With the official start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, not only were all clocks in the US and Europe set on Russia’s military defeat, but all opinions outside the mainstream were put under immense pressure.

Especially in Germany, public debate and the crumbs of freedom in the German media have been eliminated. Israel’s bloody occupation of Gaza and Lebanon has further darkened the atmosphere. Voices calling for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine and for Berlin to take the initiative have been silenced in many cases.

German journalist Ulrich Heyden has been writing about Ukraine and Russia for years, in addition to his book The War of the Oligarchs, which has also been translated into Turkish. We spoke to Heyden, who currently lives in Moscow, about the Maidan coup, the most important stop on the road to war, Ukrainian and Russian societies, and the present and future of Germany. Heyden shares his analysis and news on his website.

It is widely believed that the war in Ukraine started in February 2022 and that Russia is waging a war of aggression. However, in your book The War of the Oligarchs, which has also been translated into Turkish, you start with the massacre at the trade union building in Odessa on May 2, 2014 and argue that the road to war was paved by the protests on Maidan. When exactly do you think this war started?

I think the story of the civil unrest and the coup in Ukraine is very long because we had a coup in 2014 and I think the main energy that came out of it did not come from the Ukrainian people. Or maybe it came from part of the Ukrainian people, mostly from Western Ukraine. In 2005 and 2014 we saw it coming very strongly from western institutions, western funds and I think Germany, the US, Great Britain and the Netherlands and other western countries were interested in Ukraine as a region where they could process their products; they could use Ukrainian land for agriculture.

After 2014 it was very clear that Ukraine is a region where you can destabilize the border with Russia and put Russia in a very unfavorable position because no state can sit quietly when there is a very aggressive state policy against another state on the border.

The problem is that Ukraine is a multinational country and I think 30% of the people living there speak Russian and this 30% live in Russian culture. For them Russian culture is important, that is, religion and the history of the second world war and the victory over German fascism and also the victory of the Western Ukrainians over fascist organizations like the organization of Ukrainian nationalists around Bandera, which worked with the fascist German forces… I mean, there are people with very different views in a country and it is impossible for a state to exist if you don’t respect each other or try to have a dialogue.

So every government in Ukraine should try to have a tolerant and liberal attitude towards each of these minorities, not only Ukrainians and Russians, but also Hungarian minorities and other people living in the west of Ukraine.

For 20-odd years, from 1991 to 2014, it was possible to achieve peace between nations in Ukraine. But then I think the US decided to escalate and heat up this conflict in the country and they paid Western Ukrainians to come and go to the Maidan in Kiev and they held some meetings in this square for months and they bought weapons.

They stole weapons from police stations in Western Ukraine and they came to Kiev with these weapons and all this was known to people who were interested in Ukraine. But nobody writes about it in the western media, in the newspapers I write, they only write that the people of a European country want to have closer contact with the western economy, “western democracy and we must help these brothers and sisters who love democracy like us.”

Yes, we read in the western newspapers that the Ukrainian people wanted to join the European Union and NATO, but Russia was blocking them.

But this is not true because Russia was not against Ukraine being part of the European Union or European trade links. Russia was only against Ukraine joining NATO, but the western leaders demanded that Ukraine decide whether it wanted to be a member of the European Union or not, otherwise they would get nothing from them.

The President of Ukraine [Viktor] Yanukovych decided that he could not go through this planned path to become a member of the European Union and this moment was used by the western countries to escalate the situation in the country.

Ukraine and we only saw these demonstrators on western TV, we didn’t see people from Donetsk, Luhansk, Odessa who were not fans of Maidan because they wanted friendly relations with Europe, but they wanted a future for Ukraine.

Yanukovych was right when he said that they needed a lot of economic help from the European Union to build the industry at a higher level because their industry was not far enough ahead, but at that moment when they linked [Ukrainian industry] with the European Union, it would have been a disaster for the industry.

But I think the intellectual and media influence of the west has been there since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and even then people from the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada and Germany started actively coming to Ukraine, they received money from western funds to take part in building a new Ukraine. But they wanted these people from the diaspora, because most of them wanted an anti-Russian Ukraine, not a Ukraine between NATO and Russia, between the blocs, but a really anti-Russian Ukraine.

This was a minority, but this minority was financed by western funds and they invited students, they helped young people to set up NGOs in Ukraine. They funded these NGOs. So the intellectual atmosphere and the mindset in Ukraine changed a lot.

For example, if you look at the results of opinion polls, until 2014 most Ukrainians were against Ukraine’s NATO membership. Now you cannot trust these opinion polls because there is no democracy in Ukraine now. We have only one media. Opposition parties are banned. Opposition media is banned. Many people from the opposition are in jail or have fled the country.

When you look now, they tell you that the majority of Ukrainians are in favor of NATO membership, but there is no control. Who is doing these opinion polls? Because it is not a democratic society.

