 Hello, hello, hello and welcome. My name is Miran Khalili. We are DM 25, a radical political movement for Europe. And this is another live discussion with our coordinating team, featuring subversive ideas you won't hear anywhere else. And today we're talking about the war between Ukraine and Russia. The last time we took on this topic, the invasion was just a few weeks old. And today, tragically, the conflict goes on. We have tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. The EU's economic sanctions against Russia are pushing more people into poverty in the middle of a cost of living crisis. And yet the war machine is spinning faster, potentially placing NATO and Russia nuclear armed Russia into a direct conflict. Germany, the US and the UK recently announced a massive upgrade in military assistance to Ukraine, sending the country 100 tanks on top of billions of euros in war aid. Germany's foreign minister admitted for the first time, we are fighting a war against Russia. Why is there so little appetite among our leaders for negotiations to end the war? Are weapons the way to peace, as the head of NATO recently stated? What the hell happened to the anti-war left over the months that this war has been unfolding? Are we goading a nuclear armed nation into a proxy war with the West while arms makers profit, or is there a greater geopolitical game afoot? Unpacking all of this and more. We have our own Yanis Varoufakis freshly back from a trip to Cuba, where he put forward a fresh approach against militarism for a new non-aligned movement. We'll be looking forward to hearing more about that, as well as our panel of activists and policy people and you, you out there. If you have any thoughts, rants, comments, questions, concerns, please put them in the YouTube chat and we'll get them answered because this is live. Also, don't forget to hit like or subscribe. If you're interested in hearing more about when we're putting out new videos and just tap the bell icon to get notified. OK, let's kick it off. Yanis, the floor is yours. Thank you, madam. On 24th February, when Russian troops crossed the border with Ukraine and Putin launched his. Hidia's invasion. We were first off the blocks. Dm25 immediately condemning the invasion. And calling for a peace process that would sit to it that the Russian troops returned to barracks to the 24th February position. Within a few days, even Dm25 begun formulating what we thought was the right peace plan for ending. But it was always going to become a combination between. The Great War, the First World War, trench warfare and Afghanistan in the periphery of Europe. We could see that this was coming. Immediately. The answer to your question, madam. Regarding the Greek left, the Greek left, the European left and the European peace movement came. It was destroyed by the war in Ukraine. Comrades of ours that we run together in the European Parliament elections in the last 19 and I'm here referring to the small left wing part in Poland, Rasm, denounced me personally, denounced Dm25 as being put in handmaidens only because we dare to call for an end to the war and the peace process. In a sense, the war in Ukraine is doing to the left to what the First World War did to the left back then in 1911. You will recall that the German left was destroyed as a result of the division between the left that became gun hoe and wanted to join the war effort of the Russian government and the left that turned against the war. Coming back to our times, soon after the beginning of the war in February, Dm25 put out a very detailed and this idea of a peace plan that we think would be an appropriate resolution for the conflict. We actually had internal debates within Dm25 and in the end, we voted at a pan-European level like we do when it comes to big issues in favor of this peace plan. The peace plan, just briefly for those who are watching who don't know what it is, was based on some very basic principles. First, the return of the Russian troops to wear the wear on the 24th of February, that is a given. Secondly, a peace treaty under the auspices of the United Nations that guarantees the neutrality, notice how neutrality of Ukraine gives guarantees to Russia of that neutrality and guarantees to Ukraine of Russian non-incursion of the 24th of February, 2022 borders. A process of civilizing, I should say, the contested areas in the Donbass, where we know that there have been massacres well before 2022, before even 2014. There have been massacres of Russian speakers, by Ukrainian speakers, massacres of Ukrainian speakers, by Russian speakers, a quagmire, which to me, at least, resembles to a very large extent the troubles in Northern Ireland. This is why Dm25 proposed a good Friday-like agreement, an agreement similar to that which led to the peace process in Northern Ireland, based on joint sovereignty, on de facto joint sovereignty. Remember, in Northern Ireland, both Dublin and London have sovereignty over the peace process, and both communities have veto powers. And in every ministry, there are representatives of both communities, and each has veto power. That kind of solution was envisaged by Dm25 regarding the Donbass area. It was, I believe, the most palatable peace process proposed by anyone, the one by Dm25. In May, Jeremy Corbyn etched the Melkoron and myself on behalf of Dm25, Mera25 and the Progress International, we issued the Athens Declaration, in which we called for a peace process, like the one that Dm25 proposed, but moreover, and very importantly, for a new non-aligned movement that will steer a clear path away from the military blocks that are strengthening and which the Ukraine war is reinforcing. More recently, comrades, and this is news that hot of the press, so to speak, I was in Mexico City, and I and I were in Mexico City, and I had the honor and the privilege to be discussing a number of issues, including the war in Ukraine, with the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the Foreign Secretary, the Foreign Minister, Marcelo. I outlined Dm25's position. I actually said that it is not enough for countries like Mexico to simply call for a peace process. I said to the government representatives, to the president and to the foreign minister that I met, that my view, at least personally, is that a country like Mexico, a substantial, significant country that happens to also play a prominent role in the G77, that large grouping of countries of the global south, should not simply exhaust itself by proposing some peace process, but