Ukrainian officials discuss Kiev evacuation as danger of total power loss grows
Andrea Peters, WSWS, Nov 8 2022
The National Bank of Ukraine & blacked-out Kiev, Nov 6 2022.
The mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, warned Sunday that Ukraine’s capital city could lose all electricity, heat and water during the rapidly-approaching winter. Facing the prospect of a total blackout as temperatures drop well below freezing, officials have drawn up plans to evacuate the city’s population, which stood at nearly 3m before the war. Concerned about ensuing panic as news of the preparations, reported in the NYT, spreads, Roman Tkachuk, head of Kiev’s Municipal Security Department, has since insisted that mass evacuation is just one of many scenarios that city administrators are working on and there are no immediate plans to implement such a measure. He warned against believing “misinformation.” In a recent on-the-air telethon, however, executive director of DTEK, one of Ukraine’s largest energy investors, told listeners that a total loss of power to Kiev was entirely possible and it would necessarily raise the need for an evacuation of at least a “certain part of the population.” The regional head of the Kiev area made similar comments a week earlier.
Nothing more has been revealed as to how the Ukrainian government intends to move millions of people out of Kiev under conditions in which neither a traffic light is on nor a train moving. As for where it intends to send them, this is also unclear. The country’s capital is currently experiencing, along with six other regions, rolling blackouts, as 40% of Ukraine’s energy supply has been damaged or knocked offline. In the event of total loss of all electricity, its water and sewage systems will also fail. In his recent remarks, Mayor Klitschko told the capital city’s residents that they should stock up on warm clothes and power banks, the latter of which can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The former boxer turned right-wing politician also advised people to make preparations to stay with friends and family outside of Kiev who are not dependent on the country’s power grid and have wells and wood-burning stoves.
Kherson, a port city in Ukraine’s south that is currently occupied by Russian forces, lost all utilities over the weekend. Moscow claims that Kiev, which is preparing an offensive to retake the city, attacked power lines and a nearby dam. Russian officials say that service has now been partially restored. Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, where heavy fighting is occurring, is also without water and electricity. Thousands of others trapped in the warzone are trying to survive in blown-out buildings, improvising makeshift stoves to stay warm. CEO of Ukrainian energy supplier Yasno, Sergei Kovalenko, told the press that Ukraine is facing a projected 32% power deficit. In his nightly address on Sunday, President Zelensky, who has now perfected the look of the brave and the innocent, insisted that the desperate situation facing millions of his countrymen is simply the result of Russian “terrorism.” He declared:
We must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now.
Moscow’s criminal, desperate and increasingly savage assault on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, however, is the logical outcome of the US-NATO use of Ukraine as a cat’s paw in its bid to draw Russia into an unwinnable and disastrous war. While Washington and its allies have found tens of billions of dollars of military funding and weaponry to transfer to Kiev, so far a coalition of 17 EU countries has only managed to come up with 500 generators for the country. The resources necessary to ensure the survival of tens of millions of Ukrainians over the course of the winter are simply, it would seem, unavailable. Spanish daily El Pais published a story on Nov 6 detailing conditions in Irpin, a town of just over 65k outside of Kiev. Mayor Oleksandr Markushin told the newspaper that his city is in urgent need of repairs to roofs, doors and windows, water-pumping facilities and building foundations. It also needs generators. Schools and medical facilities cannot operate. Residents are desperately awaiting help from Kiev. In two weeks time, they hope a charity will deliver some aid.
The UNHCR predicts that another 800k Ukrainians will flee the country this winter due to the energy crisis. They will join the ranks of the 7.6m who have already left. Of these, according to a recent UNHCR survey, 68% are “not yet economically active” and 47% are reliant on “assistance programs as their primary source of income.” Nonetheless, Western countries are cutting benefits for refugees. Poland, which has taken in 1.5m Ukrainians since the outbreak of the war, just announced that as of Jan 2023 those seeking shelter in the country will be required to cover half of the cost of their accommodations, which are currently being funded by the government. In May 2023, they will be on the line for 75% of the total. In addition, Ukrainian migrants must sign up for a PESEL number, which will allow the Polish government to electronically track their movements back and forth across the country’s borders. Because various forms of state-sponsored support are tied to when a person entered Poland, the system will allow officials in Warsaw to limit refugees’ eligibility on the basis of the fact that they previously exited the country.
