Igor Tokovenko is the co-founder of the Ukraine Labor Party and member of its Political (executive) Council. Here he talks about the political situation in Ukraine – including workers struggles and public protests there. He makes the point that in the Russian occupied part of Ukraine no such struggles are possible. We also discussed the US attack on Ukraine, US politics, and more.
Below this video of the interview you will find an AI (= imperfect but usable) transcript.

Transcript

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John Reimann
We are very happy to be joined by Igor, who’s in Ukraine. 

Igor 2:00
So Hi everybody. My name is Iver chekhovenko. I am the co founder of Ukrainian Labor Party. I’ve been a labor union, trade union activist and trade union leader of couple of trade unions in mining and metallurgical complex in also in medical and pharmaceutical industries. I also I’m a lawyer, not kind of like with what in America you say, like license, but I’m a professional, what during what, according to Ukrainian laws, can represent workers trade unions, in courts and in labor disputes and so on, and that have been my main occupation before full scale Russian invasion and 2020 we with labor activists, with ecological activists and union activists and urban activists, decided to create party which will represent working people of Ukraine, and so I am the member of its political Council, kind of executive Body, and also from the 2022 serving in Ukrainian military, first as a soldier, from 2023 as Sergeant, and sometime became, because I have higher education, I became officer. So I am now I’m serving as an officer in Ukrainian military. So enough for the start.

John Reimann 4:50
Well, thank thank you for that introduction. That’s very interesting. What you say about about the Labor Party. would you talk a little bit about what that what that party does, and what it stands for.

Igor 5:10
We stand for social justice, but in your political language. It’s rather economical justice we stand for, first of all, and why we call ourselves Labor Party, Can be translated as party of working people. But we also have this reference to European labor tradition, our political platform. We describe him as old school labor parties, not more, not like now labor parties like Tony Blair kind, but like, like all of Parliament or Clement Attlee politics, so stand, first of all, pro political representation of working people, Working class, the parliament in the local councils in all branches of power in Ukraine, and also what it mean this representation means promoting interests of working people, and This interest, as we see definitely, is in following naturalization of strategical entities, first of all, it’s kind of national monopolies, kind of water companies, energy companies, and also such industries as heavy metallurgical complex, as mining complex, as heavy machinery, and production of machine machinery and chemical industries. And so that’s the first place on the second place, it’s a wealth tax and progressive income taxes. Progressive, I think it’s VAT in your language. We’d call it other like taxation of plus plus value. And that’s the second main major thing, progressive taxation, about taxation and the second major thing is labor rights. Labor unions rights. So stronger workplace democracy. That’s three. I think the main things we have less issues with housing, I believe, even during the full scale war than in when you have in America. But we have also issues in our program. It’s in our program addressing these issues. First of all, it’s programs of building social housing and in the same time, creating of housing for rent, on social pricing working families. That’s but all what I mentioned, but not all. Our economical program, and we also have democratic program, which stands for First we as young, as a young democracy, we should go and make some progress from current electoral democracy to Reiman. The representative democracy, because in our country, as like in your country, but even the first condition, we have Parliament which does not represent 99% of population and represent only interest of one welfare percent of population. So moving toward really representative democracy. From that point, moving toward direct democracy, we are standing for broader, broader use of referendums. So it’s and other forms of direct democracy on the local and national level to give our people directly to to set laws, to cancel some draft laws implemented by Parliament and also to elect and Call back judges and some other lessons in public power. So that’s two main blocks of our program, and it’s also a block named like national interests, butit about kind of educational issues, and maybe, how about more or less ecology. So that’s what we are standing for. Theory in our program.

Igor 11:40
It about kind of educational issues, and maybe, how about more or less ecology. So that’s what we are standing for. Theory in our program. In practice, we started our party in 2020 in time of pandemic. So we had only very restricted capacities to major agitation and organizing. But when this pandemic, we had hope will end, started the full scale Russian invasion, so many of our activists, more than half of our political Council is in the armed forces we listed, and most of us currently actively serving. So one of members of political Council now in infantry, on the position of the front line, then three months straight. So very, very restricted in our capacities, abilities to improve as a party. Now we have about 250 members. That’s not much, but I will in other blocks of our dialog to tell you, well, things about Ukrainian political system.

