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Christopher Owens 🎵 Being an Irish based band can be a thankless task.


Despite an endless pool of talent and outlets covering such talent, there are limited opportunities here. While the advent of the internet has helped tremendously, bands still need to get in front of an audience to build support. This means having to get the ferry constantly to tour England, Scotland and Wales if you want to get to a certain level of notoriety. Even the most remarkable of acts have fallen foul of being constrained in this country’s limited gig circuit.

The Sons of Robert Mitchum were one such band.

♫♫♫♫


Beginning around 2009, the Sons were the brainchild of Morgan Moore (born and raised in South Africa but whose parents were originally from NI), Jack Forgie (ex-Ruefrex) and drummer Marcin Sobzcak. Although trumpet player Thomas Behringer was a quick addition to the ranks, they went through a few bassists before landing on Andrew Thompson.

Being gentleman of a certain vintage and with an internationalist membership, they were destined to stand out in the NI music scene. It did help that their music was unlike anything else was producing at the time and that it stands tall well over a decade later.





‘Build My Gallows High’ is a remarkable opener. Sobzcak’s china cymbals set a foreboding mood and Moore’s refrain of “build my gallows high/don’t leave me hanging” manages to be both amusing and troublesome. When the whole band kicks in, the overall effect is a cross between Morricone style spaghetti western music and Scott Walker defiant lament. It’s especially notable for just how much a spectacle is being made of the narrator’s plight whose only act of defiance in this zoo is to yell.

I’ve said in the past that ‘Soviet Hotel Dressing Gown’ is the finest song to have emerged from Ireland in the last 20 years and I stand by that claim 100%. A slow burning atmospheric number that sounds like Mark Lanegan if he had been in Weimar Germany, it paints a mysterious portrait of a woman who doesn’t like questions but loves Leonard Cohen. Magical.

‘A Song for Ella’ could very well be about the same woman as the narrator is struck by her beauty and her world, but this time the music is much more spacey and wistful, hinting at intense longing that is ultimately doomed. While lacking the coolness of ‘Soviet Hotel…’ and the darkness of ‘Build My Gallows High’, the song adds a romantic mood to the record and shows that there is a beating heart behind the cynical mouth.


We’re back in familiar terrain with ‘Down by Law’ which recounts how a night on the lash ended up with six months in the cell. Behringer’s trumpet work really gives this song a dirty, jazzy edge a la Gallon Drunk that makes it seem the song is set in some illicit New Orleans prison cell. Worth it for the line “I’ve got the voice of Morgan Freeman narrating every move.”

‘David Contemplated’ is glorious. Narrating the story of a serial killer, the song is a perfect mesh of post-punk, jazz and beatnik sensibility. Tom Waits could sing this, and no-one would think it was a cover. Moore’s delivery of the lines “She took a ride with the killer inside/No longer will the cagebird sing” thrills even the most apathetic of listeners.

The heaviest song on here (musically and thematically), ‘Darwin’s Nightmare’ is a menacing number about an army invading a town and committing war crimes akin to My Lai. This is where Forgie shines as his guitar lines rumble along (akin to an incoming tank) and the main riff feels like bombs going off. The power and righteous anger on display here is second to none.

Closing the record is the instrumental ’28 Amelie’s Later’ (a neat mesh of 28 Days Later and Amelie). Originally composed for a student short film, it’s akin to The Stranglers ‘Golden Brown’ if it was set in post-apocalyptic Paris. Rich in pathos, atmosphere and a little bit romantic at the same time. It’s an odd finish but one that works surprisingly well.

♫♫♫♫


Although released in 2015, the album is a combination of two previously released EPs from 2010 and 2011. Amazing to think that the record flows so well, but there was a reason for such a move.

Despite building up a substantial name for themselves in Ireland and even touring Poland (leading to them being featured on Polish TV), they suffered a blow when Forgie quit in 2013 (not long after a Record Store Day set I saw them play in Dragon Records) and while they carried on with James Reid, it was never the same. Reid is a brilliant guitar player, but he was more of a Clapton/Beck style guitarist (which never suited the Sons at all). He left and the band went quiet.

There is another album of recorded material that has yet to be released (as I have heard a few numbers from them) but with the band’s last gig being 2019, it seems the chances of seeing them released (as well as new gigs) are slim.