Further west, Britain’s “Homes for Ukraine” program, which pays families £350 a month to house refugees, is falling apart and may be axed entirely by the right-wing Tory government. Hosts initially signed up to take in Ukrainian refugees for six months, and this deadline is now approaching. However, the vast majority of people have nowhere else to go because officials throughout the country are unable to find new families to shelter them. One government representative from South Cambridgeshire told the Guardian on Oct 30:
I have about 1,600 people on my housing list at the moment and some of the London boroughs have tens of thousands.
Several thousand Ukrainian refugees in Britain are now reportedly homeless. Currently, there are discussions in London about permanently halting “Homes for Ukraine,” as part of a massive austerity program the government of Rishi Sunak (net worth $800m) is preparing. On Monday, the Irish Ambassador to Ukraine, Therese Healy, told Ukrainians wishing to seek shelter in Ireland that they could not expect a government welcome. She warned:
I wish to highlight the fact that despite our very best efforts and wishes, available state-provided accommodation is now very restricted.
In Germany, local officials in the eastern city of Cottbus recently told DW that the federal government has failed to fund any of the ongoing costs associated with providing long-term accommodations, education and medical care for a high-need population. There are not enough interpreters. Health care facilities are overloaded. Elsewhere in Germany, sports stadiums are still being used as housing centers. There are few other available solutions and little money. Zeno Danner, the district administrator of Konstanz, told the NYT:
Corona isn’t over. We have an energy crisis. Our population is consumed by economic troubles.
The newspaper described the crisis as posing “nettlesome” questions. In New Zealand, the situation for Ukrainian refugees is so bad that charities working with the population report that many are considering and making plans to return to the war-battered country. Refugees are struggling to make ends meet, as well as to find medical care and English-language classes, problems widely reported everywhere. Of the mere 4k visas that the New Zealand government promised to grant Ukrainians, just 1k have been issued and only 400 people have arrived shoreside. For its part, the US has limited special visas for Ukrainian refugees to 100k. Individuals must have a family member in the US already who is willing to sponsor them and prove that they will pose no financial burden on the state.
Oppose the Berlin state’s witch-hunting campaign against Roger Waters over claims of “anti-Semitism!”
Ela Maartens, Peter Schwarz, WSWS, Nov 8 2022
An out-of-context shot from Waters’ dramatisation of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,”
used by the Jüdische Allgemeine in their smear piece – RB
The witch-hunting and defamation campaign against British rock musician Roger Waters has also reached Berlin. Last week, Samuel Salzborn, the anti-Semitism Commissioner of the Federal State of Berlin, called for the cancellation of a planned concert by the co-founder of the band Pink Floyd in the capital. In what amounts to an outrageous slander, Salzborn described the musician in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung as “one of the loudest voices in the music business spreading anti-Israeli anti-Semitism.” Anyone who was serious about fighting anti-Semitism should not give Waters a stage, he said. Similar attempts to prevent Waters from appearing have already taken place in Munich, Frankfurt am Main and Cologne. The planned concerts are part of his This Is Not a Drill concert tour, which has already drawn an audience of 1 million in the US and continues in 13 European countries next year. The Berlin concert is scheduled to take place at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in May 2023. The sinister campaign against one of the most admired musicians of the past 50 years is being conducted because Waters, 79, is a fearless opponent of imperialist wars and capitalist reaction. The WSWS wrote in its review of the US tour:
Nearly every song on This Is Not a Drill addresses the pressing issues of our time: imperialist war, fascism, the poison of nationalism, the plight of refugees, the victims of state oppression, global poverty, social inequality, the assault on democratic rights, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Waters has notably distinguished himself as a defender of Palestinian rights and an opponent of NATO’s war in Ukraine. Those in power will not forgive him for that. Having banned virtually every critical voice from the private and public media, they are now cleaning out art and culture as well. Any means will do. They slander Waters nonstop as an anti-Semite and Putin supporter, although this has no basis in fact. In a post on his website that received a great deal of support, Waters categorically rejects this agitation. He writes:
The Mayor of Munich and some members of the Green and SDP political parties and some other mouthpieces for the Israeli lobby have been slandering me, accusing me of being an anti-semite and also a Putin apologist. I am neither of those things. Never have been and never will be. I am however well-known for being a passionate supporter of peace movements in general and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as signed in Paris on Dec 10 1948 in particular. That document has 30 articles, they are readily available, if you haven’t read them please do. Particularly Olaf Scholz, and the Mayor of Munich and the rest of the German Political Ruling Class. What upsets these people is that along with the Universal Declaration to which I refer, I support equal human rights for all my brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of their ethnicity or religion or nationality. That means I support basic human rights for you all, including Olaf Scholz and the mayor of Munich, to the same extent that I support basic human rights for all the peoples of the Levant, an area that would include what is now called Israel and Palestine and the Occupied Territories and Gaza. The problem is that whole area is being run by force as an apartheid settler colonialist enterprise by one ethno/religious group, the Jewish State of Israel, at the expense of basic human rights, including but not limited to the right to life and to own property, of all the people indigenous or not who make up the population of all those lands, but who are not of the Jewish faith. This is unacceptable.
