objectors in Ukraine, even for clergy or religious organizations.” He noted that a 2016 UN Declaration on the Right to Peace failed to protect conscientious objection on the level of international law. Plus, transgender and gender-non-conforming people are caught in a Catch-22. “In Ukraine, because trans women are treated legally as men, they are not exempt from the martial law order,” Sheliazhenko said. “But then, they are also prohibited from fighting in the military. There are some horrible stories about LGBT people being abused both on the borders—attempting to leave—and within the military here in Ukraine.”
He describes Ukrainian society as increasingly militarized and that Nazism has become a real issue: “Our country has created an existential enemy, and now they say all people should unite around a nationality and a leader! The country has generally shifted far to the right. There are of course Neo-Nazis. But then many of these people are not perceived as ‘Neo-Nazis,’ but as ‘defenders of the country.’” He noted that the cease fires in the Minsk Agreements had been violated on an almost daily basis, by both Ukrainian forces and separatist militants. That said, a perusal of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine’s camera logs in Donbass, especially in the days leading up to February 24, show that almost every day, the first strikes were recorded from “government-controlled” locations, meaning Ukrainian military territory. By the time the war escalated in February, the UPM’s mission expanded past its usual opposition to conscription, and into directly challenging the military mobilization in Ukraine and in Russia. Of particular concern to the UPM is the role of NATO, and the unlimited shipment of weapons coming from the West. “When the UN failed to become a true organization of global, peaceful law enforcement, the U.S. developed NATO to institute global violent governance,” Sheliazhenko said. “These NATO weapons are moving this war to escalation, and it’s very profitable to the weapons corporations, like Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing. [U.S. Secretary of Defense] Lloyd Austin is a board member of Raytheon!” The latter claim is correct.
This reporter asked Sheliazhenko if he was concerned for his own safety and about the nature of the risk he takes in publicly opposing his government and the war. “I will not fight in a fratricidal war, and no one should. But luckily, I am a consistent pacifist,” he replied. “If my summons comes, I will not go. And I have taken some precautions.”
Sheliazhenko said he also speaks against Russian military actions. However, he went on to explain peace activists would put themselves in danger of being arrested if they suggested Ukraine give up the Donbass region to the self-proclaimed independent republics. Fortunately for him, because he does not discuss territorial concessions, he is not deemed a threat. “I am seen maybe more as a freak, a clown.”
Screenshot of German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle showing protesters holding a banner that reads, “Go to Washington and never come back!” / credit: Deutsche Welle / Ukraine Peace Movement
‘Millions Don’t Support Authorities’
Another perspective came from Alexey Albu, 36, a self-described communist and anti-fascist from Borotba, a Ukrainian revolutionary union that was banned along with communist parties in 2015. Albu represented the anti-Maidan movement in 2014 mayoral elections in Odessa, his home city. But he was forced to flee after massacres that took place May 2, 2014. Dozens had been left dead.
Alexey Albu, a member of Borotba, a banned revolutionary union in Ukraine / credit: workers.org
“In the press, there began to appear some accusations that it was my demand to shelter in the trade union building, and so I was guilty in the deaths of 42 people. Of course, this was not true,” Albu explained in Russian to this reporter. “But I realized that the authorities were preparing public opinion. On the 8th of May, I got information that the SBU would arrest me and my comrades the next morning. After that, I was put on a most-wanted list, but I was already in Crimea.”
Albu is now in the city of Lugansk, in the Lugansk People’s Republic. From there, he remains in regular contact with comrades back in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.
“I want to say that millions of people in Ukraine do not support the far-right authorities, but all of them are really frightened.” A similar sentiment was documented in Toward Freedom’s March 21 article. “They are afraid of arrests, tortures, kidnappings,” Albu added. “Many notable people in opposition have been kidnapped and disappeared since the beginning of the military operation.” Some of those include former leader of the Ukrainian Union of Left Forces, Vasiliy Volga, and political scientist Dmitriy Dzhangirov. “Worse, many people who were in opposition to Kiev were detained, and we still don’t know about their fate. For example, the Kononovich brothers, leaders of the Komsomol [Young Communist League], and hundreds of other people.” Accounts of the March 6 detention of the Konovich brothers, accused of being “pro-Russian,” were widespread in international left-wing circles, as were demands to set them free.
The Kononovich brothers, leaders of the Young Communist League in Ukraine, have been detained since March 6 / credit: Internationalmagz.com
Albu reiterated the anti-war movement’s demand that the Ukrainian state demilitarize right-wing Ukrainian state forces. He also emphasized that, behind media narratives that show a nation of unified anti-Russian freedom fighters, much dissent can be found.
“You can see the real relation of so many of the people to the military operation in liberated zones, like Kherson or Melitopol,” Albu said, suggesting fear of state repression often veiled popular opinion until Russian forces would take control of an area. “Once the Kiev government is not in control, people [will] support the end of this right-wing occupation very widely.”
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.