A crying shame as this music stands up. Often, unsigned local music ends up being reduced to an anecdote as part of beer-soaked memories of misspent youth. But the Sons music can’t, as they stood apart from the scene, created their own thing and we are much richer for that.

Pay homage to the masters.


⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.

From The Vaults 🎶 The Sons Of Robert Mitchum ‘Soviet Hotel Dressing Gown’

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Fifty Five

 

A Morning Thought @ 2928

 

A Morning Thought @ 2927

Azar Majedi ✊The Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to a Venezuelan fascist who has called on the US and Israel to attack her country.



She is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian genocide and has announced that she will move the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem when she comes to power. While the media was busy speculating about Trump winning the prize, the prize was awarded to his political ally in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado. And she presented the prize to Trump. The Nobel Committee indirectly awarded the prize to Trump.

While the US amasses firepower near the coast of Venezuela, attacking boats and intending to occupy the country, the French military has also joined the US under the pretext of combating "narco-terrorism" and there is talk of other European countries joining in. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to this woman who calls for regime change. This prize is a declaration of the Nobel Committee's support for the US attack on Venezuela. This is a prize for war and occupation, not peace. 

Machado was awarded the prize:

for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.

This is a seal of approval for the regime change and the “Iraqisation” of Venezuela. War criminals being awarded by the Nobel Committee is nothing new. So far, three Israeli prime ministers, perpetrators of genocide and cleansing of Palestinians and rulers of a religious apartheid system have received the Nobel Prize: Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres. Henry Kissinger, responsible for the killing of millions in Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and the organiser of the coups in Colombia in 1971, Chile in 1973 and Argentina, de Klerk the president of apartheid South Africa, Al Gore, Clinton's vice president, responsible for the killing of 1 million Iraqis, the bombing of the former Yugoslavia and the war in Somalia, and Barack Obama, responsible for the killing of millions and the displacement of millions more in the Middle East and the destruction of Libya and Syria, have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Western imperialism had succeeded in portraying itself as the champion of democracy, freedom, human rights and international law to a significant part of the world. And Noble peace committee has been an instrument to push this narrative. The role of this committee has been to buy prestige and credibility for Western war criminals and launch subsequent criminals and pawns of regime change. The Nobel Peace prize is an important ideological instrument. Last year, the US organised a regime change exploiting the youth uprising in Bangladesh, and 2006 Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was appointed as the head of state. The Nobel Committee is also active in the regime change project in Iran.

It is shameful that after two years of Israeli genocide in Palestine, when millions of people around the world have taken to the streets to shout their disgust with Israel and their solidarity with Palestine, the Nobel Prize is being awarded to a supporter and ally of Israel and genocide. This act demonstrates the futility of all the gestures of recognition of Palestine by some Western governments.

However, the Noble committee shot itself in the foot. In the current international situation, the Nobel Committee has lost even the last shred of dignity. The eyes of even the most delusional believers in "Western civilisation", democracy, human rights, international law and the United Nations have been opened. All masks have been torn off. The lies and hypocrisy of the "rule-based world" (the name they have given themselves) have been exposed.
 
We are witnessing the complete death of democracy and human rights in the West. The United Nations has lost all credibility. Fascism is rapidly rising in the West. Civil rights and freedom of speech in America, the "cradle of democracy", have been shattered, similar to countries under dictatorship. Racism is rampant in the West. Arrests of even the elderly, disabled and children during peaceful demonstrations have become an everyday occurrence. Police brutality has grown exponentially. The award to a fascist for defending democracy is a historical joke and the final nail in the coffin of the Nobel Peace Committee.

⏩Asar Majedi is a Member of Hekmatist Party leadership & Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation.

The Nobel Committee Shot Itself In The Foot! 🪶 Green Light For The Occupation Of Venezuela

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Fifty Four

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ United States President, Donald Trump, is hailed as some-kind of super hero in the Middle East due to what is termed his peace plan which he says will “end the war” between Israel and Hamas. 

Before he left for the region he warned Russian President, Vladimir Putin, that he will now seriously consider supplying Ukraine with long range Tomahawk Cruise Missiles capable of hitting targets more than 1,600 Kilometres away if Putin does not “stop the war soon”. Mr Putin responded that such actions would be seen by Russia as an escalation of the war with “direct US involvement” and the Russian leader expressed the possibility of a nuclear response to such a move. 