it should outline what kind of peace agreement it envisages in order to speed up the the process that leads to a peace process. The foreign minister asked me for a written version of the Dm25 proposal. I explained it to him verbally and I gave it to him in written form and he declared his interest in this and possibly an intent to work on this proposal and put it forward to the Security Council of the United Nations. It is clear that the world in Ukraine has changed the world in a way that bears absolutely no doubt. The world will never be the same. There were forces at work before Ukraine changing the world, but the world in Ukraine spread them out. You will recall that back in 2020, just before he gave up the White House, Donald Trump had already started a Cold War with China. It had begun with Huawei, the imprisonment of one of the top science of the science of Huawei in Canada, with the ban of Huawei and 5G networks produced by Huawei, both in the United States and in Europe. The cutting of Android software on Huawei, similar moves against another company called ZTE and the attempt of the Donald Trump administration to nationalize Americanized TikTok. These were the first scare measures in a new Cold War. Biden came in and instead of turning back the process leading to this new Cold War, he accelerated. He actually absolutely turbocharges. Last October President Biden declared total economic warfare against China, total economic warfare, because the microchip ban was a message to China telling the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government, you will not be allowed to have an advanced economy, a technologically advanced economy. That is total economic warfare. What makes this very interesting is that China is the only country that has developed a big tech of its own, which is not just competitive with American big tech, but it is far advanced compared to American big tech. Tencent, Alibaba, WeChat have capacities that Silicon Valley doesn't have, especially when you combine them with the digital currency of the central bank of China and the very high degree of integration of digital services when it comes to data and money transfers. In a sense, China now has a capacity to outcompete against both Silicon Valley and Wall Street to create an alternative to the dollar payment system that is highly digitized and cloud based, what I call cloud capital based. In my estimation, those two things, these two developments, on the one hand, the war in Ukraine, and on the other hand, the related declaration of total economic warfare by the United States government against China are changing the world. The world is dividing into two zones, the dollar zone and the digital one zone. The war in Ukraine ensures that increasing quantities of global money will be flowing in through the circuits of the digital one. The result is going to be a new Cold War, which we already have, that will take the form of hot wars locally, as in Ukraine. I very much fear that we're going to see other hot wars. Maybe already one is brewing between Israel and Iran. Everybody is worried about Taiwan and the South China Sea. This is why we so desperately need a new non-aligned movement. Why last May's Athens Declaration was so prophetic and why some of us have been through the Progressive International and through the M25 and have been working so fast and so hard in order to bring into this coalition of the willing to create a new non-aligned movement with a view to a new international economic order that surpasses and undermines this bifurcation of the world into two competing zones, the dollar zone, the one zone. It's not going to be easy. We failed the first time around. The first non-aligned movement was defeated by neo-impedialism and by American hegemony. The next new non-aligned movement must avoid the mistakes of the past. We must avoid particularly two mistakes. I made that point in Cuba, in Havana, when I gave a speech a few weeks ago or a couple of weeks ago, I'll make it again now. These two mistakes. First, the mistake of thinking that this is a clash between the Global North and the Global South, that the good people of the Global South will be born together and somehow persuade the bad people of the bad governments of the Global North to share power, to turn the clock back on the new Cold War. This is a big mistake. We lost the first lesson. The Cold War was won by American hegemony and neo-liberalism, not because so much of the power of the American government, of European governments vis-a-vis the Global South, but because most ruling classes in the Global South were in cahoots with American R&T and capitalism. The elites, the ruling classes, the bourgeoisie of Nigeria, of China, of India, of Greece, of Italy, they have all profited enormously by extracting surplus labor and surplus value from their own people and transferring it to American R&T capitalism through the whole state and the city of London, where they invested in real estate, derivatives and other assets. Unless our new non-aligned government takes into consideration what is happening within our countries, the class struggle within our countries, we are going to fail again. The second mistake is to imagine that it is sensible, not just morally justified, but sensible to assume that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In Cuba, I spoke in favor of a dialectical attitude towards those who are opposing American hegemony. Take Iran. Iran is encircled by American hegemonic power. The CIA, the Pentagon, the American Army, the State Department are trying to overthrow the Iranian regime in order to install an American puppet government like they do worldwide. That is a reason to defend Iran from American imperialism. It is not a reason to give the Iranian theocratic fascists a free pass to steamroll over our comrades in Iran. This is a dialectical position that the new non-aligned movement must take in relation to itself. Defend regimes that are autocratic against US imperialism, but also support our comrades in those regimes that want to overthrow the autocratic regimes. These are the two mistakes that we made in the past, which we must never make again. Ukraine is a hideous war. It is, however, far more significant in the sense that it is accelerating this conflict at a global level. The new Cold War that only a new non-aligned movement can confront. Thank you, Yenis. Eric, Eric Edmund, our political director. Cheers, Mechan. As expected, Yenis covered just about everything I wanted to say on the