I mean, this is true for everybody who is interested in Ukraine. Some western newspapers say, “Okay, Ukraine is a democratic country with some faults. Okay, there is corruption, but overall Ukraine is doing very well.” But how can you say that when there is no opposition in the parliament? I mean, I mean, when we haven’t even elected a president for months.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin said that they understood that the Minsk agreements were designed to distract them. Do you think Europe, and Germany in particular, was the instigator of the war in Ukraine after 2014, or was it just forced to follow Anglo-American interests?

It is very sad for me to say this, but I actually see that a large part of the German establishment is ready and in favor of this militant path, this military path. They are not following the path of the Minsk agreements. They are going to the path of military confrontation.

And it is very sad because there are many people and alternative media also in Germany and there are also people in our parties who are not compatible with this aggressive way, this conflict way and using Ukraine only to set fire to the Russian border. Many Germans understand this, but they are not heard in our media. This is a very sad situation.

Maybe I can say that there are normal people in the Christian Democratic Party, in the Social Democratic Party. They understand these things but they have no weight. The main speakers are supporters of the American way of confrontation and now I have no hope.

This situation will only change when the peace movement in Germany gets stronger. After the elections in Saxony and Thuringia, we saw that the AfD and Wagenecht [BSW] parties received the votes of almost half of the East German voters. But after this clear statement from the East German voters, we saw that even Ukraine changed its choice of words. Now everyone is talking. Zelenskiy said we should have a new peace conference and German politicians started talking, “We should have some peace talks and peace is the way out of this crisis.”

But these are just an ornament in my opinion. The hard way is different. The hard way is that America has decided to put new long-range rockets in Germany, and they are arguing about giving missiles to Ukraine. This is going on and will go on.

Do you mean the Taurus missiles?

Yes, the Tauruses. I think it’s very clever, to escalate the military situation and on the other hand to show that we are for peace… But it’s terrible. I mean, I don’t know. I really don’t know at the moment. I don’t see how it can end. It can only be a catastrophe this way. Disaster and nuclear war.

But then again, Germany has seen energy prices rise dramatically after the Ukraine war, and there is an ongoing debate about the deindustrialization of Germany in particular and Europe in general. Why is the German political elite following or pursuing Anglo-American interests, even if it means war with Russia, high inflation and the deterioration of people’s livelihoods?

Russians in Moscow ask me this question every day because they are not anti-German. For example, this is very, very interesting. Most Russians don’t think like that even when Germany sends arms to Ukraine.

The problem is that Germany was built after the Second World War mainly by American and British advisors, and in the last 20 years in the German media you see more and more often that our main newspapers, our editors are attending conferences of the Atlantic Council, and this very close contact with the American establishment is so strong, and that’s why our culture is so tied to America that sometimes I get the feeling that Germans are part of America.

Nobody knows anything about Russia and Russian culture, only some educated people. But American culture is completely dominant and the American way of life, American movies and culture are always present in Germany. So there is this thesis that we have to live for democracy and democracies in America, politicians talk about it every day and people trust it.

But now they are starting to feel it. What does that mean? Maybe it’s just an illusion. When we talk about democracy, we see that we are getting poorer and poorer and now our party system is collapsing because the parties in our government, the green liberals and the social democrats, were defeated in the elections in East Germany. For example, the Greens are the party with the strongest support that said we should give arms to Ukraine. They were defeated. They didn’t get more than 5 percent. So they are now not represented in the parliaments of the two East German states.

I have never been a friend of strong national rhetoric, but I must say that at the moment our government is not working for the nation. They are not working for our nation, for Germany. They are working for something else.

Because when people are getting poorer and poorer, when Berlin is getting dirtier, when conflicts with migrants are increasing, these problems are not well organized.

I mean, I see my country falling into a chaos, a chaotic situation. Everybody sees it. And who is benefiting from this situation? America, German business. They go and invest in America because energy is cheaper there than in Germany.

I would like to look inside the heads of the German elite and know why they are going in this way, in this pro-American way and selling their country. It’s crazy. I think we should wait a few years to find out the truth. Right now I can only see that they are selling out the German country, Germany.

In order to legitimize the so-called “Special Military Operation” that began in February 2022, Putin has at times developed a rhetoric that questions Ukraine’s statehood and emphasizes that historically it was a state “invented” by the Bolsheviks. As a journalist, you have also been to Ukraine. Can you share with us your observations on Ukrainian society and state structure? Is it an artificial country or a country fabricated by the Bolshevik conspiracy?

No, I don’t think so, because it is a reality. There is Ukrainian and there are Ukrainians, there are Ukrainian citizens. This nationality exists mostly in the center and west of Ukraine. So there are official documents, official sociological researches of the Ukrainian state about who is Russian, who is Ukrainian, who is Hungarian.