There is no doubt about it if Ukraine had access to Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, they would be a game changer and with Russian ground forces struggling as it is such weapons could even be a match winner. Moscow have already stated the use of nuclear weapons in such an even is a “strong possibility”. The questions are, should the US supply Ukraine with these deadly missiles, and what does Putin mean by ‘nuclear retaliation’? Does he mean he will bomb the US? Does he intend to possibly Nuke Ukraine only? If he did go for the latter what would the response of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) be? Ukraine is not a NATO member so therefore is not entitled to the protection of article five of the organisation’s constitution. However if Moscow bomb New-York then the USA are entitled to use said article five as they are the leading NATO member state. All getting potentially very nasty indeed.

If Putin nukes Kyiv would the US supply Ukraine with nuclear warheads to fit to the Tomahawk Missiles? That would certainly prompt Putin to launch an attack using his huge nuclear arsenal on Washington DC and other major US cities. Russia possess the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons of any single country, at 5,580 weapons, and if China were to enter the conflict their 600 missiles would take the number to over 6,000 missiles and countless warheads. Enter Britain and France, the other two nuclear armed countries in the NATO bloc, who would even the balance by adding their albeit smaller stockpile to those available to the USA. This is assuming NATO do not enter the conflict directly! Could Putin be banking on attacking Ukraine with ‘limited nuclear missiles’ therefore not giving NATO any excuse to implement article five? If this is the case and though, technically, he may be right in this assumption it is a very dangerous game to be playing. Ukraine borders Poland who are NATO members and one over flight, no matter how small, could trigger a full NATO response with devastating consequences for all of us.

One of President Putin’s main objectives, so he claimed, in invading Ukraine was to ensure that country would never become a NATO member. I can see his rationale in this because at the moment the response time Moscow have for an attack by the West is five minutes, and vice versa. If Ukraine were to become members of the Organisation that time would be reduced to two minutes which is nowhere near long enough for Russia to respond! Therefore the balance of power would sweep dramatically in favour of the West and against Russia. However, this rationale for invasion has been diluted somewhat by Trump's claim, when asked, that “Ukraine would never be allowed into NATO” - statements which some leading British politicians have endorsed, not least Michael Gove when the Conservative and Unionist party were in government. Perhaps Putin should use these guarantees as a pretext for ending the conflict. perhaps keeping the Crimea and captured Russian speaking Eastern Ukrainian provinces where, according to Moscow, the peoples there wish to be governed by Moscow and not Kyiv. Could this be a way out thus averting possible nuclear war? For this to happen Putin should demand the assurance in writing having it enshrined in so-called ‘international law’ and an element of trust must be involved by all concerned. What could the Ukraine get out of this? Well, not NATO membership but perhaps added assurances of Western assistance in defence, not offence, and a guarantee of European Union membership, could this be a way out?

Should all this fail and the worst possible scenario erupt, nuclear war, it could spread easily. India are a small but significant nuclear power and friendly towards Moscow. Pakistan, India's neighbour, are also a nuclear power and more inclined against Moscow, and the pair of them have been at loggerheads for years. Could these two get involved in such a conflagration of nuclear destruction? The possibilities are endless and the sooner we have a world free of nuclear terror the better, the problem here being, the ‘wheel cannot be dis-invented’! Plus what of the majority of countries which are not nuclear powers, including the majority of NATO countries? In a war between Russia and her allies and NATO all countries, nuclear or not, would be fair game for Moscow which is frightening to say the least. Where would such a conflict leave neutral Ireland? Well, though not a target and not being a NATO member we sound safe enough. This is, in fact, not the case because we would be destroyed by nuclear radiation fallout after Moscow bomb Britian, and that is assuming they would not attack the Six-Counties?

The best way to avoid this nightmare scenario is for Trump not to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk Missiles, as Russia do not possess an equivalent system, leaving Putin with little option. Putin should start listening to guarantees Ukraine will never be accepted as a NATO member and, subject to written assurances, perhaps begin a withdrawal. Ukraine may well have to give up Russian speaking territories including the Crimea, all once part of Russia, and settle for Western guarantees of military protection in the event of further Russian aggression. 

Trump may well have scored a limited success in the Middle East, though he has not ‘ended the war’ but in the Russian Ukraine conflict much still needs to be done. Supplying Zelensky with Tomahawk Missiles is not a good start from a man who said, remember, he would have the war stopped within “twenty-four hours”. On this one he has definitely failed but surely now it is time for all concerned to sit down and talk before nuclear annihilation of planet earth becomes a reality?
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Tomahawks Or Nukes?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Fifty Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 2926

 

A Morning Thought @ 2925

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig ★ The Catherine versus Heather Presidential battle is not really about either women. 

