On August 24th, 2026, Ukraine celebrated its 35th year of reclaimed independence, against all odds and in the face of seemingly endless violence. For Palestine, independence remains an aspiration, a dream undeterred by the accelerating brutality of the occupation. While often pitted against each other on the political arena, Ukrainians and Palestinians have so much more in common, including their ongoing struggles against colonialism and imperialism. In this article, Arab America contributing writer Rami Balin discusses Ukrainian-Palestinian solidarity and the connections forged by people, not governments.
Ukrainians and Palestinians do not and must not have any solidarity with each other in this framing. If a tortured connection has to be made it would be that Ukraine is Israel and Russia is the Iran/Hezbollah to the Donetsk and Luhansk peoples republic that are Palestine. Not coincidentally, the US has the same position of funding the conflict
Ukraine is a neo-Nazi controlled NATO proxy that did not have the political independence from its western puppeteers to respect the Minsk agreements (which was the neoliberal solution to end hot conflict in the eastern republics). The ruling class of Ukraine instead chose to engage in a civil war against eastern ukrainians, of which Russia took the lightest retaliation (annexing Crimea after the Nazi-led maidan takeover).
How can Palestinians have solidarity with a racist, white supremacist, anti-communist nation that is fed weapons by the very same countries funding and supporting the genocide of their own peoples? Or the fact that Ukrainian military can be found destabilizing other anti colonial projects such as the ones in AES (Mali, Burkina faso, Niger, etc)? Putin’s military strategy is nowhere as criminal as Israel: Kyiv is still a standing city and Mariupol and other eastern cities are repaired and rebuilt after being liberated.
The people who want to force this solidarity are deeply unserious and not to be trusted in any capacity. This is a disgusting article.
Ukrainians and Palestinians do not and must not have any solidarity with each other in this framing. If a tortured connection has to be made it would be that Ukraine is Israel and Russia is the Iran/Hezbollah to the Donetsk and Luhansk peoples republic that are Palestine. Not coincidentally, the US has the same position of funding the conflict
Ukraine is a neo-Nazi controlled NATO proxy that did not have the political independence from its western puppeteers to respect the Minsk agreements (which was the neoliberal solution to end hot conflict in the eastern republics). The ruling class of Ukraine instead chose to engage in a civil war against eastern ukrainians, of which Russia took the lightest retaliation (annexing Crimea after the Nazi-led maidan takeover).
How can Palestinians have solidarity with a racist, white supremacist, anti-communist nation that is fed weapons by the very same countries funding and supporting the genocide of their own peoples? Or the fact that Ukrainian military can be found destabilizing other anti colonial projects such as the ones in AES (Mali, Burkina faso, Niger, etc)? Putin’s military strategy is nowhere as criminal as Israel: Kyiv is still a standing city and Mariupol and other eastern cities are repaired and rebuilt after being liberated.
The people who want to force this solidarity are deeply unserious and not to be trusted in any capacity. This is a disgusting article.