russia is a white supremacy coloniser.

The global awareness about the history, nature, and crimes of russian colonialism is slowly speeding up. Ukrainians are paying a horrific price for it, but every day, we force the rest of the world to serve historical justice and recognise russia as the last colonial empire still standing. After all, it is impossible to grasp the full extent of the catastrophe unfolding in Ukraine if you don't look at it from a decolonial angle.

But let's be honest: russian colonialism awareness might slowly be taking hold in the Western world, but the Global South is largely still unconvinced. Taiwan or Kenya might be rare exceptions, but from Brazil to South Africa and India, there's little anti-colonial solidarity with Ukraine. President Zelenskyy might be a superstar in the Western world, but when he recently made a passionate anti-colonial plea at the African Union session, only four of 55 heads of state tuned in.

The lack of compassion or solidarity sometimes turns into aggressive pushback, too. Ukrainian survivors of colonialism are routinely denied access to global decolonial conversations. Their experiences and stories are often openly ridiculed and devalued by postcolonial scholars and researchers. They face everyday dismissal online, where they are told that only white people can be colonisers and only people of colour can be colonised. I personally experienced all of the above situations.

These sentiments are being skillfully used and repackaged by russian propaganda to fuel more Ukrainophobia in the Global South. Either by spreading lies about who's responsible for blocking food exports from Ukraine, or fabricating stories about racism or mistreatment of people of colour in Ukraine.

The Kremlin keeps spending enormous resources on badmouthing Ukraine in the Global South to deflect the attention of the local public from four simple facts:

• First, the Global South can play a crucial role in ending the russia-made food crisis and help to end the war in Ukraine.

• Second, russia keeps pillaging the Global South for resources while fueling corruption and terror there (from Sudan, CAR, Madagascar to Venezuela and Bolivia );

• Third, Ukrainians and Eastern Europeans don't carry the same whiteness privileges as Western white folks, and our history of anti-colonial struggle resembles the one that the Global South has had.

• Fourth, and most importantly, russia has never been a true anti-colonial or anti-racism ally for the Global South. russia is different from other Western colonial powers in just one way: it has never had the same resources for overseas colonisation. So it used shallow solidarity rhetoric and Machiavellian political manipulations to mask its colonial expansion into the Global South.

This week, I am featuring prominent voices of colour and indigenous voices dismantling myths about russian colonialism and showing it what it truly is: just another white supremacy project.

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Example of a russian propaganda poster from the 1960s promoting the idea of 'post-racial' solidarity, yet still traditionally positioning a blond and white russian person at the centre.

here is what's in store for you this week:

• Was the Soviet stage of russian colonialism anti-racist? No.

• Was the Tsarist stage of russian colonialism planning to join the colonial scramble for Africa? Yes.

• How is white supremacy integral to russian colonialism?

• How does russian colonialism make white-on-white racism work?

Like it?

Then Slava Ukraïni and let’s go.

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Russian Colonialism 101 is the first newsletter to shed light on Russian colonialism and is part of the Volya Hub network.

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