It is not even about what they did or did not do in the past or, indeed, in the future. But the ongoing smear campaign against candidate Catherine Connolly doesn't really care about that. All those behind it want to do is protect the status quo. And the status quo is the support for war, the support of ending Ireland's Neutrality and the support for capitalism and imperialism; especially of the Yankee sort. 

And most of all to ensure the sleeveen support for the Zionist genocide in Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine. That Catherine Connolly would dare to support the retention and strengthening of our Neutrality is seen as a threat and anathema to the ruling class i mBaile Átha Cliath.

That Catherine would have the temerity to speak about National Liberation is considered abominable by the same ruling class. But the darling of the Pale, Heather, is feted at every opportunity. Not for her to support National Liberation, or a condemnation of the attack on whatever neutrality and sovereignty we have left. No chance that she will condemn the Zionists or the Yanks or the EU/NATO/PESCO war mongers. She is the epitome of the establishment candidate. And therein lies the truth. 

The smear campaign against Catherine Connolly is about protecting the capitalist status quo and and all that, that entails. Once you ask for peace, sovereignty or even human justice, you are then a target for attack by those in power who fear Catherine's calls for a new dispensation in Éireann. Maybe Catherine will be the Impetus for the beginning of the building for a sovereign, peaceful and liberated Ireland; a 32 county Socialist Republic. Beir Bua.

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig 
is an independent councillor on Donegal County Council.

 

Smearing

Guardian ★ written by Pjotr Sauer. Recommended by Jim Monaghan.

2-October-2022

Vladimir Putin has vowed to quickly retaliate against Europe’s “escalating militarisation”, while dismissing as “nonsense” western fears that Moscow plans to attack Nato.

During a wide-ranging speech in Sochi on Thursday, the Russian president said: “We are closely monitoring the escalating militarisation of Europe … We simply cannot ignore what is happening. We have no right to do so for reasons of our own security.”

“I think no one doubts that Russia’s countermeasures will not be long in coming,” he added, speaking at the Valdai plenary session, an annual gathering of officials and foreign policy experts where Putin often sets out his views on global affairs.

His remarks came as 45 European leaders gathered in Copenhagen for a summit aimed at bolstering support for Ukraine and accelerating defence projects intended to ensure the continent is capable of deterring Russian aggression. The meeting followed turbulent weeks in which several European countries reported Russian drone and jet incursions, raising fears that Moscow was testing Nato’s resolve.

While threatening Europe, the Russian president struck a conciliatory note towards Donald Trump, despite the US leader’s recent disparaging remarks about him.

Continue @ Guardian.

Putin Dismisses Fears That Moscow Plans To Attack Nato As ‘Nonsense’

People And Nature 🔖 Voices Against Putin’s War: protesters’ defiant speeches in Russian courts is published this month by Resistance Books. Here is the Introduction to the book, by Simon Pirani, first published on line by the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine.

At the heart of Voices Against Putin’s War are ten speeches made in court by people who opposed Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and were arrested and tried for doing so. Most of them are now serving long jail sentences, for “crimes” fabricated by Vladimir Putin’s repressive machine.


Along with the speeches, we include: other public declarations – social media posts, letters and interviews – in which the protagonists made their case; statements by two more persecuted activists, made outside court; and a summary of 17 other anti-war speeches in court. We hope that, by publishing these translations in English, these resisters’ motivations will become known to a wider audience.

Chapters 1-10 are each devoted to one protester, arranged chronologically by the date of the protester’s first conviction. United in their opposition to the Kremlin’s war, they divide roughly into four groups.

First is Bohdan Ziza (chapter 3), who lived not in Russia but in Ukraine – in Crimea, which has been occupied by Russian forces since 2014. In 2022 Ziza filmed himself splashing paint in the colours of the Ukrainian flag on to a municipal administration building. He was tried in a Russian military court and is serving a 15-year sentence.

Second are two young women from St Petersburg, Sasha Skochilenko (chapter 6) and Darya Kozyreva (chapter 8), prosecuted for the most peaceful imaginable protests against the war. Skochilenko, who posted anti-war messages on labels in a supermarket, was freed after more than two years behind bars, in August 2024, as part of a prisoner swap between Russia, Belarus and several Western countries. Kozyreva is serving a two-and-a-half year sentence, essentially for quoting Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s national poet, in public.

