On the fourth anniversary of Putin’s unprovoked invasion, Mick Antoniw MS explains why he will be back in Ukraine to express international solidarity and deliver much-needed aid.

Four years ago, I was standing in the centre of Kyiv as part of a delegation of politicians and trade unionists organised in conjunction with the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign. Ukraine was being surrounded by Russian forces. Putin declared that he had no intention of invading Ukraine. No one believed him although I received messages from a few colleagues on the left who assured me that Putin would never invade and this was all anti-Russian, Western propaganda to discredit Putin.

Our delegation was unique. Unlike most parliamentary delegations, we devoted our time to meeting with the trade unions and the wives of Ukrainian prisoners captured during Putin’s invasion of Crimea and Donbas back in 2014. We met  secretly online with Crimean Tartars who were being persecuted since the occupation, with human rights groups and Vitaliy Klitschko , former heavyweight boxing champion, now mayor of Kyiv.

There was tension. Government officials we did meet with were nervous. Everyone knew what was coming, yet no one could believe that in 2022 this could be happening.

We were due to meet in the Ukrainian Rada with Members of Parliament on the evening of the 22^nd but that never happened. The Foreign Office had been telling us to leave. We declined. We had a mission to meet with those progressive groups and trade unions that were being bypassed and ignored. They had an important story to tell and it needed telling. Russia was now a fascist country threatening Ukraine’s fragile democracy, killing and torturing Ukrainians in the occupied parts of the Donbas and Crimea.

Thousands of Crimean Tartars had to flee. People were disappearing and being murdered. The free  trade unions were now banned in Donbas, being replaced with puppet organisations. A revolt by miners in one pit had been brutally suppressed. Yet no one was talking about this.

However, on the evening of the 22^nd it became clear: the full scale invasion  was imminent; Missiles would be hitting the country, hit squads would attack and airports would close. We had to leave now. So we did! We secured one of the last flights that evening out of Kyiv to Turkey and then London the next day. Within 48 hours the full scale invasion was underway.

Tanks headed to Ukraine from three directions. A column headed to Kyiv. The Government armed the population. Tens of thousands of weapons were distributed as the population prepared armed resistance. As happened during the Maidan Revolution of Dignity, in 2014 many of the elderly committed to the preparation of Molotov cocktails.

Over the coming weeks, Russian forces came within eight miles of the centre of Kyiv and the edge of Kharkiv near the Russian border. We know now the terrible consequences of the Russian occupation in those areas, in particular Bucha and Irpin: attacks on civilian property, arrests and murder of civilians, the rounding up and torture of the local population.  

The army and local defence units fought. Russian tanks were destroyed and forced to retreat: a victory! Yet the legacy was a series of atrocities and war crimes. During those weeks, we saw retreating Russian vehicles loaded with washing machines, fridges , even toilets, anything they could loot.

For the local population began the terrible responsibility of opening the graves, recovering and identifying the bodies. We have since visited and seen the sites. Yet there remain those on the far left and far right, apologists for Putin, who still spout Russian propaganda that these were false images created by Western propagandists. We have seen the evidence for ourselves and spoken to the local residents, the local priest and trade unions. We have seen where the bodies were buried. We have no doubt of their truth.

This month, on the fourth anniversary, the beginning of the fifth year of war, we will again be stood in the centre of Kyiv, only this time in solidarity with the people of Kyiv and Ukraine delivering  aid. Our support group is on its fifteenth visit delivering another six pickup trucks, batteries and medical aid. We are a cross-party group of the Welsh Parliament with the support of many Welsh people, businesses and trade unions. The National Union of Mineworkers were the first to answer the call for international solidarity, from  the same Donbas Ukrainian miners who supported them during the 1984-85 strike . As one of those miners told us: “We supported you then and we are glad that now we need your help you have not forgotten us.”

From Kyiv we will travel to Pavlohrad to meet the Ukrainian miners’ union representatives and town mayor. Only a week or so ago Russian drones attacked a bus full of miners returning from their shift. Twelve were killed. Many more were injured. As miners tried to escape from the burning bus,  they were attacked by a second drone.

