Freedom Socialist newspaper, Vol. 47, No. 1, February-March 2026
socialism.com
By Luma Nichol
Putin’s ultra-nationalist expansionism got a boost in November when Trump concocted a settlement to end the war in Ukraine that was a wish list for Russia. The 28-point plan also included investment opportunities for U.S. companies. However, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is resisting a mountain of pressure from Trump, who threatened to withdraw all support for the embattled nation. To date, Putin’s response has been to praise Trump and to claim the peace ball is in Kyiv’s court. Meanwhile, the war is nearing four years of bloodshed.
Points of contention
The White House proposal looked very much like terms of surrender for Ukraine, calling for it to forgo joining NATO; reduce the size of its army; and cede territory in the eastern Donbas region. Also, Trump seems prepared to grant recognition of the territory Russia seized in 2014, including the annexed Crimea. Ukraine stands to lose 20% of its territory. The plan also ordered Ukrainian elections within 100 days.
The settlement could leave Ukraine unprotected from future advances by Russia.
Since November, a series of talks between Zelenskyy and European leaders has bolstered support for Ukraine. It provided an interest-free $106 billion loan to keep the nearly bankrupt country afloat for two years, and proposed changes to the U.S. peace plan to make it less compliant to Putin.
Ukraine indicated it would be open to not joining NATO, and, in exchange, the Trump administration claimed it would guarantee to provide security aid. Kyiv also says it will not — and it legally cannot — give up territory, a stance which a majority of Ukrainians support.
White House engagement also ensures opportunities for U.S. investors, including a “prosperity package” to rebuild Ukraine that grants them 50% of profits. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a Ukrainian asset in Russian control, would be rebuilt by the U.S. and used to power a commercial data center. Russia would be awarded half of the plant’s power. Additionally, the U.S. and Russia are considering joint economic ventures in numerous arenas, including rare earth metal extraction in the Arctic.
Great Russian chauvinism
Shortly after invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin claimed that, like Emperor Peter the Great, he was reuniting Russian lands, saying that Ukraine was “an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.” Putin was identifying with the 18th-century absolute monarch of a vast empire built on nations occupied and repressed by Russia, known as the “prison of the peoples.”
The Revolution of 1917 tore down czarism, replacing feudalism with a workers and peasants government and public ownership of industry. When the Bolsheviks set out to create a soviet federation that incorporated those nations formerly oppressed in the czarist empire, Lenin insisted on a voluntary union devoid of Russian dominance. “I declare war to the death on Great Russian chauvinism,” he asserted. He specifically referred to the Republic of Ukraine as equal to Russia, with the right to self-determination and protection of its culture and language.
When Stalin assumed power after Lenin’s death, he reversed the progressive changes instituted by the early socialists, including the right to self-determination of oppressed nations.
Leon Trotsky, Lenin’s revolutionary co-leader, formed the Left Opposition to counter Stalin, and continued to champion the rights of oppressed nations. Ukrainian socialists were prominent in the Left Opposition and led a powerful independence movement.
Today, this history lives on in the debate among leftists over whether to support Ukrainian resistance to Russian invasion. Anti-Stalinist socialists like the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) see the question as working-class solidarity with Ukrainians against an enemy with imperial ambitions. Many in the Stalinist tradition defend capitalist Russia as though it were still the USSR, and a bulwark against capitalism.
FSP stands with the brave Left Opposition of yore and the Ukrainian people of today fighting for sovereignty. Ukraine should not be forced to give up any of its land or people in its just quest for an end to this bloody war.
Send comments to FSnews@soclialism.com
Notable dates in Ukraine history
1721: The “Prison of the Peoples”: Czarist empire establishes Russia’s
oppressive domination.
1917: Bolshevik revolution: Lenin’s war against Russian chauvinism forms the
USSR and liberates oppressed nationalities.
1929: Stalin’s regressive nationalism reverses self-determination; marked by
the horror of the 1933 Holodomor famine that kills at least 4 million Ukrainians in
retaliation for their independence movement.