Igor 13:41
So you will understand, hopefully, that when 250 members of the party, it’s not much, but it’s not less. It’s not less for Ukrainian political system, and I’ll explain you why So assuming now we are mostly concentrated on the issues of survival in this existential war against Russian imperialism, half of the political Council, including me, are in the military, and other half is helping in our volunteer center, UA, its name, UA health, so helping different regiments, units, have very big impact on this Brigade.

Igor 14:47
My t shirt is 43rd artillery brigade, which have been very crucial on the. Defending Kyiv in the battle Kyiv. So we have, kind of our volunteer center is kind of in chief, of supplies, of some very critical things for this brigade. So we’re now, we are mainly concentrating in surviving in this horrific war, but in the same time, we are strongly criticizing our neoliberal government and corrupted government on issues of the trying to steal our labor rights. They are effective. Effectively stealing our money from the budget. And it’s, of course, bad for social issues, for social care, Medicare and so on, and for defense, for military cause, it’s very bad. So mainly our political activities outside the war is an issues of rightful constructive criticism, where criticizing current government and also other oligarchy. Oligarchic, so called parties on their serving to interests of oligarchy, but not Ukrainian working people.

John Reimann 16:30
So it’s interesting that that you have that criticism of the current government there. So I would ask, how has the invasion of Russia affected workers rights in Ukraine?

Igor 16:55
Besides that fact that obviously every workplace in Ukraine is in danger by missile and shahed strikes, not only Russian Fascism is affecting workplace workplaces in Ukraine, but also corporate greed and personalized in current government, current Parliament and current president in the very beginning of invasion, they they presented and implemented some legislation which cut it partially only for the war Time for the martial law, and partially indefinitely, permanently labor rights in Ukraine, we had relatively on the paper. It’s very important on the paper. We had one of the best labor codes in Europe, maybe in the world, but in real life, because of weakness of unions, most of absolutely, most of Ukrainian trade unions are yellow unions, post Soviet Unions, which in Soviet times were kind of second party line, like party is main line of power and unions, kind of second line of power. And it just did what party says in current Ukrainian element of history. Most of these post Soviet Unions survived, but they are still doing whatever employers tell them, mostly, mostly everything that employers tell them. So, according to weak labor unions, and according to weak institutions like courts and lack of labor representation, workers representation in the parliament, these layers layered the paper strong labor code, when, when, when neglected in real in real labor, real labor. Relations in real labor relations. But for this neoliberal government, it was not enough. They tried to eliminate some rights, temporary or permanently. One of these rights is next that in our labor code code, we still have this kind of guarantee that the most reasons of layoff, worker can be laid all fire can be fired only with permission of his trade union if he is a member of trade union. And this rule has been stopped by this law introduced and implemented on the on the start of the full scale Russian invasion by Ukrainian Liberal government. That’s main thing, but not only thing, which has been cut from labor code. But I think it will be not necessary to go deeply to details. Now this neoliberal government is trying to implement new, even worse labor code. It’s not the worst that have been introduced and introduced already by this government before full scale invasion, they introduced draft which have been called law about labor law, about work, kind of that stuff. And it, it were kind of now, labor court of Ukraine is like this book, and they, they try to, they try to reduce it to this kind of leaflet, already leaflet.

Igor 22:21
So we stopped that. We stopped that with trade unions, with other activists, with NGOs, probably labor pro workers NGOs now during war they Ukrainian neoliberal government trying to implement, trying to cut labor rights, but not as much as they have as they wanted before this invasion, and we are strongly opposing this issue. And if you resonate with broader masses of people of Ukrainian people, but Ukrainian government and parliament can do it anyway, honestly speaking, because they have so called mono majority. It’s not strong as it have been on the first year of this Parliament, but they have some pro Russian parliament members who on the payrolls and kind of, we call it prisoners of war in the parliament who are voting, voting for all the interests of this neoliberal government and for oligarchy. Because obviously these pro Russian members of parliament were always pro oligarchical ones. So we they effectively can implement this new labor code worse than existing, but we will do our best to to make them to stop them this time, this time again. Okay, thank you for that explanation. Igor, my friend Kay, there has a question also. And then. Um, go ahead, go ahead, K and ask your question, and then I have a another question. Okay, so

K 25:07
the changes to the labor code, that’s because of act 2138, right?

