Plaid Cymru leader and Welsh Government minister visit Ukraine to show solidarity ‘in defiance of Putin’s warmongering’
The Leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price, is today embarking on a four-day visit to Ukraine, alongside Wales’ Counsel General Mick Antoniw.
Adam Price said that he was visiting “in a show of solidarity” with workers and minorities and “in defiance of Putin’s warmongering”.
Senedd Member Mick Antoniw, whose family is from Ukraine, said that he was visiting to show “solidarity with the Ukrainian people against Putin’s imperialism”.
They will form part of an anti-war delegation including trade union and cross-party representatives. During his stay Adam Price will meet Ukrainian workers, LGBTQ+ people, ethnic minorities, and human rights defenders, Plaid Cymru said.
The Plaid Cymru leader said that the visit would also reflect the historic ties between Wales and Ukraine going back to the foundation of Donetsk by Welsh migrants in the 19th century and the presence of Ukrainian diaspora in today’s former mining communities.
Adam Price said: “The more the Ukrainian people are threatened by Russian aggression and imperialism the more urgent it becomes for socialists, democrats and internationalist to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them – in defence of their right to national self-determination and in defiance of Putin’s warmongering. вони не пройдуть! “
Mr Price said that he and others would report back to grassroots organisations at home, countering the disinformation campaign being waged by the Kremlin.
Arrived I Kyiv. Peaceful, calm and normal with @Adamprice ready to meet trade unions and civic society. Solidarity with Ukrainian people against Putins imperialism . #standwithukraine pic.twitter.com/tqKfhKfi4y
— Mick Antoniw MS/AS 💙 (@MickAntoniw1) February 19, 2022
This week Mick Antoniw wrote that the conflict in Ukraine was the fault of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, rather than NATO’s expansion west.
“No one in Wales should be under any illusion that this conflict is a direct result of Putin’s commitment to recreating a greater Russian empire,” he wrote in the Western Mail.
“He sees Ukraine and Belarus as one people with Russia. He has made it clear that he does not recognise Ukraine as a sovereign nation.
‘Unimaginable’
Security officials have warned that Russia has forces in place to invade Ukraine at any moment. They say that Moscow could be seeking to create an excuse to invade with a so-called false flag operation.
Despite amassing its troops on the border Moscow has insisted that it has no aggressive intentions towards Ukraine and has claimed that other nations are attempting to stoke up tensions.
Today Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy met US vice-president Kamala Harris, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a Munich security conference.
He said: “The security architecture of our world is brittle, obsolete and the rules that were agreed dozens of years ago are no longer working. The security system is slow and failing us time and time again.”
German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, chaired a meeting of G7 foreign ministers which issued a statement of solidarity with Ukraine.
Annalena Baerbock said: “We are facing the unimaginable concrete threat of a military conflict at the heart of Europe,” adding the world knows Russia must be made responsible for the steps that were unseen since the cold war.”
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Having lived in Ukraine for 6 years, you are doing the right thing, solidarity, diolch
A secure and confident outward looking nation is what Wales has become. 🏴 …
The Ukrainian people are welcoming all sorts of support even from the Germans with whom they have always had to contend.
It will however be the Zurich Swiss bankers to support them in locking Russia out of the European financial financial systems.
I just hope they have learnt their lesson of backing foreign dictators in the WW2 period ..
Er Stalin’s Russia backed hitler and the nazis for a couple of years, perhaps youve forgotten about the hitler – stalin pact?
I just recall sharing with my history A level students the millions of deaths through deliberate starvation by Russia of the Ukraine nation and the destruction the Germans undertook there.
Such a brave people and yet every year at the Llangollen Eisteddfod we here their great singing and share their generosity of spirit.
“Stalin” was Georgian. Very complicated issues in Ukraine, Galicians to the West, Russians peppered all over, though more to the East.
Hungarian and Polish elements, Tatars, the notorious Azov battalion?
Copy the Founding Fathers of the USA: No foreign entanglements!