Alongside this post, Waters published a picture of the Nazi book burning in 1933, together with a picture of him and his wife Kamilah laying roses at the graves of resistance fighters Sophie and Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst in Munich.
A particularly filthy attack on Roger Waters was published by the Jüdische Allgemeine under the title “Jew hatred on tour.” It states:
The undoubtedly talented bassist, singer and composer Roger Waters manages to fill many arenas. However, the flip side of the coin is less glorious. However, the more scandalous statements Waters makes and the louder demands for a cancellation of the concerts of this exceptional artist become, the more fans wonder whether they can and should still separate between their enthusiasm for the songs and the scandalous statements of their idol. The first half of the phrase “exceptional artist” refers to both his abilities as a musician and to his hate-filled rants. Roger Waters, who will turn 80 next year, is spreading sheer anti-Semitism according to a growing number of critics. The musician distributes his conspiracy theories across different channels. Even the “Guardian” recently printed a comment from him accusing Israel of oppressing the Palestinians and being responsible for human rights crimes, including “murder of unarmed children and paramedics.” Spreading lies about the only Jewish state, including false accusations, is an activity for which there is a word that begins with “A.” Since 2011, he has been one of the most prominent mouthpieces of the anti-Semitic BDS movement, which Israel wants to boycott. The question of whether the boycott Roger Waters should perhaps be boycotted is not only justified, but formally imposes itself. Not as retaliation, because he screams for a boycott, but because it is dangerous hatred of Jews, which he also spreads at his concerts. Since this has been the case for a while, the question should also be asked why he is invited to concerts at all. The obvious answer: Mr Waters can be used to make good money. He recently also spread scandalous comments on Russia’s war against Ukraine. In an interview with an American medium, he said that US President Joe Biden was fuelling the fire in Ukraine, which was a “great crime.” In view of the suffering of the Ukrainian population and the thousands of deaths, including many children, these statements are also completely unacceptable.
The article bluntly advocates cancelling Waters’ tour and preventing it from taking place, as has already been done in Poland. The Jüdische Allgemeine is published by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which is prepared to justify any crime committed by the Israeli government. The campaign against Roger Waters takes such vicious forms because he is popular among his fans not only as an outstanding musician, but also because of his political courage in defending the oppressed. In the US, a million spectators attended his This Is Not a Drill concerts, and packed arenas and stadiums are expected in Europe as well. The mood of broad sections of the population is at odds with official propaganda. This applies both to the oppression of the Palestinians and to the NATO war against Russia. There is a tremendous need for alternative viewpoints and information. This is shown, among other things, by a video in which former Moscow correspondent Gabriele Krone-Schmalz takes a critical look at the role of NATO in the Ukraine war, which went viral on YouTube and was viewed a million times. The media also unleashed a poisonous smear campaign against it. The ruling elites and their mouthpieces know only one response to the growing opposition—witch-hunts, slander and censorship.
Niqnaq 