Il Manifesto’s attempt to rally broad support on the issue of Ukraine

It all began on 27 September, when Francesco Strazzari, Professor of International Relations at the Normale di Pisa, wrote an article in Il Manifesto entitled "Kyiv and European defence: the ambiguity". Since then, the daily newspaper founded by Lucio Magri, Luciana Castellina and Rossana Rossanda has begun to publish daily contributions from professors and analysts who, from a left-wing perspective, are seeking a solution to the Ukrainian conflict, but are doing so on the basis of a premise hitherto unheard of in those circles: arming Kyiv is not a taboo. If Elly Schlein and the PD wish to reach a compromise on this point with the M5S and AVS – who remain stubbornly opposed to military support for Ukraine – they can point to this debate, which clearly demonstrates that support for Kyiv is not a capitulation to warmongering rhetoric. Quite the contrary. It forms the basis of a sincere attempt to seek peace and bring the conflict to an end as soon as possible. Strazzari himself draws the fundamental distinction in the first article of this series: supporting Kyiv, even militarily, does not mean being in favour of national rearmament plans or, more generally, the arms race. “Arms for Kyiv and European defence are issues that must be kept separate,” writes the Pisa-based lecturer in his article. It is on this distinction that, if there is to be one at all, an agreement on Ukraine within the left can be reached.

The decision to open this debate on the left regarding the war in Ukraine was also championed by the newspaper’s editor, Andrea Fabozzi, who explained in an interview with the Corriere della Sera: “Strazzari argues that Ukraine must be helped, that the military aspect is unavoidable but does not exhaust the task. Here too, he breaks a taboo: the distinction between offensive and defensive weapons is hypocritical. Sometimes you defend yourself by attacking.” The editor of *Il Manifesto* also emphasises that: “One cannot fail to recognise that there has been some delay on the left in acknowledging Putin’s reactionary, nationalist and authoritarian tendencies. I do not know whether this delay is a typical case of anti-Americanism – whereby the enemy of my enemy is my friend – or whether the legacy of the Soviet Union has been misinterpreted.”