geopolitical level. So instead, I'll just focus a bit more on the. On the struggle that we're facing within our own societies. So the division that we're seeing within Europe, let's say, specifically. During the summer, I was reading this very interesting paper by an organisation called the European Council on Foreign Relations. And they identified an ideological split that was already then happening in Europe among between two camps. On the one hand, people who are promoting and fighting and struggling and setting as the goal, peace. And those who set the final goal as justice. Nobody really sees themselves as the bad guy in any kind of political conversation. You know, I think even fascists probably don't see the inherent evil in their views. They all argue their positions are on certain values. And this split between justice and peace. I think it's very problematic for the pro-peace position. On the one hand, this spectrum, you've got countries like Germany and Italy who are positioning themselves a pro-peace as societies, not their governments. Mind you, I'm talking now about the tendencies within society. And then on the other side of the spectrum, really far on the other end of the spectrum, you've got Poland and countries of the Baltic. In all of these countries, the peace camp is the biggest cap is the majority of the population apart from Poland. It's the only country in Europe where that is not the case. However, the pendulum swings a bit in the other direction in the countries where the discussion has been about joining NATO, so Sweden, Finland, about countries who see this as a more existential crisis also to their own sovereignty. But what I want to focus on is this division between justice and peace. Because when the debate is framed along these lines, it makes peace sound cynical. That's problematic. To define it better, by the way, those on the peace camp say that the number one priority needs to be to have peace in Ukraine. And those on the justice camp say that there can only be peace if we have justice. So the war can only end if Ukraine can win the war. And keep in mind now that we come hot off the heels of social movements such as Black Lives Matter and so on, where especially young people who have been recently politicized, if you like, were going to the streets with slogans such as no justice, no peace. So I think what is going on is this ideological understanding is being applied on the war in Ukraine, where Ukraine is seen as the underdog, they're seen as the victim, which they are in both cases. And therefore, one cannot in any way allow for the perpetrator of this crime, in this case Russia, to win anything out of the situation. And there cannot be any piece of justice on the side of a bully. So what this means that this polarization is creating a kind of new political situation in Europe where you see weird phenomena such as the Greens in Germany being something like 70% in favor of sending more weapons to Ukraine with a voter base that is predominantly young, urban, also women supporting this kind of position. And then on the other end of the spectrum in Germany, you have the IFD. Who are who have produced some of the best anti-war speeches that the the Wundernstall has seen in recent months, you know, regardless of their abhorrent political ideology on other matters. So the situation has shifted, the political debate shifted, and the kind of the audience isn't as clear cut as it used to be on matters of war and peace. You've got these new cleavages and different groups sort of overlapping with each other. So in order to properly tackle the situation and for us to speak to a broader audience than we're currently speaking with a pro-peace message, I think it's very important for us to start discussing how peace also means justice for Ukrainians and for the broader region. It's not just about peace. It's that by promoting NATO in the interests of the United States, one has never seen justice anywhere in the world. Look at Yugoslavia, look at Libya, look at Iraq and the list goes on. Where can we see justice in any of those places? It's not just about peace. We don't see peace either, yes, grounded, but we also don't see justice. So this idea that one can have justice through war, I think that is the part of the message that we should be focusing a bit more on and expanding more on rather than just framing it along the terms of peace. Thanks for that, Eric. Interesting distinction there and it's certainly in line with the way that the left seems to be going in large parts of the left seems to be going where everything is sort of moralized irrespective of the outcome and that would explain perhaps why justice is being put before peace in these kinds of debates. Incidentally, though, just a statistic that I'm not sure exactly where it's from, but 40% of people polled in Germany said they would like to end the war with negotiations rather than for Ukraine to win, but they don't feel comfortable speaking about it. So there may be that challenge as well, and perhaps we can also address this later in this call of how there are certain taboos now around the idea of a diplomatic end to the war when you should be out there cheering for Ukraine to vanquish Russia. Julian Moore, who also spent some time in the former Soviet Union. What's your take? Yeah, interesting. I did and very much what I'm about to say is framed with that experience. I was extremely lucky to be on an NGO project in just as the great transformation, whatever we want to call it, in the early 90s. And therefore, what I'm about to say with the current situation we're discussing is very much has taken me back to that time. And also when I was teaching international students in the UK at the time of the Crimean annexation in 2014, when a delegation of students came to me, both Russian and Ukrainian, and asked if they could do a presentation, a spontaneous presentation to the rest of their year group as a political protest as to what was going on. So it was very much a real time reaction. And I completely supported it. I very quickly ran it by the authorities, but quite frankly, was going to do it subversively anyway. But the authorities of the university was very supportive as well. That was very emotional, very moving. However, before we forget the points that Eric just made, because I want to focus on something that Eric has said, and to bring this down to one humanitarian point, which I think is fascinating. I live between two camps between the UK and France. And the refugee handling process