Igor 25:36
I cannot remember the numbers. There were couple of drafts, and because of I’m in the military from the 2025 I maybe lost count of them. But I can say, I can tell you that this, this changes were introduced not because for war, but because Ukrainian, this Ukrainian neoliberal government, previous Ukrainian neoliberal government wanted to absolutely with No correlation for war whatsoever. Okay, are strikes still technically illegal? Yeah, during martial law, during martial law, strikes are technically illegal and but you have to understand then that even before martial law, even before full scale Russian invasion, Ukraine had for decade, for really, actually, literally decade have 00, real strikes. Why? Two main reasons, first, very restrictive, very restrictive law about collective bargaining, which have many obligations for trade unions and for labor collectives, for collectives to go on strike, you you must collect many signatures. You have to go to the very sophisticated procedures we have for negotiations, very long time negotiations, you have to involve guys from national level, committee, quasi state organization to to these negotiations. It’s, it’s in two different kind of kind of parts of this negotiations. For some of it, you have to pay for these negotiators, and only if it all will be fulfilled and it will have no positive result. Only then you will have to have a conference of the collective of this enterprise and declare strike only then after some time, not like three days. I think it was 15, days. After that, you can go to strike effectively, if it could be the fastest, the fastest, it could be kind of free month, no one and a half months, I think if, if employer will go to all negotiations, if will not, If it will ignore negotiations, so it can be kind of half of a month, less than months.

Igor 29:43
So as you know, if collective want to go to strike, it’s mostly kind of impulsive decision. Workers won’t strike now, probably they will not want to strike after three months, and this all negotiation process designed in law to to lower strikes to do everything not to have strikes. And it was effective, effective because Ukraine, statistically, we 10 years before Russian invasion, we had strikes, mostly only if this, like a plant or factory, is already stopped, It’s already not working, not paying salaries after that, this kind of yellow union or independent, relatively independent union, will will strike, but it have no reason to strike if This plant or factory or other enterprise is already stopped by employer or it just the verge of collapse. It doesn’t have any meaning, but in kind of strong working and paying salaries in time, factories, plants and so on, it have mostly No, no evidence of precedence of real strikes.

Igor 31:58
I’ve been one of union leaders who consulted workers during the attempt to make real strike, but in one of big enterprises, relatively big, 4000 workers in my region, we achieved some about 15% increase in salaries. Workers wanted more. So we go Go ahead, but we our strike been banned by court decision, we were not on the strike effectively, and the same time I, during this process, understood Having council with other real, independent union leaders that is kind of big enterprise. Four of our 1000 workers, our union were relatively small. Kind of 120 100 140 members. It’s not enough to have strike fund to pay something for striking workers, first of all, and to effectively control this process.

Igor 33:49
So we had some experience. It been with some pluses and some minuses, partially positive, partially negative, but it experience, experience in the general. In general, Ukraine have very, very low culture of strikes, and now it’s forbidden. But in the same time, Ukraine have very good culture of public protest strikes, unfortunately, but public public protests, fortunately. We call it meetings in Ukrainian meetings. I think it’s maybe manifestations, demonstrations, more in English.

John Reimann 34:40
So can you give some examples of that?

Igor 34:48
Yeah, even now during martial law, as like strikes and manifestations are forbidden, but Ukrainians absolutely ignore it absolutely. When our government tried to cut independence of anti corruption, agencies, agencies, many, mostly young Ukrainian people were On the streets. Went to the streets with like okay with, like, handmade boards, cards against this very creative slogans. It was kind of controversial in Ukrainian society. This protest because these agencies have no class agenda. They are deeply like bourgeois organizations. They are, in other ways, serving to interests of great capital, but in the same time, its mission of gradual progress of Ukrainian democracy. For Ukrainian democracy, it’s about balance of power. It was an attempt of Ukrainian corrupt government to seize power, to overpower to the old hands. And so it for, in my opinion, it’s good that we this demonstrations, manifestation happened, and that Ukrainian government retreat this in these issues, so public won this battle. And it’s not only this, it’s other example. It’s demonstrations like funding for military Russia through funding for military forces, it also it also Civil Protest, without any class agenda, but deeply, very, very deeply it have some, have some social agenda, because broad masses of Ukrainian society, there is clear understanding that our Elite is deeply corrupted and working only for their own interest, for interests of oligarchy, and it have two consequences, low level of life, very high level of poverty in Ukrainian society, relatively to European other European countries and second consequences, it’s not enough funding for the military.

