#01: Kateryna Kostrova / Sotsialnyi Rukh

One of Ukraine’s most prominent leftist organizations is Sotsialnyi Rukh, the "social movement". In the early days of the invasion, it was members of Sotsialnyi Rukh, like Taras Bilous, Volodymyr Artiukh, and others, who engaged most actively in international leftist debates about how to understand what was happening, and how to respond. 

On a trip to Kyiv in December 2023, I visited Kateryna Kostrova, who was chairperson of Sotsialnyi Rukh at the time. Over a cup of tea, she told me about her own way into politics and into Sotsialnyi Rukh, about some of the challenges of organizing during wartime, and about the highs and lows of interacting with left movements in other countries. Kateryna has since left the organization and moved on to other projects.

My article for Jacobin on the Ukrainian government's neoliberal reform program, which I mention in the show.

My interview for Novara Media, with Sotsialnyi Rukh's previous chairperson, Vitaliy Dudin, on the March 2022 decree banning 11 political parties.

An interview I did for Novara with Sergey Movchan, of Solidarity Collectives, about their work equipping comrades at the front with crowd-funded gear.

Music: Supra by INTRNLCMD (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0)