of the Ukrainian refugees have been extremely interesting by comparison between France and the UK. With the point that Eric's just made about politicization and how people are, when you think of the world that we're in with social media, with platforms, with mainstream media, do we trust? Would you want to trust a guardian headline, or do you read the Canary, or Le Canard and Cheney if you're in France? What do you read? What do you understand? Where are you getting your resources from? Well, what is happening on the ground here in the Côte d'Azur, the Côte d'Azur, of course, which has benefited historically from Russian wealth enormously, for anybody who knows the area, that beautiful Russian church not far from the Promenade des Anglais, big money in this part of the world and Côte d'Azur. So an equivocation as to do you bite the hand that feeds you. But the Ukrainian resettlement program in this region has been noteworthy, and the dissemination from the people who we've dealt with, and we're helping who have conducted themselves with great dignity has had a remarkable effect on the politicization of not only their French hosts, but the communities who have welcomed them, the hairdressers, the job resettlement programs, the schools which very quickly took in Ukrainian children and provided language support from the get-go has, I think, been, I think it's worthy of a research project because it's been an element of politicization for people who would normally say, as Miran has just said, we don't quite know how to articulate ourselves on this issue. We don't know how to formulate and how to structure what we feel about a negotiated settlement or up the ante of war. And unfortunately, the experience has not been the same in the UK. The settlement program hasn't been handled anywhere near the way that it seems to be very successful in France. I can only speak from Le Côte d'Azur, and it's not been quite successful in the UK. However, anecdotally, those people who have come into contact with Ukrainian refugees and heard their story, incorporating their storytelling into education programs, giving them a platform, helping them with exhibitions, I would argue is an amazing real life experience that we have in dissemination of the real politic and how we support and how we learn. And that's taking really Eric's point about young people being politicized in a different way and seeing the difference between peace and justice. And I would say, from a DM point of view, looking at refugees and resettlement programs could be something that we could watch and report on, because I think it's pertinent for this particular topic. Thanks for that, Julia. A couple of comments from the chat. Oliver says, well, no, sorry, NAMBO says, with regard to the split in the left that Eric was talking about, that a lot of right-leaning libertarians, et cetera, agree with me more than a lot of lefties. And I have no problem working or talking with them on common goals, assuming the NAMBO is also on the left. And Romeo says, no, not Romeo, sorry, I'm misreading the Marino. Got that right. We are anti-war. That's why we want the Russian troops out of Ukraine. Okay. Johannes, Johannes Fair from Germany. What's the take on the ground in Germany? Give us the pulse. Thanks. I think there's definitely no easy answer to that. I can definitely also report in the difficulty to even speak about this topic. There was in the recent week a huge media campaign for in favor of weapon deliveries. And everyone who was not in favor and having arguments against that and seeing the delivery of tanks, especially now, as a step in escalating the war, which is also my personal opinion. And I think it is difficult to speak publicly if you have that position in not sure if every country, but for certain my country. I think if we zoom out and have this goal, which I think we should have about peace and also justice, of course, because I think in war times, I think it's difficult to imagine just war. I think that doesn't really exist because war means lots of people are dying, and that's one of the worst things that can happen in any case. Plus, I think in a global situation where we are facing the climate crisis and worse things could be coming, I think we all should try to put our utmost to work towards diplomacy and the lasting peace that we can actually face all the other big problems that we are facing as a humanity on this planet. And I think also that this is an information I have been from an interesting German book from the author Maurice Hefken, who is writing about the new economic war, that Putin's government and Putin's regime are actually pretty independent when it's about continuing to attack Ukraine and to fight this war. Because they have a lot of people in the country that they can put into their army. They have energy sources on their own, and they have a weapon production. On the other hand, of course, if you want to have some kind of diplomacy, some kind of diplomatic solution, you need to put pressure on other fronts. And I think what hasn't happened, for example, was that in the sanctions, the Western countries, my countries, the US, all the allies, NATO countries, and others have been putting forward sanctions, but most of the world actually hasn't. And if the pressure doesn't come from all sides for negotiations, it will get difficult. And so it would be very, very important for us to also reach out to countries like China, other Asian countries, African countries to put pressure together and search for a common solution like Janusz has said in the beginning with peace negotiations with the United Nations. I think also something that, for example, in Germany, rather than delivering more and more weapons to Ukraine, I think that we have tried to put some sanctions on oligarchs on paper. But for example, the German state is failing since months to actually find out what Russian oligarchs in Germany actually possess. Because this state has probably many other states in Europe is actually protecting kind of non-public knowledge about what the riches of the rich actually own. Because of the interests of our own oligarchs who don't want the public to know. And that's a big problem. And these proposed sanctions haven't been actually possible to make a reality, which would be another way to actually put pressure on the Russian government. And I think there are some other things that we could actually be talking about, that relief for the Ukraine to actually start rebuilding their country without the need of a