Igor 38:24
So these protests took place without any permission, and in Ukrainian constitution, Ukrainian constitution and laws broadly, we don’t have a we don’t have to catch to okay, We don’t have to have any permission, any to go protest, to go to demonstrations, manifestations and so on. We just we have only, during their constitution, we have only obligation to to make some note for the some public authority can be police, it can be local council, it can be mostly anything, and there is no way, no particular way, how it should Be. It can be via email, it can be via postcard, letter and so on. And tradition says it should be before, before the gathering, but before it can be five days (or) five minutes. So we have very, very in good way liberal rules about public protest. We have absolutely ridiculously restrictive rules about strikes, and we have good cultural protest, but not social protest, as strikes and two Ukrainian revolutions, where democratic revolutions not social revolutions, unfortunately, so brings to mind what you’re saying.

John Reimann 40:31
This brings to mind two issues: First of all, the issue of corruption. Of course, the Trump administration has made an absolute art of corruption. We’ve always had a problem with corruption here in our government, but Trump has brought it to unprecedented heights, and the capitalists don’t really like it, because what it does, it doesn’t create a level playing field. It’s things are arbitrary. They don’t know from one one day to the next what will the rules be under which they have to play. From our point of view as workers, I mean number one, it gives the capitalists, in the end direct, immediate access to the to the government, also it’s our money. It’s the taxpayers money that they’re stealing. So that’s my reaction when I hear you talk about corruption. I mean, what we’ve seen here is just unprecedented. But before we get to that, I want to ask you, because this is for a largely American audience:

John Reimann 42:09
As you may be aware, there is massive confusion amongst socialists here – and confusion is the best term that we can put it – There’s massive confusion about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So you talked about all the protests that you have there in Ukraine. Is anything like that all possible in the regions that are controlled by Russia? What would happen if people tried to have a protest there?

Igor 42:45
Yeah, that’s that’s a great question. The good answer to other question, why we are fighting because Ukrainian, current, Ukrainian government is obviously anti workers, obviously corrupted, obviously working only in interest of oligarchy at the expense of working people. So why we are Ukrainian anarchist, socialist, labor activists and broader, not ideological folks who are working class, who have working class background – why we are fighting and dying in this situation, when Russian government is oligarchic government, and Ukrainian government is oligarchic government. So your question is really the answer, because in Ukraine [we are a] relatively free territory. We can protest. We can criticize our government as much as we can, as much as we want. In near near days, head of our party, Yuri Levchenko, said in the main state channel, it’s like a BBC – He said in the talk show that we should investigate and arrest all Zelensky’s cronies, and after he leaves office, should investigate and arrest Zelensky himself. Can you imagine something relative to this Russia? You cannot. You just parts of Ukraine controlled by Russia, yeah, yeah, obviouslyOnly meetings, only protest demonstrations can be in the occupied territory of Ukraine, occupied by Russian Fascism is pro Russian. Is pro fascist, or so called communist.

Igor 44:56
But really, most of Russian communists are just red fascists because they are standing for absolutely all that is standing Putin fascist government. But they are calling it like Stalinism and so on. But absolutely what we are seeing in Russia. we can criticize Soviet Union that it was kind of socialism without a democracy. Russia now is a Soviet Union without socialism. So Soviet Union was bad because of lack of democracy, but it was good because of medicine, of education, of zero unemployment. But you don’t have this at all in Russia. Economically speaking, Ukraine and Russia are mostly the same, but in Russia, they have a slightly more public, not public, state enterprises, but controlled by Russian oligarchs, effectively, effectively, and the we have same level of degradation of social state, but in Ukraine, we have much more civil rights. In Ukraine Labor Party, we believe that democracy, it’s the precondition, the precondition for social and economical justice. Social and economical justice not be built without democracy. It’s our point, and I think yours too. No.

John Reimann 47:10
Seems to me that in one sense, you could describe the the opposition to the Russian invasion, is, yes, a question of [opposition to] like cultural genocide and all of that, but would you agree that is also one sense a struggle for for democratic rights and for workers rights. That’s one way to describe struggle against the invasion?

Igor 47:46
Yes, absolutely. We have to understand that for mostly all Ukrainian teachers, Ukrainian warriors, Ukrainian soldiers, it’s a struggle for democracy. For many of them, it’s for most of them, it’s struggle also for possibility of gradual move, toward workers rights, and one day achieving workers democratic workers government, because [under] Russian occupation in Russian puppet regime, we cannot have really workers democratic government, because we will have only Russian fascist government. That’s obviously not what we choose, right?

