European antiwar protests gain strength as NATO’s Ukraine proxy war escalates

Europeans are storming the streets in unprecedented numbers to protest NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine and their own declining living standards. The Grayzone has covered demonstrations and interviewed protest leaders in several countries since the war erupted.

 

by Stavroula Pabst and Max Blumenthal

 

Part 3 - Recent protests build on months of antiwar activity across Europe

 

The recent spate of demonstrations follows protests in Italy, where tens of thousands demonstrated in November 2022 against PM Giorgia Meloni’s decision to send arms to Ukraine, and burned their electricity bills in a display of civil disobedience.

A poll of Italians taken this February shows that a major of the country’s citizens oppose sending arms to Ukraine, and favor an immediate negotiated solution.

In Leipzig, Germany, meanwhile, mass protests against skyrocketing food and energy prices have been surging since last Fall. As in Berlin, where Wagenecht openly declared that anyone was welcome regardless of their political persuasion, these demonstrations presented a show of unity against the war between the left-wing Die Linke party and the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD). 

Leipzig’s protests have been portrayed as a revival of the “Cold War Mondays” held in the city throughout the late 1980s, where the public demonstrated against a faltering German Democratic Republic. This time, however, the protest target is a centrist, neoliberal regime that is hellbent on conflict with Russia.

Source, links:

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/02/27/europeans-protest-natos-proxy-war/

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