Yes your right of course – but we are where we are now and the historical ‘ mistakes ‘
( not a good word ‘ ) in the western areas of ukraine by some of those tempted by fascist promises also worked to some degree in other european nations – some very close to home !!
Stupid idea.
A bit rich coming from a nobody like you!! 😂😂
Look at Richards comment above and take it in not your stupid one
I see the FSB trolls are back ….?
Why is Adam Price getting involved in this warmongering? Just like Bojo!? Does he support the expansion of Nato? Does he support the Ukraine joining Nato? Does he think “we” should take Crima back too, while he’s at it?!?
No he’s just defending a democratic nation’s sovereignty against a racist homophobic authoritarian kleptocracy which funds far right groups across europe
You cannot blame the ERG for everything!
Well put
Well said Dai, people seem to forget that George Bush Senior gave assurances to Russia in 1991 that NATO would not expand beyond Eastern Germany.Why all of a Sudden are Welsh Nationalists supporting NATO expansionism, just look at the example of our near neighbors Eire who have the good sense to stay out of NATO.Already NATO forces are on Russia’s Border in the Baltic’s.Imagine the outcry if it was the other way around and Russia had troops stationed the other side of The US border in Canada and Mexico.
‘Bush made his feelings about compromising with Moscow clear to Kohl: “To hell with that!” he said “We prevailed, they didn’t. We can’t let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat.” Foreign Affairs. Sept 2014 A Broken Promise.
Or Cuba ?
In the 1990s when Boris Yeltsin was in power, Russia did have a long term goal to become a member of NATO. Putin abandoned this idea in the mid 2000s. This sounds to me like ‘I don’t want to join this club, so you can’t join’. Whilst Russia’s mistrust of NATO is understandable for historical reasons, they should also should consider as to why its neighbours don’t trust them. If Mexico or Cuba wanted to form an alliance with Russia or China because they felt threatened by the US under a Trump Presidency then I would support their right to… Read more »
When Boris Yeltsin was president, Russia actually applied to join NATO but the USA blocked them. When Putin became president, Russia applied again under his presidency, the USA still refused and blocked the application. Well, you can draw your own conclusions, but we in Europe need a new pan-European security and defence alliance which will aim for peace and democracy in the whole of Europe including the Ukraine and Russia. NATO is a relic of the 2nd world war allied powers and is no longer relevant for our needs today. The USA has its own interests and are not Europeans… Read more »
Adam Price isnt supporting ‘nato expansionism’…he’s defending international law. Nations cant go around invading other countries, removing their democratically elected govts and installing govt’s more accommodating to their own views – which is what putin is seemingly intent on doing in ukraine. Whether or not ukraine joins Nato isnt for Vladimir Putin to decide – or boris johnson or joe biden or anyone else. It’s a matter for the people of ukraine to decide through their democratically elected govt
This whole thing stinks, the west have been pushing for this, what exactly has Russia done wrong? Moved its military within its own borders, false flag attacks as we’re assured by the proven liar Johnson. Not saying Russia won’t kick off, but this is the same warmongering bs that we had in the run upto Afghanistan, how much debt has been forced onto the Ukrainian government already by the west’s military industrial complex, how many tons of “defensive” weapons have been dumped in Ukraine. According to the USA Russia was supposed to start the war at 3am last Tuesday, for… Read more »
What has Russia done wrong? How about annexing Crimea.
Think Putin is a proven liar. Worse than that he imprisons and murders his political critics at home and abroad.
Im not too much of an AP fan but im
sure i know who is funding Boris & Liz T plus the x captain defence ministers trips !
Liz needs to brush up on her geography!
Not just her geography 😅
Noted!
I think most of you are missing the point.
We as Cymru can understand what it’s like to be the neighbour of a large warlike nation who believe that they own you and they have the right to subject you to their will, claiming you belong to them. Adam is there to show the support of all small oppressed nations. More power to him.
Putin quaking in his boots yet??
