On Saturday the sixth of August, members of Ireland’s Russian community held a protest in Dublin against the current trajectory that the 26 County State appears to be taking in regards to joining NATO.
Supported by Irish Republican groups, Republican Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Socialist Party, the demonstration took place on O’Connell Street, Dublin’s main thoroughfare, facing the General Post Office – the historic site where the Irish Republic was declared in arms on Easter Monday 1916.
Indeed, just as Irish men and women fought against British imperialism in 1916, the US and UK-supported Imperialism that precipitated the Russian intervention in Ukraine was highlighted at the protest, with many placards raising awareness of the eight-year long war waged by the Western-backed Kiev government on the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk Republics.
A conflict that led to 14,000 deaths and involved the use of neo-Nazi paramilitaries such as Azov Battalion and Right Sector, with scant coverage by the Western media.
With 60+ demonstrators in attendance and with warm weather, the protest was well-received by passers by, and played an essential role in the campaign to prevent Ireland from joining NATO and becoming an active participant in the devastating wars the coalition has carried out in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.