You see that the Russian nationality is strong in southern and eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainian nationality is strong in central and western Ukraine. When you look at history, you see Bogdan Khmelnitsky, a Ukrainian soldier who 300 years ago refused to accept that Poland was becoming more important in Ukraine along with the Catholic religion. Hmelnitskiy made a deal with the Tsar, with Russia, and Ukraine became a friend, a partner of Russia. And from that time Ukraine became part of the Russian empire.

After the Second World War, the Western elites, in my opinion, waited for the moment when the Soviet Union would weaken. And when that moment came, they were happy. And they were very happy because the Soviet Union was a superpower, it was very strong.

Now we see that Russia has to do a lot to have the military and economic power that the Soviet Union had at that time.

But I mean, I don’t agree with what Vladimir Putin said, for example, he made very strong arguments when he said that Lenin’s national policy was like putting a bomb under the Russian empire. I think this is not true. Lenin only did this, he saw that there was a Ukrainian nationality and in order to include this nationality in the Soviet empire he gave it special rights and special support, sometimes even more support than the Russians, more than Russian culture.

I also see a continuity in what Putin is saying, because at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were discussions about what would happen after the Soviet Union with the Slavic brotherhood, that is Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. So there were people around Yeltsin who thought that some parts of Ukraine like Odessa, Donbas and Crimea were part of the historical Russian empire. Even at that time, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were some powerful Russian elites who were claiming parts of Ukraine against this Bolshevik policy of nationalities. So I think there is a continuity in Putin’s claim that Ukraine is part of the de-communization of Ukraine and part of Russia’s claim to all this Crimea and Donbas, don’t you think?

Yes, you are right. When you say that there are these voices in the Russian establishment, for example, the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Lujkov, has said very strongly that Crimea is Russian.

But you have to remember that in 1991 the Russian people, the head of Crimean politics and the people did not want to be part of Ukraine, they tried to hold a referendum, they held a referendum in ’91 to become something like an independent republic, but it was not strong enough at that moment because Russia did not support Crimea’s policy of independence, Russia was completely weak and it was really a strategy for the Russians.

So in ’91 20 million Russians were living outside Russia, they were living in Kazakhstan, they were living in Turkmenistan, in Kyrgyzstan, in Romania, in Ukraine and all these Russians were in danger because there were huge economic difficulties in these republics and at that time some aggressive nationalists started attacking Russians in these former Soviet republics.

We had this kind of nationalism since 2014 when the Ukrainian army started attacking civilian villages and cities in Donetsk, in Luhansk with weapons. Western media doesn’t write about it, they don’t see a problem in these attacks.

The problem you are talking about, I mean, is Ukraine a state or not? I mean when I hear Russian politicians, especially Putin and Lavrov, I think they are basically saying that Ukraine is a state, but we cannot accept a state under the control of NATO or under the control of the West. For them Ukraine should be a politically neutral state – I mean the kind of state that we had from 1991 to 2014.

So there was Russian influence in Ukraine, there was Western influence, I think this form can exist again, it can exist again when the war is over now. There are other countries like Switzerland with three official languages and influenced by different other countries, why not Ukraine?

Now in this situation of course there are some radicals within the Russian society. People are very emotional when they see Russian soldiers dying, western tanks fighting against the Russian army like in the Second World War, and you hear some people saying, “We’re taking Ukraine, we’re taking it all, we’re going to Lviv,” but I think it’s an emotional thing. If Russia really wants to think for the future, I think a total occupation of Ukraine is out of the question.

So you are saying that the radical views that say let’s take over Ukraine do not reflect the views of the Russian state.

It is very difficult to say that because we are living in a state of war. For example, Stalin never talked like Morgenthau or some American politicians who wanted to divide Germany into five parts. The Red Army went to liberate East Germany and they created a German state under Soviet control.

I think something similar could happen in Ukraine because we had a second German state under Soviet control between 45-90 and something similar could happen in Ukraine.

The other option, if Russia cannot withstand this very strong military support, maybe there will be a peace negotiation and Ukraine will be divided. So the east and the south will be part of Russia.

These talks maybe won’t work at the moment because we have a war situation and everything is flowing. Nothing is stable. I mean, how can you talk about the Ukrainian state when the Russian army is shelling Lviv, which is the west of Ukraine? I think the Ukrainian state is in a very unstable situation. And perhaps the most tragic thing is that western advisors in western financial institutions say that they completely control the central part of Ukraine, the western part. There is no such thing. There is no oligarch or political person who represents a truly independent Ukraine. This independent Ukraine does not exist at the moment because Zelensky, who is represented by the western media, is, in my opinion, a spokesman for a section of the Democratic Party of the United States of America, because he is not elected now, he has not been elected president for four or five months.