lot of private investment and so on and so forth. And I think you can even talk, and this is my personal opinion about certain weaponaries and deliveries. I think my mom, for example, who's living in the German countryside and we have taken on a lot of refugees from Ukraine that have been fleeing the war. So she was involved in actually helping some of the many people that had to flee. And some went back to Ukraine already. And when they kept in touch and when she asked them what they would wish for last Christmas for them to send over, they actually asked a little bit ironically, but they asked because it's not really something that my mom can deliver, but they asked for an air defense system because the Ukraine population is in fear of Russian airstrikes. And this is a war crime that Putin has been doing in the last months in Ukraine. So I think something like that, if you're, this is something I think you can actually talk about other things like helmets and so on as well. But for example, if it comes to tanks, and I think we all need to kind of see where does it end, because now the next thing that immediately the Ukraine government has been asking for is jets, fighter jets. Then there's rockets. Then at some point, there might be troops. So there has to be a line somewhere. And I think definitely tanks are an offensive weapon that could do more harm than it actually can help bring in peace. And I think I take on the that what Eric has been saying that we should actually talk about peace also being justice and justice only can be served in peace times. Thanks. Thanks for that, Johannes. Could I ask you, I mean, do you, in relation to what Eric said, do you feel comfortable airing these views in Germany? I mean, are you, if you say these things, are you labeled a Putin stooge or, I mean, how is the scope of debate over there? I think that can definitely can very easily happen. I think if you, you know, social media is that that place where these things are voiced the most easy, I think you can definitely easily be put, you know, that label will be put on you. And I think it is definitely this live stream today is definitely some a live stream that made me personally more nervous than to speak about this topic. Thanks for that, Johannes. A comment from the chat from David. Justice must mean justice for all the people of Ukraine and Russia affected by the conflict, not some morality play about a bad boy at school throwing his weight around. What a lot of Western leaders seem to be doing is pursuing this vision of moral victory, even if it isn't so great for the actual Ukrainians on the ground. Okay, Andres, Andres from Cyprus, Andres Fou, those yours. Thanks. I just wanted to reiterate what for me should be almost black and white in a time of mass confusion. We're a year into this chapter of the conflict. And because in Davos a couple of weeks ago, it seems like we've officially entered Orwellian times. When the head of NATO, the organization who has arguably the biggest say in the direction of this conflict tells us weapons are the way to peace. Seems like those who haven't yet realized that the aim isn't to stop this war but to prolong it, have to wake up to this reality pretty soon, because this gives these leaders consent to do what they want to go along. NATO, the military industrial complex, and its tentacles. This is a business opportunity and one that they've been heavily invested in for decades. This is what we've seen so often in the past. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria in this century alone. Then going back further, you could throw a dart on the map and you could chance they've done it there too. Now we're supposed to believe that this is just an exception when it isn't. It's the same old tactic rinsed and refeeded. This is as much as an informational war as it is a physical one on those who fortunately aren't in the midst of it. There are certain truths that simply aren't allowed to be said for some reason. Another brilliant tactic by the war machine brainwashing division, which is the media. You're not allowed to say any more. A, it is a proxy war when it clearly is. Even the German Foreign Minister said that her country is now at war with Russia like a Freudian slip that they later had to cover up. B, that this war didn't start on February 24th last year. The EU, the US, and of course Russia have been meddling in Ukraine for a long time for their own benefit. This is another chapter of this war. As a result, this wasn't some spontaneous, unprovoked situation as they keep repeating in the media. This word unprovoked is not to be taken lightly. But all these have been cleverly branded as Russian propaganda. But we shouldn't have to self-censor for saying what is evident just because of those who screen the loudest on social media and those who are amplified by the powers that be because it's beneficial to them. Not if we actually want peace. Not allowing these simple facts to be said doesn't help Russia. And it certainly doesn't help Ukrainians who are suffering from it. Lastly, I just wanted to make a point about democracy because it's the buzzword our leaders in Europe love to mix in whenever they're promoting their latest venture. Did the people get to vote on whether billions of their tax money would be sent to fight an endless war? Did we have our say on whether there should be peace talks rather than escalation? Do all the people in the EU agree that this is the right course of action? Or what about like the knock-on effect such as the rising costs of just about everything? Just have a feeling that if we lived in a true democracy where we could actually vote on these matters like the outcome would be very different and that's all from now. Thank you for that Andreas and a comment here from definitely we're always told it's the exception until the next war and then that's the exception. Okay Dushan, Dushan Paevich from Montenegro. Thanks Makhanan. I would like to add up to what Eric said basically even though he made great points I would just like to put this further on because I'm really interested in this two dichotomies on the left. One part is thinking that Russia is fighting imperialism and whoever is against US is good than the friend of ours and the other part thinks that NATO should be stronger in order to defeat Russia. I don't agree with either of those I think both are absurd at least to me and of course I'm against war I mean who in their right sense isn't but we need to debate concrete things and that's why I love this