February 24, 2024, marked two years since the Russian Armed Forces crossed the borders of Ukraine, escalating the eight-year-long conflict into a full-fledged war. The war continues to rage in Ukraine despite thousands of deaths and immeasurable loss of property and livelihood, while also inflicting a severe energy crisis across Europe which has affected the working class of these countries.
As billions of dollars in aid, arms, and military personnel continue to flow from the West to aid Ukraine’s war efforts, an end to the prolonged conflict is not in sight. The chance for escalation of the war into region-wide conflict in the entire EU-Russian border is also high.
At this juncture, leftist and progressive sections in Europe reiterated their demand for an immediate ceasefire and resumption of dialogues toward lasting peace.
On Saturday, several activists from peace groups with the banner “Europe for Peace and Solidarity” demonstrated in Brussels against the militarization and for a ceasefire to open the way to negotiations for sustainable peace. Marc Botenga MEP and Nabil Boukili MP from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB/PVDA) have also joined the demonstration.
Leftist groups in Italy including the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), Communist Youth Front (FGC), and Potere al Popolo, joined massive demonstrations in Italian cities like Milan and Rome, on Saturday, demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The participants in the demonstrations also called to immediately end the war in Ukraine.
Read more: Peace is nowhere on the horizon as Ukraine war completes two years
Meanwhile, on the second anniversary of the beginning of the war, the German communist publication Unsere Zeit (UZ) criticized the bourgeois media for spewing Russophobic propaganda. It noted that they did not speak a word about the fact that the military phase of the conflict began back in 2014 with the Ukrainian army’s attack on the Donbas, whose population was resisting the coup d’état of nationalist and fascist forces in Ukraine supported by NATO, the US, and the EU.
The publication also alleged that the war was prepared for decades with NATO’s eastward expansion and military encirclement of Russia, and said Germany had supported the anti-Russian, Euromaidan coup in Ukraine from the beginning.