Third are three young men who deliberately damaged property, but not persons, to draw their fellow Russians’ attention to the anti-war cause. Igor Paskar (chapter 2) firebombed an office of the Federal Security Service (FSB). Alexei Rozhkov (chapter 9) firebombed a military recruitment centre – a form of protest used dozens of times across Russia in 2022. He fled to Kyrgyzstan, was kidnapped, presumably by the Russian security forces, and returned to Russia for trial. Ruslan Siddiqi (chapter 10), a Russian and Italian citizen, derailed a train carrying munitions to the Ukrainian front. He has been sentenced to 29 years, and has said that he can be seen as a “partisan”, and “classified as a prisoner of war”, rather than a political prisoner.

The fourth group of protagonists, jailed for what they said rather than anything they did, have records of activism for social justice and democratic rights stretching back decades: Alexei Gorinov (chapter 1), a municipal councillor in Moscow who dared to refer to Russia’s war as a “war” in public; Mikhail Kriger, an outspoken opponent of Russia’s war on Ukraine since 2014 (chapter 4); Andrei Trofimov (chapter 5); and Aleksandr Skobov (chapter 7), who was first jailed for political dissent in 1978, in the Soviet Union, and who 47 years later in 2025 told the court: “Death to the Russian fascist invaders! Glory to Ukraine!”

Two activists prosecuted for anti-war action, who made their statements outside court, are featured in chapters 11 and 12. Kirill Butylin (chapter 11) was the first person arrested for firebombing a military recruitment office, in March 2022. No record of his court appearance is available, but his defiant message on social media is: “I will not go to kill my brothers!” Savelii Morozov (chapter 12) was fined for denouncing the war to a military recruitment commission in Stavropol, when applying to do alternative (non-military) service.

The ten anti-war speeches in court recorded in this book are by no means the only ones. Another 17 are summarised in chapter 13. These speeches, along with others by defendants who railed against the annihilation of free speech, or protested against grotesque frame-ups, have been collected and published by the “Poslednee Slovo” (“Last Word”) website.

High-profile Russian politicians jailed for standing up to the Kremlin also made anti-war speeches in court, including Ilya Yashin of the People’s Freedom Party, sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in December 2022 for denouncing the massacres of Ukrainian civilians at Bucha and Irpin, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, sentenced in April 2023 to 25 years for treason. Both of them were freed, along with Sasha Skochilenko, in the prisoner exchange of August 2024. Other prominent political figures remain in detention for opposing the war, including Boris Kagarlitsky, a sociologist and Marxist writer, sentenced in February 2024 to five years for “justifying terrorism”, and Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of the Golos election monitoring group, sentenced in May 2025 to five years for working with an “undesirable organisation”. Dozens of journalists and bloggers are behind bars too.

These better-known, politically motivated people are only a fraction of the thousands persecuted by the Kremlin.

The cases recorded by human rights organisations include thousands of Ukrainians detained in the occupied territories. In many cases their fate, and whereabouts, is unknown: they may be dead or imprisoned.

Thousands more Russians who have spoken out against the war, or been caught in the merciless dragnet by accident, are behind bars. So are “railway partisans” who sabotaged military supply trains, and others who denounced their regime’s support for Putin’s war, in Belarus.

In Chapter 14, we outline the resistance to the Kremlin’s war, the repression mobilised in response to it, and the scale of the twenty-first-century gulag that has been brought into being. Notes, giving sources for all the material in the book, are at the end.

People resisting injustice have for centuries, in many countries, made use of the courts as a public platform. Irish rebels against British colonial violence began doing so at the end of the eighteenth century. In Russia, the tradition goes back at least to the 1870s, when Narodniki (Populists), speaking to judges trying them for violent protests, denounced the autocratic dictatorship. The workers’ movements that culminated in the 1917 revolutions used courtroom propaganda widely. When Stalinist repression reached its peak in the 1930s, the major purge trials were designed to eliminate it: their format was prearranged, with abject, false confessions. The practice reappeared after the post-Stalinist “thaw”, in the 1965 trial of the dissident writers Andrei Siniavsky and Yulii Daniel.[1]

Courtroom speeches have again become a powerful weapon under Putin – and the Kremlin dictatorship is finding ways to get its revenge.[2] It added three years to Andrei Trofimov’s sentence (chapter 5) – for the fantastical, false “offences” of disseminating false information about the army and “condoning terrorism” – based solely on what he said at his first trial. Other anti-war prisoners, including Alexei Gorinov (chapter 1) have had years added on to their sentences, on the basis of false “evidence” provided by prison officers, or prisoners terrorised by those officers.

