Imperialist Russia has invaded and occupied Ukraine in a bid to rebuild its former empire in Eastern Europe. The US has responded with a raft of sanctions and plans to strengthen and further expand its imperialist NATO alliance, turning Europe into a militarized zone split between rival great powers. China, while careful to appear balanced in order to preserve its deep economic ties with the West, has opposed Western sanctions and given at least tacit support to Russia’s conquest of Ukraine. This panel of socialists will explain the roots and nature of conflict and how the international left should respond.

March 13 at 1pm Eastern (US) 5 pm UK

Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/272198411733272/?ref=newsfeed

Volodymyr Ishchenko is a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. He has written for The Guardian, Jacobin, and Truthout and is working on a book entitled, The Maidan Uprising: Mobilization, Radicalization, and Revolution in Ukraine, 2013-2014.

Ilya Matveev is a researcher and lecturer based in St Petersburg, Russia. He is a founding editor of Openleft.ru and a member of the research group Public Sociology Laboratory.

Ho-fung Hung is Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy and chair of the department of sociology at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Clash of Empires: From “Chimerica” to the “New Cold War” and City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule.

Gilbert Achcar is a professor at SOAS, University of London, author of The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (new edition in September) and The New Cold War: Chronicle of a Confrontation Foretold (forthcoming).

Erin Cass is a queer Romani data scientist and activist based in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Their writing has appeared in publications including as Spectre, Tempest, and Socialist Worker. They are a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and Tempest Collective.

Sponsored by Tempest

Endorsed by: Against the Current, Anti*Capitalist Resistance, Haymarket Books, New Politics, Solidarity