John Reimann 48:50
You know, socialists understand that capitalism cannot and will not ever resolve the problems that it created. But there is a difference between capitalist rule under democratic rights, capitalist rule without democratic rights, though we oppose both, but the first form of rule that is is fundamentally different. And I just have to interject here – you’re probably familiar with the fact that here in the United States a lot of socialists don’t don’t understand the importance of this., to put it mildly. They don’t understand the importance of opposing the Russian invasion. Those same people who think that they’re a socialist, they also tend to equate the Republican and Democratic parties. “Oh, they’re just the same”, they say. In the past, they used to be pretty similar, but now have one party that stands for bourgeois democracy, which we don’t, we don’t support capitalism in any form, the other party that stands for dictatorship with links to actual fascism. To say there’s no difference iss the same thing as saying there’s no difference between the rule of Zelensky and the rule of Putin.

John Reimann 50:26
[On another issue:], Obviously the world has had a tremendous shock in the last few days, and we here in the United States are engulfed in it. That is the US attack, or I should say, Trump attack on Iran. And could you talk a little bit about how people in Ukraine and also you yourself, which might not be the same thing, how you see number one, the Iranian Revolution. Number two, current assault on Iran.

Igor 51:13
First of all, I have to state that our party doesn’t have official position on these events, but I can provide only my personal opinion and my personal perspective, I have to say that it’s very complicated question, and it’s very dependent on the standpoint, the point of view, because from American perspective, correct me. If I’m wrong, it’s very it’s definitely bad because, first of all, it’s unconstitutional, because President of the United States can’t start in wars of on his own. He have to get congressional approval for using of military force abroad and in the same time, in the same time the rich wage war support will die so working class of America will take all the expenses of this war by lives of American soldiers enlisted mostly because they have to pay for their rents, for Medicare to have in future, higher education and so on, because American State doesn’t give them these basic things that are absolutely basic starter pack for mostly every European state. But in on the other hand, every working family in America eventually will have will be impacted by higher inflation because of rising prices of oil during this war. So for America, from American perspective, from the interests of American working class, I think it’s highly, highly not. It’s highly negative.

Igor 53:50
From Ukrainian perspective, it’s absolutely different, but also very complicated. Ukrainians hate Ayatollahs and establishment of Iranian theocratic regime because Iranian regime helped, effectively, Russians bomb Ukraine. They provided to Russians with technology of Shakhed drones. Now Russia produces it as Gerbera. And from these shahed drons and Gerbera drones, 1000s and 1000s of innocent Ukrainians died, mostly civilians, mostly civilians. Shahed drons mostly used to hit civilian objects, not military.

Igor 54:55
And this a significant part of our energy infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by this. Excuse me for interrupting.

John Reimann 55:09
But my understanding is most of the Shahed drones that Russia is using now produce Russia, not in Iran,

Igor 55:18
yes, so then the US attack on Iran not have much effect on that, but Ukrainians still hate Ayatollah anyway. So it’s, it’s not kind of on the streets, but in heads, in the social media, we can see that Ukrainian people kind of celebrate this attack because, like, “friend of your enemy is your enemy”.

John Reimann 55:55
Sorry for interrupting, but let’s go back for one second. So what is your view?