There is no really independent democratic discourse in Ukraine, there is no debate with different meanings, because it is impossible for a nation, the only voice of a nation to be a person like Zelenskiy. This is not a sign of democracy. Anyone who thinks a little bit deeper understands this.

I wrote an article about these Ukrainian oligarchs. At the beginning of 2014 they were independent oligarchs with their own interests and they had the illusion that they could do politics for their own interests. But in the last nine years these oligarchs have come completely under the control of American and British politics and financial companies.

[Igor] Kolomoyskiy is under arrest on corruption charges. I think this anti-corruption policy is also a tool of the Western governments that are trying to establish a new order in Ukraine, an economic order that serves only Western interests, economic interests and strategic interests in Ukraine. So they are using private institutions, for example the anti-corruption agency, as an additional institution to the official law of Ukraine. This is crazy.

America is very good at using progressive words and progressive thinking in these matters for its own interests and it is very, very sad for the Ukrainian people. I know them very well because I lived in Kiev in 1992 and after 1992 I traveled a lot to Kiev and other regions and I had contacts with Ukrainian patriots. My best friend was Ukrainian. He thought that Ukraine could only survive without Russian influence. In 1992 this was an interesting position for me. Now I cannot accept this position. We are not friends now because it is normal to have Russian influence in Ukraine. Russian culture in Ukraine is part of Ukraine and you cannot defeat it, you cannot eliminate it.

You are living in Moscow now. Can you tell us a little bit about how the war has affected the daily life in Moscow and Russia? The Russian economy has surprised a lot of people, especially in the West, but we know that there is also harsh criticism from some quarters inside the country against the economic management, especially the Central Bank. Do you have any idea where Russia is heading after the war?

Let’s talk about the current situation, because after the war, I have some ideas, but okay, let’s talk about today.

I see that there is inflation in Russia like in the West. I mean, it’s not that bad, but when I go to big markets, supermarkets, I see fewer people than before. I see that. I mean, according to official statistics, the number of Russian millionaires is increasing, but the number of people with less income is also increasing. So, the gap has gotten bigger.

But the government is trying to provide special support for the stabilization of families, children, especially those families that would normally exist, and they are succeeding. I don’t see any poverty on the streets in Moscow, I was in St. Petersburg and I didn’t see it there either. I don’t see people begging for money on every corner, for example, as I saw in the 90s.

The cities are not really dirty, they are clean. Some people, some Germans told me that Moscow is much cleaner than Berlin

Okay, we have a stable situation overall, I think. But underneath this stability there are some questions, some problems. For example, the owner of the best-known online startup Wildberries [Tatyana Bakalchuk] was the richest woman in Russia. She had a dispute with her husband.

I think there was a shootout in Moscow.

Yes, yes, they both owned this company. And I think this woman has 7 billion dollars. Many people remembered the situation in the 90s, already securities and gold got into some companies, they tried to get them by force. In the 90s we had this every week and people were dying. This conflict in Wildberries was also a sign for me, I hope it doesn’t happen more. These cases and some interesting discussions are going on.

I think nowadays some powerful people from the Russian church and some other people have started a debate on the theory of evolution. Do you have any information about this?

Yes. So, there are some reactionary tendencies that one has in this period. They are getting stronger and stronger. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t say that the Russian leadership has officially put direct pressure in this direction. For example, I know that Putin is not a friend of the demand to ban abortion. Does she want a baby or not? It’s the woman’s decision. I mean, there are strong sectors in the Orthodox Church and in society that want to ban abortion.

After the terrorist act in the Krokus building in Moscow, there was also some emotional debate. Like the death penalty, which we had during the Soviet era. Russia became part of the Council of Europe and declared a moratorium on the death penalty and capital punishment. This moratorium is still in place now, but there are some reactionary forces that are trying to implement it. This is very popular when you go out on the street. I mean, you hear even some Russians saying, yes, we have to fight against corruption in very strong ways. We shoot these people in the head and the problem is solved.

So, what you hear is real, especially in this heated situation, in this emotional situation with the war, a lot of people are in favor of this tough policy. This is a fact.

For example, some of the liberal voices that were very strong in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the last 30 years are not so loud anymore, the political debates are quieter now. For example, the Communist Party never demonstrated in Moscow after the corona, they were not allowed to do that because of the corona infection.

And the political life is now a bit, no no no, very quiet, because the war situation dominates everything. I mean, we are really feeling the war more and more because for example, I think ten days ago, in the town of Ramanskoye, southeast of Moscow, a Ukrainian drone destroyed part of a big house.

For example, in the center of Moscow, you cannot use a navigation device for the car because the navigation device shows you the wrong way because there is electronic jamming.