The views of a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/02/cry-havoc-and-let-slip-the-dogs-of-war/
The Vinyard of The Saker is also an informed source of news unlike the biased garbage from the MSM.
The autobiography of Craig Murray a supporter of Scottish Independence .https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/about-craig-murray/
Pity, we don’t have anyone like Craig Murray who supports Welsh Independence.
Murray has spent the last few years attacking Nicola Sturgeon and spreading lies about the SNP govt ☹️.
Unfortunately Murray’s credibility has been damaged somewhat in recent years by dint of his repeated attacks on nicola sturgeon and his attempts to smear the SNP Govt. He’s also a staunch supporter of that pal of Trump and Farage – julian assange!
I would rather hear the story of how things are on the ground from Mick Antoniw on his return rather than have to listen to Fat Shanks outline his account of how he won the peace against all the odds…while talking up Putin’s game…and playing the war legacy card for his own selfish reasons with our troops and military assets. The rest of humanity are just pawns in his game…we know that casualties in the thousands would mean nothing to him…
If Alan and Mick were a pair of photo journalist it would be all in a day’s work…
Adam Price and Mick Antoniw are right to defend a democratic nation’s sovereignty against a racist homophobic authoritarian kleptocracy which imprisons and murders its political opponents at home and abroad and which funds far right groups across europe. Also worth remembering that Ukraine voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons a few years ago in what at the time was a significant victory for the cause of international nuclear disarmament. What sort of signal would it send out to other nation’s we want to give up nuclear weapons, or abandon nuclear weapons programmes, if Ukraine is now invaded and occupied by… Read more »
“Nato’s expansion West” lol!
Well Putin is no angel but it’s a bit more complicated than Ukrainians good-Russians bad. The Ukrainian government was installed by a coup. Following that coup trades unionists were corralled in their burning hq by police to burn to death. Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera has been celebrated as a hero. Openly right wing Azov battalions operate within the Ukrainian military. This has all been supported by the EU and US. Ukraine is rich in industrial and agricultural resources and western imperialism wants them. That’s how we should view this, a struggle between imperialist powers with one side presenting it as… Read more »
Price ill advised to stick his nose into Ukraine. He could easily make a point without travelling into the country. NATO are backing a hotch potch of good and bad in that country and the bad are seriously bad. Members of his own party should take a long hard look at this and rein him in. Plenty of work here for him to get stuck into.
That doesn’t justify invading or annexing a part of a sovereign country. There are far more extreme elements in Russia both on the extreme right and left. Many are nostalgic for the Soviet Union, see Stalin as a hero, and want a return to Communism. An ideology that has killed more people than the Nazis.
“Putin is no angel”…….thats one way of describing the murderous mafia like regime he operates in russia. A regime which has plundered russia’s vast natural resources for the benefit of putin and the ruling clique and any russians who challenge this theft of their nation’s resources are silenced – either through imprisonment or worse. The present presidential incumbent in Ukraine was elected in 2019 in elections declared ‘free and fair’ by outside international monitors. Ukraine is not a ‘imperialist power” (nor is the eu incidentally) and it has the same right to defend its borders that every other nation in… Read more »
Will they be offering to send in the military wing of Merched y Wawr if things get lairy?
Nothing but an exercise in self-importance.
One can see how “foreign entanglement” can get us easily divided? We should stick to trying for our own liberation, after which we should be neutral and support European Security Structures, as we now enter the “Multi Polar” world initiated by the East.
When we talk of “The World”, we forget that there is actually a “World” and not simply a Euro – US structure?
When M-y-W have nullified Putin’s armed forces we could follow up with paramilitary action from the Welsh Baptists! Go Adamski Priceovitch…. Sort them out!
Our biggest problem is the fool in Downing Street. Have you noticed how France and Germany are speaking for Europe? ” isolationist UK and its self centered “leader” are bit actors. while sensible western leaders look for solutions Johnson sounds like a very poor imitation of Churchill. He’s even b*gg*r*”d up the shellfish industry and like fools we’ve put him in charge of our nukes.