Igor 56:01
And also, prior to this attack, and also the general view, there been much attention paid a thought about the revolution itself, against against the regime. So I’ll tell you about this later. I will finish about Ukrainian perspective, and it complete its complexity. So on the one hand, Ukrainians are celebrating because United States as relatively allied country, attacking the ally of our direct enemy. But in the same time, in the same time, as you said, Russians already have this technology, so fell off Ayatollah regime probably will not change much better for Ukrainian Russian war and in the same Time, blockade of Strait of Homuz and all disruptions in this region will likely increase dramatically oil prices. So it will be very preferable. It will be very good for Russian, struggling economy. For Ukrainian, it will have mixed results, but for Ukrainian society, by this destruction of Iranian Ayatollah regime, but at the same time, effectively, it can be bad for Ukraine in this war. And if we will see broader democratic perspective, and I don’t believe that we have a right speak from the perspective and from the standpoint of Iranian people, because we are not Iranian people. We are not living in Iran but from the broader democratic perspective can be good, because during Ayatollah regime, obviously, and now it’s proven that people cannot overthrow it and do anything democratic or revolutional means, protests, mass protests in this year have been drowned in blood by Ayatollah by Revolutionary Guard and their paramilitaries. 1000s have died. So we can say that this kind of help from Trump administration is late, very late, this attempt of democratic revolution. But from democratic perspective, it may be just maybe it’s better late than never, but in the same time, if Ayatollah regime will survive this bombing, it will be effectively worse. We can say that it’s better not have any action then this action, if this action will not lead to regime change. What regime could could be after I told our regime it could be another, another regression, another reactionary, another reactionary regime of pakhlavi monarchy, absolutely. Maybe puppet or United States, which occurs bad but in the same time, if we see countries in the world that are the most democratic and the most social oriented, Denmark, Sweden, it’s Norway, and they are all monarchies. So my opinion, it’s only my opinion, not to my party. In my opinion, that can one day, can one day Iranian people got democracy and hopefully social state in under monarchy, yes, they can, yes, under part of The democracy, maybe where they will someday evolve to democracy, to constitutional monarchy and to social state like Sweden, Denmark and Norway and maybe not. Maybe they will be absolutely ban on republic, like we are saying here. They will be, have this extraction, extractionist, neoliberal puppet regime of the United States. But it’s up to Iranian people to decide, under this kind of I will say it repeatedly, retrograd regime, but Iranian current regime is the highest level for deeper than theocratic authoritarian regime. So maybe for Iranian people, it could be for better. But I don’t believe that Trump administration wants a better future for Iranian people.

John Reimann 1:02:49
You know, there are reports even before, during the protests that the Pahlavi forces inside Iran were attacking the protesters. And so, whether there’s a formal king or queen, as you know, in society, isn’t really the question to me. You pointed out the Scandinavian countries. I don’t see any chance for a Pahlavi regime there, one linked with the MEK and also connected with elements of the old military wing the current regime… That regime cannot evolve into a democratic regime. It would have to it would require a new revolution for that to happen. So I think that that is the real intent of the intervention. So I think their real inten is to try to install Pahlevi, maybe possibly with the MEK as the head of a new government to make sure that a left wing government does not come into power there.

Igor 1:04:27
Obviously, that’s obvious, but I don’t believe that we can do something meaningful in this issue, and we in Lara devadia, really believe that the main thing that. That we as labor activists should do. Should do that. It unite people under some wide ideas for a workers government and for a democratic and socialist transformation. So which country, and we can say working class concentration foreign issues, concentration on economic issues is the best thing we can do.

Igor 1:05:42
Working class of all countries of all countries, let’s uniteon all isssues – economic issues, democratic issues, climate crisis. Real issues. We shall take and proceed power, government, to make changes to make this world a better places. We should be in solidarity with each other….. If I knew some real Iranian initiatives, I would sign. We have to…. If we not do something about it… we mainly should concentrate on the issue of fighting the oligarchy in our country and help each other todo that.

K 1:04:55
I understand what you mean in terms of trying to focus on the immediate economic issues on the domestic level. I think a thing to understand about the US political system that we’re dealing with over here right now is when Trump violates the Constitution in these very blatant ways like this, in these huge ways that totally go against the basic way it works. It’s making it easier and easier for him to violate it without any consequences. And the real thing we have to be worried about here is that he might not honor the results of the elections that we’re having this year. That’s a legitimate fear we have here. So for us, because of the way that the laws and the political system works here, we actually can’t ignore the Iran question, because if we ignore the Iran question, they use it against us at home? Does that make sense?

John Reimann 1:16:51
If I could just add that will have a direct consequence on Ukraine, because we know that his closest ally is Trump. So the more Trump reinforces himself in power, violating the Constitution, as K pointed out, more that will strengthen Russia, because Trump supports Putin. So anyway, your thoughts on that and thank you, K for for bringing that up.

Igor 1:17:29
Yes, absolutely. And all of us in Ukraine are deeply concerned about political situation in the United States. It also one of the biggest economies in the world. And now your understanding, we don’t have any aid from the United States whatsoever. Only European countries buying something from United States. It’s mostly Patriot missiles. And why this action against Iran? So bad for Ukraine now because all of these Patriot missiles using by Israel by other American allies in the region, potentially less missiles will came to Ukraine, but it not like a gift from the United States. It’s paid by European allies of Ukraine. So and first thing, it’s something, some munition with missiles, anti missile, missile patriot, is one support in its significant and the second is, is intelligent data, but it’s mostly not so much valuable and relevant. I think now Europe provides us with more valuable intelligent intelligence information, and we ourselves have very significant amount of intelligent intelligence information ourselves. So even if America will give us nothing. It will don’t kind of let us down, that you have to understand.

