LefteastVolodymyr Ishchenko is a research fellow at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Technical University of Dresden. His research focuses on protests and social movements, revolutions, right and left politics, nationalism, civil society. He has authored a number of articles and interviews on contemporary Ukrainian politics, the Maidan uprising and the following war in 2013-14 for various publications including The Guardian, New Left Review, and Jacobin. He is currently working on a collective monograph “The Maidan Uprising: Mobilization, Radicalization, and Revolution in Ukraine, 2013-14”. He used to be a member of various new left initiatives in Ukraine and a founding editor of left-wing intellectual publication Commons: Journal of Social Criticism.
We are publishing this article in collaboration with Vox Ukraine. Recently the massive rallies of the far right parties, the powerful public presentation of the National Militia affiliated to Azov’s “National Corps” party, escalating attacks by extreme right groups against leftist, feminist, LGBT, human rights events brought Ukrainian radical nationalists back into the center of […]
Tariq Ali and LeftEast editorial board member Volodymyr Ishchenko discuss the manifold ongoing crisis in Ukraine, which may have fallen out of the news of late but has not lost its importance for the peoples of the region. This video originally aired on Telesur English. Volodymyr Ishchenko is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine. He […]
On the anniversary of the fall of Ukrainian President Yanukovych, which marked the onset of the current conflict, Rob Ferguson and Tomas Tengely-Evans interview Volodymyr Ishchenko in Kiev. Originally published at Socialist Review. RF: Volodymyr, there is currently a crisis over the ceasefire in the east and the retreat from Debaltseve. What is your judgement […]
Source: DANYLIW RESEARCH SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE How significant was the participation of the far right in Maidan? Unfortunately, this question quickly falls victim to extreme politicization due to two phenomena: first, active propaganda aimed at discrediting Maidan by its opponents, including the Russian media, and second, by whitewashing attempts by Maidan’s (left-)liberal or moderate […]
On July 24 the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Oleksandr Turchynov announced the disbanding of the parliamentary group of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) over a ridiculous technicality. The court trial over CPU’s ban as a political party started the same day with the next session of the court scheduled for mid-August. The CPU […]
Source: Transform-Network.Net Exit-polls and preliminary results showed a decisive victory for Petro Poroshenko at the presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25. One of the richest man in the country (7th rank according to Ukrainian Forbes list) with liberal economic program is taking 54% according to over 64% counted protocols from electoral precincts. Yulia Tymoshenko […]
from The Guardian I have little doubt that Russian security services were in some way involved in the recent escalation of violence in several towns in eastern Ukraine. The seizures of administrative buildings on 12 April were well co-ordinated between different towns, the armed men were well equipped and showed high levels of military training. […]
In an interview for Ukrainian journal “Commons” and Eurozine (original here), conducted before Euromaidan commenced, Don Kalb discusses the future of capitalism in eastern Europe. Given the rise of China and India, and economic stagnation in the West, Kalb emphasizes the importance of political mobilization in both Ukraine and Russia. Volodymyr Ishchenko: How would you […]
Writing from a critical position is not something to be widely appreciated in turmoil times. For some hysterical idiots I’ve succumbed to the fascists, for others–betrayed the Fatherland. Time is now precious and to be used efficiently. This is why I respond to all in a single post. I hate the Euroidiots who started all […]
Recently a number of internationally recognized scholars and public intellectuals signed a letter in full support of Euromaidan protests, backing ‘Ukrainian society’ against ‘Ukrainian government’. Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Craig Calhoun, Claus Offe, Saskia Sassen, Charles Taylor, Michel Wieviorka, Slavoj Žižek and many others celebrated the ‘legal’ and ‘peaceful’ protests embodying, as they claimed, ‘the […]