The 70th birthday of the dictator who lives in the Kremlin was celebrated on October 7, the day the images of the burning and partially collapsed bridge to Crimea went around the world.
By Pavel Polska
It is the collapse of a “symbol of the unappealable expansionist annexation”, which the police-oligarchic regime of Russia claimed over part of the territory of Ukraine. The days that followed were the silent preparation of the most destructive and damaging possible revenge on the part of the Kremlin. We do not attempt in this note to predict the influence of the dictator’s murderous revenge on the course of the war, as Putin himself knows it will not have a decisive influence on its course. We will only make explicit the effects of the massive attack with 83 long-range missiles on almost the entire territory of Ukraine, including its capital Kiyv. Something worth noting became fully evident: the high morale of the Ukrainian people who, from the bomb shelters and the depths of the underground crowded with thousands of children, sang the national anthem.
It is premature to talk about the death toll, injuries and destruction of homes, schools and civilian infrastructure. What was immediately apparent was Putin’s perverse falsification when he spoke of “precise strikes on strategic military targets“, trying to justify his barbarism. But as always, it is the working people who have suffered the most from these massive bombardments, which have left large cities without electricity and water.
And in that sense, we want to highlight the news from Kryvyi Rih, a 700-thousand inhabitants city, which is one of the biggest mining-metallurgical centres in the South of Ukraine. There, too, “missile attacks on energy facilities left the city without electricity and 854 iron ore workers were trapped in 4 mines more than a thousand meters deep. In the midst of great tension and anxiety, the rescue operation began, using generators and human force to bring them back to the surface. Fortunately, at 2 a.m., after long hours of work, everyone was rescued.”
And the following instruction was issued by the district military headquarters:
“Attention! Today, from 17:00 to 22:00, it is essential to reduce electricity consumption.
– Industrial enterprises should completely switch off all energy-consuming equipment. Under the personal responsibility of each company’s owner. It is recommended to send people home now.
Public lighting in the city will be partially switched off.
– I ask city residents not to switch on any energy-consuming appliances.
– The number of urban electric transport will be minimal. Therefore, everyone is advised to stay at home.
– Turn off any advertising, including shop signs.
If this is not done, the whole city will be forcibly disconnected.“
These emergency instructions seem very sensible and coherent. However, given the evidence that the attacks will continue and in view of what happened to the 854 miners, the District Military Headquarters does not clearly state – and it is no coincidence that it omits it – that all work in mining production, in the pits and open-pit mining, must be suspended until further notice, with a guarantee of the payment of lost wages by the companies – almost all of them owned by powerful transnational corporations and oligarchs. Demanding this will be an immediate task for trade unions in the sector throughout Ukraine. And this is where the Independent Workers’ Unions will distinguish themselves from the “banana unions”, as they call the bureaucratised and sold-out ones there.