Why did they do it? Why did our protagonists make protests that carried the risk of many years in the hell of the Russian prison system? Why, when brought to court, did they choose to make these statements that carried further risk? They have weighed their words and spoken for themselves; no attempt will be made here to summarise. However it is noteworthy that all of them addressed their speeches to their fellow citizens, not to the government.

Andrei Trofimov told the court in his second trial that “Ukraine is my audience”, because “Russian society is dead and it is useless to try to talk to it” – but nevertheless went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that his short, sharp message from his first trial, ending “Putin is a dickhead”, was widely circulated in Russian media.

The others had greater hopes in Russian society, including the Ukrainian Bohdan Ziza, who, in the video for which he was jailed, underlined that: “I address myself, above all, to Crimeans and Russians.” In court he said his action was “a cry from the heart” to “those who were and are afraid – just as I was afraid” to speak out, but who did not want the war.

Alexei Rozhkov had no doubt that “millions of my fellow citizens, women and men, young and old, take an anti-war position”, but were deprived of any means to express it. Kirill Butylin appealed to others to make similar protests so that “Ukrainians will know, that people in Russia are fighting for them – that not everyone is scared and not everyone is indifferent.” As for the government, “let those fuckers know that their own people hate them”.

Aleksandr Skobov, now 67 and in failing health, explicitly addressed younger generations. In an open letter from jail, he recalled how as a socialist he had been a “black sheep” among Soviet-era dissidents, most of whom had now passed away. “The blows are falling on other people, most of them much younger.” While “sceptical about ‘pompous declarations about the passing-on of traditions and experience’”, nevertheless, “I want the young people who are taking the blows now to know: those few remaining Soviet dissidents stood side-by-side with them, have stayed with them and shared their journey.”

Given this unity of purpose, of seeking however unsuccessfully to connect with the population at large, we might see the protagonists as practising the “propaganda of the deed” – not in the sense that phrase was given in the early twentieth century by politicians and policemen, as acts of violence, but in its original, broader sense: as any action, violent or not, that stirred one’s fellow citizens to a just cause. For, while some of those whose words are in this book used violence against property, and some specifically justified Ukrainian military violence against Russian aggression, none used violence against people.

Aleksandr Skobov being led in to court in March, to be sentenced to 16 years.
Photo by Mediazona

Here are two further observations. First: while all the anti-war resisters shared a common purpose, they started with a diverse range of world views. A profound moral sense of duty runs through some of their statements. “Do I regret what has happened?” Igor Paskar asked his judges. “Yes, perhaps I’d wanted my life to turn out differently – but I acted according to my conscience, and my conscience remains clear.” Or, as Alexei Rozhkov put it: “I have a conscience, and I preferred to hold on to it.”

Andrei Trofimov, in a similar vein, said at his second trial that “writ large, it is a matter of self-preservation” – not “the preservation of the body per se, of its physical health” but the preservation of conscience in this difficult situation, “my ability to tell black from white, and lies from truth, and, quite importantly, my ability to say out loud what I believe to be true”.

Ruslan Siddiqi voiced his motivation differently, in terms of political ideas about changing society. In letters to Mediazona, an opposition media outlet, he described his path towards anarchism. Expressing dislike for the “rigidity” of some anarchists and communists, he nevertheless envisaged a transition “from a totalitarian state to other forms of government with greater freedoms and further evolution into communities with self-government”.

The invasion of Ukraine changed things: anyone who opposed it was declared a traitor by the government. “In such a situation, it is not surprising that some would prefer to leave the country, whereas others would take up explosives. Realising that the war was going to be a long one, at the end of 2022 I decided to act militarily.”

By contrast, Alexei Gorinov founded his defence on pacifist principles, and quoted Lev Tolstoy on the “madness and criminality of war”. Being tried “for my opinion that we need to seek an end to the war”, he could “only say that violence and aggression breed nothing but reciprocal violence. This is the true cause of our troubles, our suffering, our senseless sacrifices, the destruction of civilian and industrial infrastructure and our homes.”

