Transcribing the Past

    Vadimas his friends would like to remember him  El Libera Folio English Version Vadim Bikov was killed in the last days of May while serving at the front in Ukraine, he was 54 years old. He voluntarily joined the Ukrainian army immediately after the start of the war, and for over two years served in several dangerous hotspots along the frontline. He is mourned by his Esperantist wife, Julia Dmitrieva. Vadim Bikov was born on the 30th of November 1969 in Soviet Qazaqstan, and spent his childhood in Uzbekistan. He grew up with Russian language media and completed his education in Donbas in the east of Ukraine, and settled there.  When conflict erupted in Donbas in 2014 Vadim fled to unoccupied territory and joined the Ukrainian army to defend the country whose citizenship he had obtained after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  In February 2022 after Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine, Vadim joined the Territorial Defence and spent...

    Help Anarchists in Ukraine resist the War and Winter Cold! Assembly is an online Anarchist communication group from Kharkiv, Ukraine ( https://assembly.org.ua ). Since the start of the aggression of the Army of the Russian Federation this group has firmly taken a stance in support of Anarchism and Internationalism, under difficult circumstances. Under the bombs of the Russian Federation, they participate in actions of fundamental solidarity and civil resistance without sinking to support for the Ukrainian government. On the contrary, they maintain a critical stand regarding the Ukrainian state and its leaders (whether national, regional or local), have exposed corruption at various levels of the administration and internal war profiteers. Assembly continues to give information to the workers and criticises local bosses who profit from the situation to increase exploitation of Ukrainian workers.  Assembly supports Anarchist, anti-state and anti-war ...

  'Crossection in Vinnitsya, 1939'. It shows the massacre made by Stalin when thousands of Ukrainian were killed during the Great Purge in 1937-1938. By William Kurelek (1927 -1977)   The following text is an English translation of a directive that lead to the deaths of over 3 million Ukrainians. In the 1930s Soviet agricultural policies combined with poor conditions for harvesting caused the collapse of agricultural production in many areas of the Soviet Union but especially in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Southern Russia. The population in the these areas went looking for food, often travelling vast distances on foot, some with their families others leaving them behind in the hope of sending food back.  In the Russian Empire you required special papers to travel within the Empire, a sort of internal passport. This was kept by the Soviet Union, so what the starving were doing was illegal. It was also causing embarrassment and was a potential source of unrest. The document b...

  Military drills in Belarus el neniam milito inter ni  Belarusians Fighting for Ukraine: "Lukashenko Putin's Marionet"  Belarus plays a key role in the war in Ukraine. Alexander Lukashenko the ally of Vladimir Putin has allowed the Russian army to pass through his country's territory to invade Ukraine.  In Belarus the violation of human rights is routine.  After the contested re-election of Alexander Lukashenko in August 2020 and the repression that followed there are estimates of over a thousand political prisoners throughout the country.  Many Belarusians left the country and became refugees in Lithuania, Poland or even Ukraine.  Today, several Belarusians have joined the fighting on the side of the Ukrainians. Among them is Gleb, who just celebrated his 18th birthday.  During the mass demonstrations in Belarus in the Autumn of 2020 he was arrested and tortured. He lived in exile in Poland until the start of the war in Ukraine.   That was...

      bombing of an apartment block in Borodyanka, north of Kyiv   Earlier I translated a declaration against the war by members of the Russian Esperantist Union condemning the war. I thought it was odd that the current president hadn't signed it and that it wasn't an official statement. But I figured there might be some procedural cause. And that an official condemnation would follow once a vote or whatever was needed had been done. And this declaration was a quick public response to fill the gap, to make their disapproval known in the meantime.  Well, the current president has openly supported the "special operation" and the signatories have been threatened with arrest and the group's online presence has been flooded with patriotic criticism. The full story  https://www.liberafolio.org/2022/03/06/prezidanto-de-reu-subtenas-la-militon/ The criticism was all in Russian, which to me strongly suggest most of the pressure was coming from Russian nationalists. ...

  La ĉefurbo de Ukrainio en pli paca epoko. Declaration of SAT against the war in Ukraine The SAT Executive Committee, and the organising committee of the 95th SAT Congress, which was to be held in Moscow this year, issued a joint statement on the war in Ukraine. Libera Folio publishes its text. Joint declaration of the SAT Executive Committee and the organising committee of the 95th SAT Congress, which was to be held this year in Moscow.  The Congressional Organising Committee for the 95th Congress of SAT, together with the Executive Committee, states that due to the impossibility of holding a SAT congress in a warring country, the congress will not be able to take place this year. We condemn the aggression of the current Russian government against the Ukrainian people. We support the anti-war movement in Russia and Esperantists, workers, students and people who are helping the civilians of Ukraine. Diplomacy worldwide must be used to end the war and not escalate the conflic...