DM's proposal that Yanis and everyone else mentioned. Basically I do believe however when it comes to these left fractions that there are some fractions of left as even Slavic Jews said that would love if Russia invaded Ukraine in three days and then and defeated it then they would have this moral high ground of condemning Russia while Ukraine is defeated. I think there are a lot of those people basically and we need to think about the whole ideology that stands behind this Russians invasion. We are dialectical materialists but that doesn't mean ideology doesn't have concrete consequences on people's lives just like I don't know to a greater extent of course Nazi Germany had regarding Jews. So for example a Russian government says that Ukrainians are false people false people they are just Russians that went bad they they are all Nazis and stuff like that and we need to remember that all of it has as I said consequences on the lives of those people and something else that I think leftist need to hear is that peace process doesn't mean or at least shouldn't mean that Ukraine just gives parts of its territory that's not peace we need both peace and justice as Eric noted. Listen I'm from Montenegro and I know what the Russian influence looks like and I know what the NATO influence looks like as well but if something bad happens God forbid quote unquote I wouldn't be happy if leftist just group together with the idea that Montenegro should just surrender and leave their territories to whoever Russia US you named and hear me out on this this might take that we should be aware that peace and reconciliation reconciliation are sometimes just an imperialist concepts where bigger groups swallows the less powerful ones it's an international NGO concept that is being abused unfortunately to a greater extent and due to big funds and resources of course of course those resources and funds are nowhere near the war mongering and war resources that's out of doubt but we need to have that on our mind while we are speaking about peace and reconciliation as well and as Eric said we need to reclaim those concepts and as our own and make peace and reconciliation one of the elements together with the justice elements basically that's how I see the way forward it's written in DiEM's plan and that's what the left needs to stand behind if you ask me also what I want to mention which is a bit of topic but I will be short that our moral support our at least verbal support goes to people of Turkey and Syria that are just experiencing the big consequences of earthquake and it reminds all of us that we have far far bigger threats than humans fighting each other and that we should stop the wars in order to stop that bigger threat called climate change and and finally as you assume if you read my pieces or if you heard me before we need to redirect the war funds toward the green transition and this day proves us that that point is very really valid and necessary now more than ever thank you for that Dushan and here here especially solidarity with all those people in Turkey and Syria now um okay Danai Danai Stratu who is yours hello I'm not sure I have a very good internet connection that will go on if not a change so talking from the perspective of the art practitioner I would change a little bit the analysis that has been going on which is really very helpful very accurate I believe we've learned a lot by listening to everyone but I would like to say that from my perspective and trying to shed light in a different way on this subject we have been running for the last two months an open call through the platform it's time to open the black boxes so for asking people to participate by sending one word in the era of war what is that what is it that threats you mostly or what is it that you would like to protect so I would like to to say that we have been running this open call for the last two months with more participations in the two months than we have had in the last 10 years that the project has been going on I mean we have really had the very strong participation this time and I think this is very important basically we give the opportunity to people to express their hopes or their fears and this time the open call is specifically for this subject in the era of war we plan to present the results at an event that we are having in Athens in February 22nd with the same subject of course and I would just like maybe to share with you just to change the climate a bit on this some words that have been coming in the last days so give me a second to get to the results I'll just randomly speak there it's a global open call so we have in many different languages I will do it now in English only just to get a sense of the feeling of the words that people are thinking of democracy ignorance collapse dignity empathy greed self-extension diversity oligarchy the environment nuclear war demographic explosion biosphere justice cynicism truth culture war many times the word war people children I could go on and on and on I just wanted to give a little bit of the essence of what's going on what people are thinking to invite everyone for the for to participate in the website open the black boxes.org go to participate and send us your word so that your voice can be heard in this very difficult circumstances that as definitely said very nicely that this is the most important thing at this moment but then again the next one is and what Andrea said before from Cyprus I related to that a lot is that they are not trying to finish this they're trying to extend it as much as possible and this becomes the new normal unfortunately so please I'm inviting everyone to participate open the black boxes.org we're waiting for your word thank you so much thank you Danai there'll be a link in the chat also for that art project let's go back to Germany now you did you did Maya yeah thank you a lot has been said and I really feel I really like Duchamp's analysis and also Eric's the conflict between peace and injustice and because Eric commented on the German greens I thought I'd say a few more words on that because it's quite remarkable as Eric mentioned the among the green party the German green party 70 percent of members are in favor of sending more weapons to Ukraine as opposed to 60 percent among the cdu 50 percent I think among the yes the SPD if I recall correctly so they are more in favor of this war than the traditional parties that are generally war hawks so that is quite remarkable and I don't think that the answer is justice so