For a long time Nadiya Savchenko was touted as a symbol of the “Ukrainian defiance in their struggle against Russia”. Returning to Ukraine last year, she has been an unpleasant surprise for the Kiev regime as she criticizes them and their role in the civil war.

This article was first published on the left-wing Ukrainian website Liva.com.ua and translated by a comrade of the IMT. Following the truce in Donbass it offers some important insights into the cost of the war in the Ukraine from an economic, social and political perspective.

As the 2014-2015 winter set in, ordinary Ukrainians began to wonder how to heat themselves. The Ukrainian economy had taken a shelling as the value of the currency dropped heavily since the beginning of the political crisis after Euromaidan. At the same time, as a result of  the cutting of state subsidies as well as tensions with Russia at a boiling point, gas prices had risen more than double during 2014. With most Ukrainians already living paycheck to paycheck, and their real wages decreasing by 34% over the same period, a serious catastrophe stood in front of them.

In the Western Ukrainian region of Zakarpattia, Far-right Right Sector have clashed violently with police, resulting in two militants dead and several bystanders injured. What does this mean for the stability of post-Euromaidan alliance?

Ruslan Onyshchenko, the commander of the Tornado Volunteer Battalion of the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior and seven of his men were arrested on June 17 accused of rape and torture. In turn, the men accused the Luhansk Oblast police chief Anatoly Naumenko (an authority in the Kiev controlled part of Luhansk) of running a protection racket for smuggling cast iron from rebel occupied territory and said that the arrest is linked to those accusations. This case gives a glimpse into the brutal methods used by the volunteer battalions, composed of far right thugs and criminal elements, as well as the corruption of officials at all levels.

Not only a move to please the far-right, the primary reason for new law against the memory of communism (passed by parliament April 9th) is another step by the oligarchy in trying to legitimise itself.

When the international bourgeoisie begins to openly worry about a default, we can be sure that the Ukrainian economy is in a lot of trouble.

The last few weeks have seen a wave of political killings in Ukraine. All the deaths have been of high profile figures associated with opposition to the current Kiev government. The two most recent killings, one of a former Party of Regions MP and the other of a journalist and author, coincided with the victims’ details being published on a website called The Peacekeeper shortly before their deaths.

On April 9, the Ukrainian Rada passed 4 pieces of legislation submitted by the government that ban all symbols and propaganda of communism. After the law comes into effect, any monuments of communist figures which have not already been destroyed by fascist thugs in the last few months must be demolished. As well, any cities and streets which are named after communists are to be renamed.

In Sweden a defamatory campaign has been launched in the media about the Left Party and its position in relation to the breakaway republics in Eastern Ukraine. We publish here an article by the Swedish Marxists of Avanti, which answers all these slanders. We believe this article is of interest to an international audience.

We here bring an interview with the Ukrainian left wing organisation Borotba discussing the situation in Ukraine today, one year after the Maidan movement and the fall of Viktor Yanukovych.

The so-called “Maidan revolution” was supposed to stand for democracy and Western values while fighting against corruption and the oligarchy. The actual result was that the reign of one group of oligarchs was replaced by another, and now, those who benefited from the change are fighting each other for the loot.

On Wednesday 18 February the rebel forces in the east of Ukraine arrived in the key town of Debaltseve, control of which they have wrested from pro-Kiev forces after having encircled them and demanded surrender of the town, this advance took place after a new ceasefire was due to come into force on Sunday 15 February.

The diplomatic negotiations between Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France have led to a cease-fire agreement which will be difficult to carry out on the ground.   We will return to this agreement and the different imperialist interests involved in a future article.   For the moment we are publishing this article which was written on 2 February, which deals with the military and political situation inside Ukraine itself.

A number of far right parties and individuals were elected to the Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) in the recent elections on October 26 in the lists of different parties or standing in single-mandate constituencies. Some are now part of the government majority and many have been elected to different positions in the parliamentary commissions.