I have been in Donetsk many times, I have been in Luhansk until 2022. I saw people in wartime, they were going on with their lives, living as usual, because you have no other choice. You would see that nobody ran away. Now in Moscow you only see big posters inviting you to enlist to fight on the front. There are big posters with a few medals on the body, with soldiers who fought on the front and graduated.

War is the main theme in Russian media, in Russian television. It is completely typical media, typical television. No, there is some humor. A little bit. You have it too. It’s a mixture of everything. A little bit of humor and a little bit of war.

You mentioned that liberal voices are not very popular in Moscow and St. Petersburg these days, but there’s someone like [Central Bank Governor] Elvira Nabiullina, you know. And people like [Mikhail] Dalyagin are harshly critical of the financial circles around the Central Bank. And yet Vladimir Putin chose Nabiullina to serve the Central Bank. How is this possible even in a state of war? Because it seems that she also has a lot of connections with western institutions and she seems to be some kind of an agent of western financial powers in Russia. How is both possible?

I know that the Russian opposition or opposition thinkers have such a position. They criticize the financial block of the Russian government. Very, very harshly. I can’t say anything about these words that the Governor of the Central Bank of Russia [Elvira Nabiullina] is connected to western politics. I mean, this is a strong, very strong statement and there is no truth about it.

It’s impossible that now in Russia one person is running the central bank and working for western interests. There are such discussions, I can say for myself that I understand the criticism, people who criticize the central bank because interest rates are high and it is difficult for small businesses to get loans. It is very expensive to buy a house.

To create a more active economic and political environment, the state needs to invest more, put money into the economic process and people need to work and produce.

But for example, the Russian industry for the military is in a very, very good situation, very, very active and producing at a very high rate, but there are many problems with engineers. After the Soviet period many schools of technical education and engineering education were closed. Now Russia has to buy technological equipment from Turkey, China, other India.

This is a result of the completely neoliberal policies of the 90s and later. It was the main result of the economic process wherever the whole leadership of the state was oriented towards or supported the policy of selling oil and gas.

Now we see the results of that, that there are huge gaps in Russia’s economic structure.

There are different political wings in Russian society and in the Russian leadership. Maybe there is still liberal thinking in the economic sector of the government, but in the economy, too, state-oriented politics is getting stronger.

The fact that Putin has chosen a new defense minister who is stronger, tougher than [Sergei] Shoigu in this policy, for example.

Russia is forced to organize its domestic life very strongly in case of war. It is not possible to be anti-national policy in Russia. So maybe some other people in the Russian government will be replaced by stronger people.

Finally, let’s talk a little bit about Germany. On October 3rd, on the so-called German Unity Day, a group of pacifists will organize a rally calling for a diplomatic solution in Ukraine. Some people we spoke to in Germany last year said that they had never seen so much restriction of freedom of thought and expression in the country after the war in Ukraine. The Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 seem to have reinforced this pessimistic mood. Another issue is the undisputed victory of the “far-right” AfD, especially in East Germany. Where do you think Germany is heading?

I think Germany is now in a completely chaotic situation. Especially the Greens are a sign of that. The party that shouted the loudest for sending weapons to Ukraine, for changing the energy policy rapidly, for demanding that homeowners modernize their homes with special generators for heating, for banning heat pumps, and this party suffered a complete defeat in these elections.

Our Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz played a very strange role. He was not the loudest advocate of this very strange policy against Russia, this strange energy policy. He was not the loudest. It was the Greens who spoke the loudest and this Chancellor, who is not a good orator, has no charisma as a leader of a country. He is in a good position now because his party in Brandenburg has become the strongest party, but that was only because the old media, the German nationalists, opposed Alternative for Germany and people maybe voted for the social democrats because the whole media was full of controversy. The AfD was something like a new NSDAP, a new fascist party. I think the AfD is not a fascist party. There are some fascists in this party but it is not a fascist party. Mainly the people who vote for it are not fascists. I mean, maybe a small percentage, but not a big percentage.

I have a bad feeling about the migrant problem, because when a state is in an unstable situation and the government doesn’t really have a concrete plan on what to do, how to make life better for normal people, it comes back again.

Yes, we have problems with migrants and they come into our country without any control. They are linked to some aggressive acts against civilians in Germany. This has become the main topic of the last month. I think there are really problems and maybe it is really necessary to have a stronger control on immigration and immigration policy.

It is necessary, but it is used as a trick that people don’t talk about social problems and social policy and weapons for Ukraine. Migrants from other countries are used to distract attention from the mistakes of the government.

Sometimes I see the same thing in Russia. I mean, there are some migrants here too. There are many migrants from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. They are building houses, streets and a lot of things here. Without these migrants Russia would be in a bad situation. But there is no real integration of these migrants and from what I see it is not a very good situation.

All the Germans I have talked to about the situation in Germany are very sad. They are sad and they have no idea what to do.

For me this is the end of the liberals. For me this is the end of radical liberal politics, gender politics, economic politics.