much as peace rather a different interpretation of what peace how to achieve peace because the German greens have a large pacifist wing they don't have so many young people these days so I think that is really the pacifist wing that has been convinced that in order to have peace we we have to send weapons to Ukraine rather that or maybe some of them are more instinctive and they just think well we see these war crimes on TV every night we have to do something we feel this more imperative to do something to stop these but also for people who are thinking in more nuanced ways I think that the priority is to stop the war crimes from happening to stop civilians from getting hurt and then there's two ways of thinking about it one is you want to stop the Russians from advancing or even push them back will that result in less civilian deaths than a peace fire right now that is really what we're accusing each other of isn't it when we're talking about Ukraine there is this group where we're saying you want war you listen to NATO propaganda your anti-russia you scare mongering you don't care who gets hurt and then the other group says you want peace as soon as possible you're prepared to give concessions to Russia you don't care who gets hurt but actually both both want the best for us millions I think the vast majority of people in Europe are not particularly interested in furthering American control of Ukraine or whatever is at stake they are really interested in stopping civilians from getting hurt and then what I think the situation calls for is a much more deep analysis of how we can ensure this because if we were suggesting okay Russians we're having a peace fire right now and Russia will go back to the original lines how are we going to do that given that saying please doesn't seem to have worked how are we going to achieve that how do we have the leverage over everyone to to make that happen or the other case if there are concessions in terms of territory is that better than endless fighting or is it not this also includes the probability of more war crimes that happen while we're trying to stop Russia is it is it easier to not try to stop them what is the probability of war crimes happening as Ukrainians retake the area what about the probability of Russians committing war crimes we certainly have different opinions of how probable that is some people think that Russians whenever they take an area they're they're going to be absolute butchers and Ukrainians are not certainly the truth somewhere in the middle no this also has to do with completely different situation of information between different countries also between different media but mainly between countries I see completely different way the the war is being presented and then there's a question what about a war context or a peace context I think in a peace context they're certainly going to be less suffering on the civilian population even in areas administered by the enemy and and then of course you have some people who who don't really care so much about the victims if they are Russian speaking that's but I think it's hopefully not so many people on the left but there are people who say okay Ukrainian war crimes we don't care so much because the Russians somehow deserve it or let's do this and that and the other two to Russians but yeah sorry I'm rambling on a bit but really my point is that we we shouldn't really dismiss the other in this debate because we see that a lot of progressives are on the side of sending weapons to Russia and I don't think we can just dismiss them as being NATO stooges or somehow in favor of suffering because they're not thank you for that you did and someone has noted the the split in the left that you're talking about is very evident on our YouTube chat right now where it's just racing by with them different variations on on talking points definitely definitely delkara from turkey those yours hello sorry if I will not make so much sense I didn't sleep so much last night because of the devastating news from turkey and in our neighbor Syria I just want to be like almost boringly and predictably predictably a little vulgarly Marxist here is that coming to this divide in the left is you know the ruling intellectual force and every society is also the ruling material force I mean I think there's this wider problem especially within the green left and not so to a lesser degree in the social stuff is that so much of civil society and what was previously more grassroots slash a party related small parties or resistances and understandings of politics has been actually taken over by the by NGO culture and the money behind that sector and that has been occupied by a certain type of person who is not bad or good person it's not a moral question but their values reflect the values of the establishment because they have gone through and grown through the institutions of the establishment and I think it's important to notice this and that see the contradiction in this because I think we're always circling back to the same place because we as a left need to be exploiting the anti-establishment moment whether it be Ukraine or Brexit or whatever and we keep on failing to do this because of this contradiction within us so I just want to add that thank you thank you definitely yes I would agree I mean my take on this I think that split is becoming ever clearer we have the sort of more justice oriented identity obsessed moralising left and the anti-establishment left the latter is very quiet and I think it needs to it needs to wake up but the kinds of nuanced arguments that we've been making here I wonder if they're going to if they're going to get the audience that they deserve because the culture of the moment is not nuance it's quick solutions black and white sound bites even more so than 10 20 years ago so I'm I'm despairing a little here but let's bring back Yanis to close this Yanis if we beat on the one hand justice under the other hand peace the warmongers will win because they will barricade themselves behind justice and they will call us they will they will paint us as kind of chamberlains appeasing Hitler similarly if we push the line that hang on a second there are other victims who are not Ukrainians people starving as the result of food prices going through the roof in Africa in Asia if we beat those against the Ukrainians who are suffering the slings and arrows of the Russian army again we will lose it would be a mistake it would be a moral failure on our part and it would be a tactical