North Korea's government on July 13 recognized two breakaway states claiming independence from internationally-recognized Ukrainian territory. North Korea is the third country to recognize the "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic," after Russia and Syria. On Feb. 22, two days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk "republics," and moved troops to the regions. In controversial 2014 referenda held by rebel authorities, close to 90% of Donetsk voters and 96% of Luhansk voters opted for independence.

In Episode 131 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls out the ironically named Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) for openly spreading Russian disinformation. FAIR serially portrays the 2014 Maidan Revolution as a US-instrumented, Nazi-tainted, unconstitutional "coup." FAIR commentators Luca Goldmansour, Gregory Shupak and Bryce Greene are all guilty of this. They do not bother to consult voices of Ukrainian civil society—academics, media watchdogs and human rights groups—that refute this notion. Glomming onto the notorious Nuland phone call to dismiss a grassroots pro-democracy uprising as a Washington "regime change" intrigue reveals chauvinistic contempt for the Ukrainians. And hyping the supposed "Nazi" threat in Ukraine (while ignoring the Nazi-nostalgist and neo-fascist elements on the Russian side) abets Putin's ultra-cynical propaganda stratagem of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Rather than calling out Fox News for its propaganda service to Putin, FAIR instead joins them. How did a supposed progressive media watchdog become a de facto arm of Kremlin war propaganda? Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

In Episode 130 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his comparison of the two legendary and diametrically opposed exponents of Ukrainian armed resistance to Russian rule: the World War II-era right-wing nationalist Stepan Bandera and the World War I-era revolutionary anarchist Nestor Makhno. Much contemporary left commentary in the West echoes Russian propaganda in portraying Bandera simply as a Nazi collaborator, while many contemporary anarchists (at least) glorify Makhno as a visionary of agrarian utopia. Much is left out of both these narratives. Bandera was quickly betrayed by the Nazis and slapped in a concentration camp after he refused to renounce his declaration of Ukrainian independence. And while historians have had much to say about anti-Semitic pogroms by all factions in the multi-sided 1917-21 civil war in Ukraine, it is only recent scholarship that has brought to light reprisals and atrocities by Makhno's forces against Mennonite agricultural colonies. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

In a series of brief interviews with vlogger and activist songster Geof Bard, CounterVortex producer Bill Weinberg dissects the sinister "tankie" phenomenon on the contemporary Western "left," which paradoxically supports Russian imperialism in the name of a misguided "anti-imperialism." This absurd double standard is enabled by the so-called "Chomsky Rule," which holds that we are only permitted to protest the crimes of US imperialism—and thereby renders the crimes of rival imperialisms invisible to the activist-left milieu. The pseudo-left betrayal of Ukraine to imperialist aggression actually undermines our moral authority to oppose the crimes of the US and its client states in places like Gaza and Yemen.

In Episode 129 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the book Ukraine & the Empire of Capital: From Marketisation to Armed Conflict by Yuliya Yurchenko of the Ukrainian left-opposition group Sotsialniy Rukh (Social Movement). In the book, written in 2018, Yurchenko takes a rigorous neither/nor position between Russia and the West, tracing the roots of the current crisis to the rise of regional oligarchs and a "criminal-political nexus" in the post-communist transition a generation ago. The West, in its rush to effect a crash capitalist conversion in the East, was deeply complicit in this. But these regional fiefdoms were later exploited by Vladimir Putin to effect a division of Ukraine as East-West rivalry re-emerged. This January, as Putin amassed forces on Ukraine's borders, Sotsialniy Rukh issued a statement appealing for "anti-war solidarity." In interviews since the invasion was launched the next month, Yurchenko has been unequivocal in supporting the Ukrainian "popular resistance." Similar statements from socialists and anarchists in Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere in Eastern Europe have called, first and foremost, for the defeat of Putin's neo-imperial project. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan visited Kharkiv on June 16 with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova to document evidence of war crimes. During his visit Khan called the city a "crime scene," and toured the places hardest hit by Russian bombing. "We must make sure that the whole world sees that the law works," Khan said, promising to prosecute war criminals. Venediktova praised Khan for his visit, saying, "Prosecutors are working even under fire gathering evidence for [Ukrainian and international] courts." Venediktova reported that 760 civilians have been killed, over 1,000 injured, and 4,000 buildings destroyed in Kharkiv oblast due to Russian shelling.

From Anarchist Black Cross Belarus, June 10:

A full-scale war in Ukraine has been going on for over three months now. The anarchist movement has responded to the Russian invasion in different ways during these three months—some have begun unconditionally supporting their comrades in Ukraine, while others continue to repeat the story of NATO aggression in the region. We also felt it necessary to make a statement about our view of events.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv by indiscriminate Russian shelling using widely banned cluster munitions and inherently inaccurate rockets, Amnesty International said June 13. A new report, entitled 'Anyone Can Die at Any Time', documents how Russian forces have shelled residential neighborhoods in Ukraine's second largest city almost daily since the start of the invasion, causing "wholesale destruction." Amnesty found evidence of Russian forces repeatedly using 9N210 and 9N235 cluster munitions as well as scatterable mines, both of which are subject to international treaty bans because of their indiscriminate effects.