Now we will see, I think Germany is following a stronger national oriented policy. Maybe the first signs of this stronger national oriented policy will be stronger against immigrants, more propaganda for the German army, more money for the German army.

Germans have always had a difficult connection with the army. It was hard for Germans to be proud of the army because after the second world war we had no pride. We don’t know what this national pride is. Other European countries have this pride and we don’t.

Now it’s very sad because I’m a German and I’m proud of our poetry, I’m proud of our technology, I’m proud of science, German science and music, but I’m not proud of our army because they are doing things that are not good.

But I think in times of crisis, always in history, you see some people who want social unrest in Germany trying to channel people’s emotions in a direction that suits them.

So our leadership does not want that. That’s why they make some emotional speeches against migrants. That’s why they make emotional speeches in favor of arming the Ukrainian people to protect free Europe from the dictator Putin.

For my part I would like to say that I have always been a supporter of the brotherhood of nations and normal civilized processes between nations. When I lived in Germany, for example, I worked with Turks in a factory and I felt that they helped me. They helped me when they saw that I was not fast enough to pick up the machine parts.

And now I am in a different situation. I live in Moscow and our situation has changed because we have a lot of immigrants from Tajikistan and I have good relations with them too. Now, I don’t feel any regulation from the state in Moscow on these issues.

I imagine in Germany in the 70s and 80s when there was formal integration. Okay, that was another time. At that time we really did not have enough labor force. I’m not sure that Germany needs millions of immigrants now. I don’t think so. On the other hand, I don’t want to support the nationalist propaganda of the AfD, which says that Germany’s main problem is migrants. That is completely wrong.

If we Germans and Russians cannot find a normal way, a civilized way in these situations… It is very important that the contact between nations and countries should be in a normal civilized dialogue, not in a dialogue about who is stronger and who is weaker.

On September 10 and 11, it took place in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, the 1st World Congress against Fascism, Neo Fascism and Similar Expressions. The country that suffered an attempted coup d’état during the days after the presidential elections were held, on July 28, experienced situations in those days that indicated the emergence of a type of fascism or neo-fascism that has raised alarm bells to such point that the government and the social bases have decided to organize and receive thousands social activists from all over the world to debate and above all to create an international defense front against fascism and its various manifestations.

In this context, we interviewed Claudio Katz, an Argentine economist and human rights activist. Author of numerous texts interpreting contemporary capitalism and the global economic crisis. Kats actively participates in continental forums challenging free trade, foreign debt and militarization. He received honorable mentions from the Libertador Prize for Critical Thought for his books The Future of Socialism (2004) and The Dilemmas of the Left in Latin America (2008).

Venezuelan Political Scientist Micaela Ovelar and Claudio Katz

How is Argentina facing the danger of fascism?

Well, in my case, I am part of the delegation that has come from Argentina to participate in this important Anti-Fascist Congress, and it is particularly shocking for those of us who came from Buenos Aires, because last week a congress of the far right was held in Argentina, in which Javier Milei was present, Santiago Abascal (Spain) was present, José Antonio Kast (Chile) was present, and all the leaders of the most right-wing current in Latin America were present.

And the impact is strong, because here in Venezuela we are in the antithesis of what I saw in the media in Buenos Aires last week. They have an agenda, and we have the opposite agenda, totally opposite. First of all, we have an anti-fascist agenda, and they have different types of approaches to fascism. Approaches in the sense of an acceptance of fascist processes in different countries, facilitating different types of violence, facilitating actions of terrorist groups.

For example, the attempted assassination of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, which was motivated by the hate speech and violence transmitted by the networks of these groups. The extreme right there in Buenos Aires was making an apology for Israel’s massacre in Gaza. The extreme right defends the barbarism that is being seen in Gaza at the moment, that indescribable scene of bombings, of murder of children, of destruction of hospitals.

And the extreme right claims all that. We here, in Venezuela, are denouncing the genocide against the Palestinian people, supporting the Palestinian people, carrying out a campaign similar to that carried out against apartheid in South Africa, supporting the great movement of indignation of the global intifada against the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. That is to say, no matter how you look at it, we have different agendas. They are with the militarization of Europe, they are for the continuity of the war in Ukraine. We seek to shore up forms of pacification, a form of mediation, a way to end this NATO presence, moving missiles throughout the old continent.

And they, the extreme right, have a program of reactionary authoritarianism. That is the modality in which they approach forms of dangerous neo-fascism, semi-fascism, proto-fascism. Trump, for example, intends to exercise total control of all powers, dissolve any autonomy of the Judicial Branch, the Legislative Branch, control the press, control the security services, the same program of violation of the Constitution that Milei has in Argentina.