Sasha Skochilenko was still more explicit: “Yes, I am a pacifist” she told the court. Pacifists “believe life to be the highest value of all”; they “believe that every conflict can be resolved by peaceful means. I can’t kill even a spider – I am scared to imagine that it is possible to take someone’s life. […] Wars don’t end thanks to warriors – they end thanks to pacifists. And when you imprison pacifists, you move the long-awaited day of the peace further away.”

Savelii Morozov told the military recruitment commission that he would not refuse to fight in all wars, but in this particular, unjust war. A war in defence of one’s homeland could be justified, but not the “crime” being perpetrated in Ukraine.

For Darya Kozyreva, the central issue is Ukraine’s right to self-determination, asserted by force of arms. The war is a “criminal intrusion on Ukraine’s sovereignty”, she told the court. While identifying herself in an interview as a Russian patriot – “a patriot in the real sense, not in the sense that the propagandists give that word” – Kozyreva justified Ukrainian military resistance. Ukraine does not need a “big brother”; it will fight anyone who tries to invade, she said. In Russia, even some of Putin’s political opponents “do not always realise that Ukraine, having paid for its sovereignty in blood, will determine its own future”. She wants to believe in “a beautiful future where Russia lets go of all imperial ambition”.

Aleksandr Skobov expressed the hope that Russia will be defeated militarily in still more categorical terms. He spelled out in court three principles of his political organisation, the Free Russia Forum: the “unconditional return to Ukraine of all its internationally recognised territories occupied by Russia, including Crimea”; support for all those fighting for this goal, including Russian citizens who joined the Ukrainian armed forces; and support for “any form of war against Putin’s tyranny inside Russia, including armed resistance”, but excluding “disgusting” terrorist attacks on civilians.

Second: these anti-war speeches have much to tell us not only about Russia and Ukraine, but about the increasingly dangerous world we live in, in which Putin’s slide to authoritarianism has been succeeded by right-wing, authoritarian turns in the USA and some European countries. Russia’s imperial war of aggression has been followed by Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza, in which multiple war crimes – mass murder of civilians, the use of starvation as a weapon, deliberate blocking of aid, and the targeting of journalists, aid workers and international agencies – have been facilitated by the same Western powers that offer lip service to Ukraine’s national rights.

The two aggressor nations, Israel and Russia, aligned with different geopolitical camps, are subject to analogous driving forces. Nationalist ideology supercedes rational economic management; expansionist violence supercedes democracy; the decline of Western neo-liberal hegemony paves the way for militarist thuggery. Capital’s need for social control underpins near-fascist methods of rule. Readers may recognise, in the Russian state’s dystopian efforts of 2022-23 to punish its dissenting citizens as “terrorists” and “traitors”, patterns that are retraced in the unhinged witch-hunts of 2024-25 in the USA and western Europe, against opponents of the Gaza slaughter.

The powers on both sides of the geopolitical divide are frightened of similar things: the defiance and resilience of the opponents of Putin’s war, and the anger that has brought millions of people on to the streets of north American and European cities, in protest at the Gaza genocide. They are frightened of beliefs that are taking shape, in varying forms, that humanity can and should strive for a better, richer life than that offered by the warmongers and dictators. Some of these beliefs are expressed in the chapters of this book.

📚You can buy Voices Against Putin’s War from the Resistance Books web site.

📚 Thursday 20 November, 7.0pm. TRY ME FOR TREASON. Readings from anti-war protesters’ speeches in Russian courts, and book launch for Voices Against Putin’s War. Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green London E1 5QJ. Register free on eventbrite here. Flyer attached.

📚 More about the book here: How protesters use Russia’s courts to denounce the war on Ukraine □ There are English-languages pages on the web sites of Memorial: Support Political Prisoners, Solidarity Zone, Mediazona and The Last Word.

References

[1] T.D. Sullivan, Speeches from the dock, or, Protests of Irish patriotism (P.J. Kennedy, New York, 1904). Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution: a history of the populist and socialist movements in 19th century Russia (Phoenix Press, 2001). Marshall Shatz, Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1980).

[2] “Vykhoda net: kak v Rossii massovo fabrikuiut novye ugolovnye dela”, The Insider, 19 June 2025.

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The Courtroom Rebels Standing Up To Warmonger Putin

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