Pavlohrad has some 25,000 miners. The town has a history of resistance. During the second world war, the miners drove the Nazis out of the town. Now they fight what they call the Russian Nazis. Some 5,000 miners, mainly Russian speaking, are at the front line defending their country. And they are resilient. Everywhere, even under the worst bombardment, there is determination to win. 

And in many ways they are winning. Despite the massive advantages in numbers of the Russian forces, their gains are minimal. Pokrovsk is still uncaptured, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are firmly in Ukrainian control, and Russian forces are losing between 500 and 750  a day, killed or wounded. The estimate of Russian deaths and casualties is around 1.25 million and increasing. The Russian attempt to advance is called the meatgrinder for good reason.

In Pavlohrad we will deliver civic letters from the leader and Mayor of Rhondda Cynon Taff Council who have voted unanimously to twin. It’s an act of international solidarity so typical of Wales and our Nation of Sanctuary policy. Wales is home now to some 8,000 Ukrainian refugees, mainly women and children.

The policy has come under attack from Reform and the Welsh Conservatives, but it has enabled Ukrainians to settle in Wales  for safety and refuge. It’s also supported Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds, Afghans who supported British and American troops but who have now had to flee the Taliban, and other nationalities. Immigration is not devolved, but we have a responsibility to treat refugees as human beings with dignity and to oppose the racism of the far right, and the Senedd and Welsh Government are leading the way.

Rhondda Cynon Taff is a region of Wales that has many historical and industrial similarities to the Donbas, particularly its coal mining legacy.

Just as Wales supported the Spanish Republicans during the Civil War, welcomed Basque and later Jewish refugees, so we now continue that tradition.

In Ukraine we will see the consequences of Putin’s attacks on residential buildings, hospitals and schools. We will see the consequences of the attacks on the energy system at a time when temperatures have reached minus 23 degrees Celsius.

Homes are without heat. Many will die, probably mainly the elderly and infirm. Ukrainians describe it as the Kholodomor – death from cold – a play on the word Holodomor – death from hunger – Stalin’s forced famine which led to the death of many Russians and Kazakhs, but in Ukraine led to a genocide of  around 4 million followed by forced Russification and a determination to expunge all aspects of Ukrainian cultural identity and  aspiration for independence.

There is no trust in Trump whom many see now as a Russian asset and ally. We can all see the gangster alliance of Trump and Putin, more interested in how to carve up Ukraine’s mineral and agricultural wealth. Russia is clear, it is about recreating the Russian empire and for that Ukrainian language, culture and identity need to be destroyed.

Tens of thousands of children have been abducted  from the occupied regions and now entered into enforced re-education. People know what they could expect from a Russian victory, and that is why they resist and why Russia cannot win. That is why it now destroys in desperation as its economy declines and heads to recession and collapse.

People now look to Europe. Since Trump’s brutal humiliation of Zelensky in the White House, Keir Starmer has stepped in and led the way alongside Germany, France and other European countries. There is a recognition that Europe now has to stand on its own feet.  Brexit has been a disaster and the need for European unity has never been more important. If Ukraine were to fall, there can be little doubt that the Baltic states, Moldova,  and parts of Poland are next in Putin’ sights. 

So Ukraine is the front line of European democracy. Just as we had to fight German fascism, so Ukraine is fighting the new Russian fascism that has emerged. For those of us on the left we have to recognise that this is a war for democracy against fascism.

Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in return for a guarantee of its sovereignty. We must now ensure Ukraine is not only able to defend itself but also to win the war and establish a secure peace for the future. America cannot be trusted and we know from recent history that Putin cannot be trusted.  Peace can come only from Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. For the left  and those who talk about peace without giving Ukraine the means to achieve it, I remind them: you cannot appease fascism!

Mick Antoniw MS is the Labour Senedd Member for Pontypridd, a member of Ukraine Solidarity and the Welsh Parliament Cross-Party Group Friends of Ukraine. You can help fund our solidarity here.

Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Public Meeting