In fact, they seek to change National Constitutions without making constitutional reforms. In fact, imposing a new authoritarian political regime and using the enormous power of social networks that have become how they develop their campaigns. Trump, Bolsonaro, Milei seeks to transform their economic power into political power, and with that power they want to sustain their hate speeches through social networks. They have exercised a totally uncontrolled level of verbal violence through network X.

And in this we are also on the opposite path. We want regulation of social networks and not turn that universe into an arena managed at the discretion of hegemonic powers. In that sense, we have achieved an important goal: the freedom of Julian Assange, someone who has effectively exercised freedom of the press. That is situated in our field, the field of democracy, the field of freedom.

How is fascism expressed in other parts of the world?

Well, Javier Milei, the Argentine president, explicitly says that social equality is an aberration. We think that social equality, social justice, is a right to achieve. Milei wants the rich not to be taxed. We want to reduce the inequality gap with taxes on large fortunes.

They want to return to the old reactionary nationalism and deify a glorious past of each of their countries. “Make America great,” says Trump; “Return to the Victorian era,” say the promoters of Brexit; “Rebuild Hispanic dominance in Latin America”, say the Spanish against the rights of the native peoples. They want to restore the “Day of the Race.” They essentially seek the subjugation of the people and seek oppression of the hardest hit sectors throughout the era of neoliberalism.
They told the poor workers: “You are to blame for what happens to you for not competing, for not working enough, for not being efficient”. “You are unemployed because you are not looking for a job.” Now, that neoliberal discourse has lost force. And now the new right, the extreme right, comes and says: “No, you are poor, because the fault lies with the one below you, not the one above you, it is not the one who exploits you, not the one who oppresses you, not the capitalist who is enriched by your effort and your work. It is the fault of the one below you.”

And who are the immigrants? the Mexicans, the Arabs, the Africans in Europe, the helpless in Latin America. Against them “punitivism”, “Hard hand” Bukele in El Salvador and Milei or Bullrich in Argentina.

Can you tell us what you see in Venezuela that is a threat to the United States?

What I have seen in Venezuela is a spirit of resistance, the decision to resist, the decision to stand firm in the face of imperial subjugation. In Venezuela, oil is at stake. That’s the main thing. What imperialism wants is oil. To them, whether there are electoral minutes or if there are not minutes at all, that type of thing, it matters very little to them.

They want to do in Venezuela what they did in Iraq, what they did in Libya, demolish governments with which they have tensions and devastate a country. What for? To appropriate the oil. That’s what Trump said with all the letters, with sincerity Trump said: “We should have become owners of Venezuelan oil.” That’s what they want.

So, there is a permanent double standard of the media. They say that Venezuela is the only country where there are problems in the electoral systems. But where are Bukele’s minutes? He says he won by 70%. What is the verification? In the United States there is an electoral college that does not necessarily grant victory to the candidate who has obtained many votes. And did anyone consider that democracy is violated there? in a country where you have to raise funds to be a candidate. That’s called plutocracy. Only those who have money can be a candidate, if you don’t have money, nothing, not a word in the media.

In France, Macron lost the parliamentary elections. He has to cohabitate with whoever wins the elections and he did not respect that popular will. In Spain there is a monarchy. And is that monarchy going to teach us Latin American countries lessons about democracy and republic? The constituency voting system in Great Britain, in France, distorts the proportionality of the votes. Any questions? Nothing.

Then you must go to the background of the problems. Imperialism wants to subjugate Venezuela, it wants to subdue Latin America to develop a dispute with China, regaining full control of its so-called “backyard”. And well, here there is resistance, here there is fight, here there is battle.

It is the same battle that took place in Bolivia and the right was defeated, the one that led to the defeat of Bolsonaro’s coup, the one that prevented Le Pen’s victory in France. Well, and that’s the way to go. And that is why it is a pleasure to be here in Venezuela, in this Congress, which I am sure will mark a before and after.

What did you think of this First World Meeting against fascism?

It is a beginning of a greater articulation of the popular movements of our region to stop the right-wing wave, to stop the fascist wave and to fight for our ideal, for the ideal of many of us who are here. Because the ideal of the right, the agenda of the right, is capitalism. And that is why they speak so badly about socialism. And well, they weren’t wrong about that. Their enemy is socialism, because socialism is the project of equality, the project of democracy, the project of justice.

And I would tell you more: our socialist project is infinitely less utopian than the idealization of the market and the imaginary of capitalist prosperity that Milei, Trump, Le Pen, Meloni and all the extreme right in the world have. United we will win!

Dr. Matti Pesu, former researcher of Finland Defense Ministry answered our questions: “The risk of escalation into a full-scale war between NATO and Russia remains low.”

Matti Pesu is a Senior Research Fellow in the Finnish foreign policy, Northern European security, and NATO research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). From May 2022 to April 2023, he led a research project analyzing Finland’s nascent NATO policy and the country’s evolving role in Euro-Atlantic security.

