Ukrainian fascists beaten back

by our European Affairs correspondent

Fierce fighting continues in eastern Ukraine as anti-fascist partisan forces battle to stave off yet another offensive by the puppet regime in Kiev. Ukrainian artillery is pounding civilian areas in Donetsk and other towns in the two people’s republics of Novorossiya for the past week. But Ukrainian attacks to regain control of Donetsk airport have been rebuffed.

On other parts of the front resistance forces have taken strategic villages near the fascist- held port of Mariupol and in Fascist MP Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the neo-nazi Right Sector party was wounded in the fighting on the outskirts of the airport on Wednesday. The commander of the Ukrainian Army’s 93rd brigade was taken prisoner, along with some of his men, by Commander Arseny “Motorola” Pavlov, the leader of the Sparta Battalion partisans.

As usual the Kiev regime is blaming the Russians for their setbacks accusing the Kremlin of sending thousands of Russian troops and armour to Donetsk to beef up its defences while accusing “home-grown traitors” and “pro-Russian elements” of being behind a wave a mysterious bombings of fascist and government buildings in Kharkov, Odessa and Mariupol in the large Ukrainian-Russian belt of the south and east of the country..

Novorossiyan partisans are now in control of Donetsk airport after days of fierce fighting in the ruins of the terminal on the outskirts of the capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Many of the puppet regime’s crack “cyborg” troops have been killed in the battles around the airport which is now completely in the hands of the partisans.

While Donetsk airport is inoperable and has no strategic value one way or another at the moment it clearly had some symbolic importance for the puppet regime, whose offensive was clearly timed to coincide with the capitalists’ world economic forum that meets every year at Davos in Switzerland.

Puppet Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko may have hoped that renewed fighting would embarrass the Russian leader and help to bag more financial, military and political support for the Nato-backed regime which is on the brink of financial meltdown. But Putin didn’t turn up and sent his deputy premier instead and the Ukrainian oligarch had to cut short his visit to return to Kiev to deal with the crisis following the failure of yet another “punitive” action against the breakaway republics.

Some anti-fascist commanders would clearly like to move on to the offensive against the Ukrainian army and the fascist militias and believe they are being restrained by the Kremlin which provides most of the arms, energy and food supplies for the breakaway republics.

This may well be the case because the Russians clearly are trying to avoid an all-out war in Ukraine, which could easily escalate into open conflict with Nato that could plunge the whole of Europe into turmoil.

The Kremlin is continuing to work for a compromise that would secure the autonomy of the Novorossiyan republics and those in other parts of Ukraine who also want more self-government within the framework of a neutral and genuinely federal Ukrainian republic. A few days ago the Kiev regime felt confident enough to reject a new Russian peace proposal out of hand. Now the Poroshenko regime is calling for a return to the Kremlin- brokered peace agreement that provided for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of all heavy artillery from the front-lines and the Kiev regime’s recognition of the autonomy of the Novorossiyan republics.

Meanwhile the Kiev junta’s move to crush all the country’s remaining communist movements is continuing unabated. Legal proceedings to ban the “activity” of any “communist” party in the Ukrainian parliament began last month designed to force the Ukrainian communist party out of public life and smash its organisation and that of the Union Borotba (Struggle) movement and any other party deemed to be in anyway Marxist. Borotba has called on all their activists to leave their homes and go underground to avoid arrest. But Borotba says: “The junta is getting more cruel. But it’s not because of strength, but out of weakness. The time of victory is not far”.