The one year anniversary since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks a year of destruction, death and inhumanity suffered by the people of Ukraine under the actions of Putin’s regime.
Campaign Against Arms Trade condemns the invasion, Russia’s attacks on the people of Ukraine, and the numerous war crimes committed by Russian forces during the war. We call on Russia to cease its attack on Ukraine and withdraw from territory captured during the war.
We extend our solidarity to the people of Ukraine in the face of this aggression and in their resistance to it. We likewise extend our solidarity to all those seeking safety, and working for peace and justice, including conscientious objectors, and to Russians opposing the war and refusing or fleeing military service.
We deplore and condemn the escalation and length of the war. CAAT supports efforts for a just peace rather than endless war and endless arms supplies.
After a year of war, with an estimated hundred thousand troops killed on either side, as well as at least 8,000 Ukrainian civilians, there seems little prospect of an end to the fighting. Russia continues to double down on its efforts to conquer further Ukrainian land, backed by massively destructive and indiscriminate shelling, and attacks on key civilian infrastructure. At the same time, Ukraine’s western backers are escalating not only arms supplies but rhetoric, insisting that only complete Ukrainian victory is an acceptable end point. Such a goal offers only the prospect of endless war, with an ever-growing risk of escalation to nuclear war.
CAAT calls instead for serious and intensive efforts to bring a negotiated end to the war, with a just peace settlement that respects the fundamental rights of the Ukrainian people. However difficult this may seem at present, the attempt needs to be made.
There is one group that is benefitting from the war, and that is the global arms industry: – Russian, Western, Iranian, and others – which plays a key role in fuelling this and other wars, now and in the future. It is morally wrong that arms companies and their shareholders are profiteering from this conflict. Moreover, the arms industry stands to benefit even further as many countries increase military spending and expand arms production, including working to replenish stockpiles. CAAT is concerned that this may spur new global and regional arms races, and lead to arms-exporting countries loosening the already weak controls on the arms trade.
CAAT stands in opposition to the logic of war and militarism, which we believe can never provide real security. It can only lead to greater conflict and tensions, while diverting ever more resources from key human needs, and in particular from efforts to tackle the unfolding climate catastrophe, the greatest threat to the security of us all.
What arms has the UK supplied to Ukraine? Find out here.