failure it would be a moral failure because when it comes to the gist of it I think that you know if my country were invaded by whoever I would want the rest of the world to say fuck peace let's help them to defend themselves in the same way I would say it about the Palestinians in the same way that we said it during the Vietnam War we didn't call for peace when the american troops were bombing Saigon we called for the victory of the Vietcong at least I did um similarly if we say oh we should stop we should you know give Ukraine to Putin to stop the war because people are starving in Africa and this is a disservice to the Africans it would seem really lose it it's not to say that the escalation of the war with a view to taking Moscow or toppling Putin is anything other than crazy it just complete another madness my point is that when you have an invasion you should ask yourself the question okay what is it truly in the interest of the invaded the question of sovereignty an agency is always thrown at us by the warmongers they tell us oh you are denying Ukrainian's agency you seem to you seem to believe that you know better than they do what they want well how do you know what Ukrainians want I mean I know in judging by the Greeks who I know quite well or the Brits who I know very well and the Americans who I know quite reasonably well right um there's no such thing as what the Greeks thing we hate each other because we disagree so much with one another there's no such thing as a national opinion similarly in Ukraine there are disagreements within Ukraine and when you have a war that is being fueled by both sides the actual voice of the Ukrainians is completely lost we assume that whatever Zelensky says is the view of the Ukrainians that is a gross mistake one that left should never ever make uh we have every right to to try to imagine what progressive Ukrainians would want what the Russian rationally Ukrainians would want uh before we can actually get a chance to talk to them and to say 100 second what's truly the interest of the Ukrainians well the war began on the 24th of February we did not be the interest of the Ukrainians to go back to where we were on the 23rd of February that makes perfect sense to me this is why the dm25 proposal that um the peace treaty should involve the withdrawal Russian troops to where they were before the 24th of February makes so much sense in the interest of Ukrainians this is not sacrificing the Ukrainians saying let's go to where we were before the war was unleashed upon the Ukrainians okay that's pure Ukrainian agency it's not picking the interest of Ukrainians versus the interests of the of the africans or justice versus peace it's it's saying we need a peace which brings justice which takes us back to the day before the 24th of February right that makes perfect sense and then the question is okay so what i mean in order to achieve that through a peace process and not through a war which is never going to give the Ukrainians this kind of peace which is in their interest what can we give Putin to persuade him to do that theoretically well neutrality for Ukraine now why is it so bad is it something is that the sacrifice for Ukraine no it is an interest of every country to be neutral i want my country to be neutral i want every country to be neutral neutral does not mean that not neutral i mean non-aligned in the sense that you are not part of a military bloc we we was left is we don't want anybody to be part of any bloody military bloc so again this is not a sacrifice of Ukrainian agency in order to get something for Ukrainians i believe the dim 25 position is absolutely correct and it our demonization by the so-called polish left or the so-called Latvian left just goes to show that they are not left they've been completely co-opted by the military industrial complex of the united states of their own countries of NATO one last thought premier Donbass now we do know without having a definitive view about it but we do know that in 2014 2015 2016 there were massacres of Russian speakers by Ukrainians and vice versa of Ukrainians by Russian speakers so the question of Crimea the question of the Donbas it is not a simple question of saying we need to have a border and push the Russians on one side this is why again the dim 25 proposal makes sense regarding Crimea this is something that happened well before the 24th of February 2022 push it to the united nations kick it into the long grass when it comes to Donbas a good friday lay agreement because Northern Ireland is a very good example a very good example is there any doubt that Northern Ireland is occupied by Britain none when Ireland gained its independence the british used force to carve out a certain enclave in the north of Ireland which they carved out they drew a line on the map which was completely arbitrary an imperialist line on the map so that they would have a protestant majority a completely artificial protestant majority in those counties of Northern Ireland and for decades they have been treating the irish nationalists the irish republicans as scum they've been denying them basic human rights in the same way that apartheid denied the black's basic human rights okay that so the the shingfeng side had the right on its side no doubt about that but that does not mean that eradicating the protestant community that denying the protestant community rights Northern Ireland was the right thing to do and in the end shingfeng accepted that in the context of the good friday agreement okay you would not sacrifice the agency of the irish nationalists we did not sacrifice their sovereignty by saying okay let's have a resolution along the lines of the of good friday so the proposal of good friday for the donbas is not a proposal that is inconsistent at all with basic principles of justice this is why i truly believe in the dm-25 proposal for ukraine thank you janis and we've gone past the top of the hour so i think that will close our discussion for today thank you all very much for this enlightening debate on ukraine i fear that i feel we're going to be talking about it still for some time um two last quick comments from david peace is possible but justice in warfare simply isn't unless we have a better world governance model than the un and a sobering note from tony on the chat amidst all the politicking the death and suffering go on thank you again if you'd like to join dm-25 it's dm-25.org slash join and we will see you again two weeks from now same time same place good luck and stay safe