On Friday 9 May 2025, in a packed hall at the Greek Union of Editors of Daily Press, the presentation of the new book by Leonidas Vatikiotis, “Ukraine, The Grand Plan, Even if it didn’t exist, it would have to be invented”, recently published by TOPOS Publications, took place. Guests on the panel were, in addition to the author, the journalist Aris Hadjistefanou, the former Deputy Minister of Defence Kostas Isichos, the former Ambassador of the Hellenic Republic to Ukraine Vassilis Bornovas and, on behalf of the International News Agency for Peace and Nonviolence, Marianella Kloka. Journalist Paris Karvounopoulos moderated the discussion. Pending the editing of the video of the whole event, in which important things were discussed about the author, the contents of his new book and the situation in Ukraine, we publish the statement of our editor, Mariannella Kloka.
I want to thank Leonidas Vatikiotis for it was an honor that he has asked me to be part of today’s panel, which has as the central topic, Ukraine. For the collaboration that we have had during the recent seven years in different ways and under this opportunity to express publicly my appreciation for his mind, his sensitivity, and his work.
I will begin by saying that both personally and collectively as the International News Agency for Peace and Nonviolence, Pressenza, we condemn war as the highest form of violence and encroachment on the sovereignty of the people of one state by another. This is non-negotiable and horizontal in its application. There is nothing to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is nothing to justify violence in all its forms: political, statal, physical, economic, gender, moral. Internationally at Pressenza, we stand with the Russian people resisting the war, the genuine conscientious objectors and the world of Russian intellectuals in prison.
What is certainly there, and Leonidas Vatikiotis’ book deals with it with particular interest, is the role of the West forces and also the violence of the West forces, not only in creating the conditions for the Russian invasion, but especially in the way the Ukrainian people have been used, from the creation of the state onwards, in the promises of accession and the latest developments to freeze it in the EU and NATO.
Why read the book “Ukraine The Great Plan, if it did not exist it would have to be invented”?
First of all because it documents that the Cold War did not end with the Reagan-Gorbachev agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons in 1987, nor was there any respect for the agreement not to expand NATO eastwards after the acceptance of the united Germany’s membership of NATO. The collapse of the USSR and the Yeltsin administration enabled both the US and the EU to devise plans for influence and often direct intervention in the newly created states, elevating leaders with extreme ease, manipulating public opinion and reinforcing anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda.
Second, because it documents how this war has favored the upward shift in the profit rate of the spearhead of the world economy in at least three sectors: the war industry, the agri-food industry and the energy industry. The winners of this war have names: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technology, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Cheniere, Venture Global, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Exxon.
Thirdly, because it offers a valuable historical overview and chronology of Soviet and post-Soviet Ukraine, important information on Crimea and extensive references to the history of Donbass: from 1869 Juzovka, to the role it played in the creation and strengthening of the Soviet Union’s industry, to Stakhanovism, to the impact of the energy shift to natural gas, to the major labour movements under Gorbachev asking for workers’ participation in decision-making centres and the crackdown on corruption, the occasional bloodshed by Ukrainian fascists, the 2014 self-determination and independence referendum, to Russia’s decision to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022. It is appropriate to make special mention of the chapter describing the four categories that summarize the approximately 800 demands of the workers’ strike actions in the region during the Perestroika period, which for those of us involved in advocacy today are an important inspiration: the first included demands for the structure and management of the coal industry; the second for increases in wages, vacations, housing, and state quantities of goods provided by the state; the third for health care, hygienic and safety; and the fourth for protection of the pioneering workers and movement cadres from possible prosecution.
Fourth, because it explains the role of Germany and the US in strengthening Nazism in Ukraine: From the Stepan Bandera era and the massacres in Lviv, Volyn and Bami Yar, to collaboration with the Nazis, to Bandera’s joining the CIA, to the empowerment of new fascist political formations, the legitimization of the Azov Order and the role that neo-fascists played in Maidan, Euromaidan and the bloodbath in Donbass. The denazification of Ukraine is, in my opinion, a mere pretext for Russia’s invasion, since if it wanted to denazify itself first, it would not have facilitated Russian bank financing relations with Marin Le Pen’s party already from 2014 and would have had a glorious field of denazification action within Russia. Nevertheless, the emergence of neo-fascism in Ukraine is very important to read in the context of yesterday’s and today’s celebrations and in order to understand some illusions we have in the West: we are not yet done with the Cold War, nor with Fascism.
Fifthly, the transformation of the European Union into an unwilling and submissive Washington’s toy, as described on the back cover of the book. What are the components of EU policy? The imposition of sanctions on Russia without any guarantee of our independence and self-sufficiency as a Union in terms of energy sufficiency at affordable prices, authoritarianism, unprecedented control of the public flow of information and a ban on freedom of opinion, the nullification of Russian culture in general, blatant interference in the elections of other countries, assumption of the costs of recent arming paranoia, precision, degradation of social spending, accelerated financialisation of the European economy, the practical annulment of the Green Agreement, the mental and economic impoverishment of the precariat and many other things analysed and documented in the book.
Sixth, for the important information on the long-term trend of Ukrainians towards NATO membership from 2002 to 2023. As Leonidas Vatikiotis explains, “The attitude of Ukrainians towards NATO is of great interest for three main reasons. First, because from November 2000 to May 2014, Ukrainians overwhelmingly, sometimes with the vast majority, rejected NATO membership. However, the anti-NATO majority emerged in 2014, i.e., after the Euromaidan regime was imposed. But as the chart shows, the pro-NATO majority from 2014 to 2021 was permanently below the critical 50% threshold. In contrast, the anti-NATO majority exceeded 60% almost every year from 2006 to 2013. And the pro-NATO majority exceeded 80% only after the beginning of the war, when this membership appeared as a condition for Ukraine’s survival.” One can understand the resilience of the Ukrainian people to NATO sirens despite the corruption and turbulent political life they were experiencing and how interesting an experiment in neutrality would probably have been if the political leaders had thought calmly and in favour of the progress and prosperity of the Ukrainian people.
Thanasis Skamnakis, a journalist, writer, and member of the Left, who has written the introduction in the book, will help me with my closing remarks.
“Around the ethics of geopolitics stand and mourn millions of pure people and militants. And after they face reality and the magnitude of social and political struggles, they come to the easy and frustrating conclusion that the big guys take care of everything, and there is no point in bothering. It’s obviously unfair. Politics has ethics but not metaphysics. Not with who is right at any given moment or more right than another. Politics has the morality of vindicating the working class, the people, their interests, and their victory to impose the morality of conscience. So the conclusion is that the human beings, the people, are the only claimants to the morality of history and politics, provided they play their historical role. The presence of people, of movements, of resistance, of plans for a radical overthrow is the critical quantity, the demand of our time. Historical conditions are maintained and created by people, as Brecht says.”
In my opinion, the daily action of every one of us to affirm the existence and enlargement of this critical mass in order to shine the light of moral consciousness is important for many reasons, but also for one main reason: because action in cohesion and solidarity makes us encounter meaning and fuels hope and the struggle against disappointment and despair.
Peace is indivisible, said Maxim Litvinov, soviet diplomat and commissar of foreign affairs, back in 1934 – 1935. Peace will either be collective, united and indivisible, within and beyond the borders of the states, or else it will not exist. I consider that it has an equally important meaning for today.
Thank you for this book, Leonidas.
