This War Must End, and It Must End Now

Join us on Tuesday, February 24, to mourn the 4th anniversary of the Ukraine war.

Boston – Park Street Station, 12 noon to 1:15 pm

Pittsfield – Rep Richard Neal’s office, 78 Center St, 12 noon

Northampton – Rep Jim McGovern’s office, 94 Pleasant St, noon

Springfield – Rep Richard Neal’s office, 300 State St, 1pm

Worcester – Memorial Auditorium, 2 Highland St, 3pm

This month also commemorates the expiration of the New Start Treaty, as President Trump refused to negotiate with Russia to extend this last remaining nuclear weapons control treaty. We are about to begin a nuclear arms race, which will consume vast resources that both countries need to benefit their own people.

We have never been closer to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis over 60 years ago. In Ukraine, we are dancing on the edge of nuclear war with the world’s largest nuclear power. Whatever our perspective on Russia’s invasion, it is time to acknowledge that the U.S. and NATO strategy of “fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian” has been a catastrophe and total failure. In fact, the very existence of an independent Ukraine is now in doubt. Further escalations only make that outcome more likely.

The U.S. and Europe have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the war, despite the acute need for those funds back home. Trump and Biden have provided Ukraine with the most sophisticated weapons and with intelligence support to fire missiles into Russia. Under Obama our CIA established 12 bases inside Ukraine to build up Ukraine’s capacity for covert operations
and make Russia feel pain. But the war effort has failed, and more weapons and money can’t change that reality.

The result is that Ukraine is suffering a demographic nightmare as entire generations of its men are being killed and disabled. Its animals are dying. Its rich soil is being poisoned. Millions of its people have left for Western Europe or for Russia. And its young men avoid the draft in droves. Its neo nazis hold an influence over the country far beyond their numbers as statues of the Nazi collaborator Stefan Bandera spring up in public places. All because peace agreements that would have kept the country together were rejected by Presidents Obama and Biden in their pursuit of weakening Russia.

The fact is that Russia was never going to allow the U.S. to establish a military bulwark right on its huge border with Ukraine any more than the U.S. would allow a Russian military base in Mexico. The war is a fool’s errand leading to this never-ending catastrophe.

Let’s make sure we don’t have to commemorate a 5th anniversary of this war. Join us on February 24th in Boston, Pittsfield, Northampton, Springfield, or Worcester to oppose further escalation by all sides.