He has published extensively on Finnish foreign, security, and defence policy, defence cooperation, Baltic Sea security, and Euro-Atlantic security.

Dr. Matti Pesu answered journalist Dr. Esra Karahindiba’s questions on Russia-Ukraine war and the position of the Baltic states.

Strengthening NATO’s eastern flank has become a key agenda item for the Alliance, especially after Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. Finally, the US decision to deploy hypersonic missiles in Germany on a long-term basis has provoked retaliation from Moscow. What do you think about the latest risks of escalation?

The risk of escalation into a full-scale war between NATO and Russia remains low, as neither party desires military conflict. The US decision to deploy a new weapon system is a measured response to Russia’s previous deployment of medium-range missiles in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, bolstering deterrence and reassuring allies about the U.S. commitment to their security.   

As is well known, the danger for NATO is that the destabilisation of the Suwalki corridor could cut off all theBaltic states from Poland, which is NATO’s only route toLithuania, Latvia and Estonia. What is your comment on the allegations that Moscow will invade Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Poland from Ukraine? Indeed, no serious comments about it from Putin or his cabinet.

Russia has in fact avoided actions that would significantly increase the risk of a direct military conflict with NATO. However, should Ukraine collapse, it could serve as a potential springboard for Russian aggression against neighboring NATO allies. This scenario would deteriorate regional security, which is one of the reasons why the Baltic states and Poland are such strong supporters of Ukraine.

In recent months, Russia has stepped up military cooperation with Belarus and started joint nuclear exercises. How realistic are the risks of a “nuclear war” in this context?

The risk of nuclear war remains very low. However, Russia’s nuclear cooperation with Belarus is part of its strategy to intimidate and dissuade Ukraine’s Western supporters from providing more robust military assistance.

Finland has given up its long term non-aligned position by joining NATO. Do you think this will deter Russia from any actions against Finland given the fact that experts discuss NATO will not sacrifice the rest of Western Europe for small Baltic countries?

Throughout the history of NATO, experts and policymakers have debated the reliability of US and allied security guarantees, which is an inherent aspect of “extended deterrence.” Despite these discussions, the US and otherNATO allies are consistently demonstrating their commitment to collective defense. They regularly conduct exercises in Finland, develop executable operational plans to defend the country, and signal their willingness to pre-position military equipment on Finnish soil. These actions strongly indicate the allies‘ dedication to mutual defense.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has accused the Baltic countries of launching a “campaign of lies” against Hungary. He emphasized that the decision regarding security checks does not compromise Hungary’s stringent security measures. To address these allegations, State Secretary for Security Policy Péter Sztáray provided firsthand information to the embassies of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, saying “hoping to end the misinformation campaign“. What does Finland think about Hungary’s position? How is the relations after Hungary’s approval of NATO bid of Finlands membership developing recently?

The relationship between Hungary and the majority of its EU and NATO partners has recently hit rock bottom. Also Finnish politicians have been highly critical of Hungary’s recent actions, including Prime Minister Orban’s trip to Moscow and the decision to grant visas to Russians. Hungary’s obstructionist stance on Finland’s and particularly Sweden’sNATO membership has outraged many Finns. It is difficult to see what Hungary gained from its actions apart from a tarnished reputation.

What is your response to the discussions assuming that to stay in dialogue with Russia is a safer way than making it an enemy?

From the end of the Second World War until Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, maintaining dialogue with Moscow was a fundamental aspect of Finnish foreign policy. The intensity of this dialogue varied over time. However, due to recent Russian aggression, there is now little to discuss, as Finnish and broader Western views on the war in Ukraine and European security diverge significantly withMoscow’s position. This situation is a direct consequence of Russia’s own counterproductive actions. For a frontline nation like Finland, it is a matter of existential interest that Russia’s aggression fails and that the West remains united in condemning such actions.

After Finland’s participation to NATO mainly with the support from Türkiye, what has changed in Helsinki-Ankara relations up to now?

The intensity of Finnish-Turkish diplomacy increased significantly during Finland’s NATO membership process, leading to the formation of working groups on issues such as terrorism. However, to my knowledge, these working groups have not been very active and have not attracted significant public attention recently. Unsurprisingly, the intensity of the bilateral relationship has decreased. There is a prevailing sentiment in Finland that Türkiye’s instrumentalization of Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership processes for its own purposes jeopardized the national security of both countries. That said, it is also recognized that Finland andTürkiye – both having significant land forces – may share considerable interests within the alliance.  

What are Finland’s main foreign policy and security agenda now?

The current agenda focuses on establishing Finland within NATO and ensuring its integration into NATO’s planning, command structure, and force structure. Helsinki is also intensifying its relationships with key allies such as the US, UK, Norway, and Sweden. Additionally, supporting Ukraine remains a high priority.