Igor 1:19:53
But obviously, we are concerned about the political situation in the United States, and we are wishing you best of luck to stay democracy and to improve your democracy, because I think it’s more to improve what to improve in Ukrainian democracy, in American democracy, unlike in many European countries, I’ve been in Denmark in my vacation. So it’s a really high level of democracy and to trust for institutions in this country, and also very significant results on the local level for left wing parties, especially in Copenhagen, on these elections. So obviously you have to you have something to worry about in this particular situation and in general, with this administration.

John Reimann 1:21:09
So before we wrap this up, I just want to make one mention you were talking about Khamenei. You know, I saw a video of 10s of 1000s, maybe even more than that, of Iranian people out in the street celebrating they heard the news of khamenei’s death. So we should keep that in account. But maybe Igor, you would like to wrap this up with some final words to workers and to socialists in the United States and also internationally.

Igor 1:21:57
So I think, may I tell something about our political system for sure? So Ukraine political system as a post Soviet country in the first decade were characterized by some mass parties. It have been Communist Party. It have been Socialist Party. Maybe two main mass forces after it emerged, emerged some deeply, deeply conservative and pro Russian force regionalists. They call themselves as Party of Regions. It’s explicitly pro Russian party. Communist Party were super Russian and Socialist Party were pro Ukrainian party, but socialist and few few nationalist parties, obviously for Ukraine so but during 30 years of Ukrainian democracy, it has been very curious development that democracy improved, parties disappeared. All these mentioned parties were kind of broad mass parties with 1000s of members, but they disappeared one by one, communists, because most of all their members just died from age. They don’t have young generation, and before they died, it’s been forbidden. Socialist Party to irrelevance. Then they then they betrayed the waters because they were socialist, pro Ukrainian party, and then they came to coalition with this deeply pro Russian Conservative Party and pro Russian Communist Party, they members and they voters assumed this as betrayal, so they destroyed them. Cells and were expelled from social International and social like Comintern by social terror and this Russian conservative regionalist party has been destroyed by second Ukrainian revolution, quantum also Maidan and nationalist party also disappeared because they kind of fulfill the destination By destroying this pro Russian regionalist party and now in 2026 we have, in Ukraine, only one party. It’s our labor party. No idea. And this party have only 250 members. Rough number, but you can, you can go to this, to the internet website of national anti corruption, or agency of Ukraine, and you can see nazarka. It go to Ukrainian and you can see all accounts, of all parties, all their accounts. And you can see that 75% of all membership fees Ukraine paid to our party. We are kind of, I’m joking that we are giants amongst Liliputians so, because every other so called party is just shell like a shell company, but shell political company oligarchs and we are only not like only social democratic party or only on the left or the right side of the spectrum. We are only party in Ukraine, because other are shell companies of their oligarchic, oligarchic owners. So and that’s for broader context of Ukrainian politics.

John Reimann 1:27:18
I’d like to ask you to the final message, but you talk about your relationship with Sotsialny Rukh.

Igor
From the day one of our operation, of our party, we try to maximize our relations with social movement organization. It’s an NGO, not a party. They they tried to create party in 2015, but they unfortunately failed because of highly bureaucratic rules of creating parties. So they are, in my opinion, guys, truly pro workers organization, but they are trying to make like a broad left, relatively broad left organization based on ideological issues, and we are creating and building broader, I think, Labor Party created based not on the particular ideology, but on the idea of representation of working class with the politics. So we are constantly inviting them to merge, to join other forms of cooperation. We are still in talks in this matter. So we are exchanging our thoughts, our experiences, but it’s kind of relations between actual registered political party and friendly NGO. In the same direction and problem.

John Reimann
Thank uou, andif you have any like final message to workers in the United States and around the world?

Igor
I wish for American workers not to leavet their struggle for labor rights, economical rights and against Trump administration have really workers government one day will affordability crisis, and will improve rights of working rights, rights of unions, and make America really great, but not in the international stage, but for workers or working families and international workers, I wish just that we have to unite in our countries to achieve that. I just said, help each other to make this place, this world, better place, all not just for billionaires.