コービンがウクライナ武器供与慎重論 スコットランドのスタージョン軍国主義的ツイートを削除

Scottish leader scorched over ‘militarist’ tweet
Backlash on social media forced Nicola Sturgeon to remove a post about “eliminated” Russian soldiers

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has deleted her tweet about “eliminated” Russian soldiers in Ukraine after accusations of “glorifying war”.

On Tuesday, Sturgeon retweeted a Ukrainian Defense Ministry post. It claimed that the “total combat losses of the enemy” included “41,170 of eliminated personnel.”

As the Ukrainian military’s post had a quote from Scottish poet Robert Burns’ 'Scots Wha Hae', once considered as Scotland’s unofficial national anthem, Sturgeon added a hashtag ‘robertburns’ to the post, along with ‘#solidarity’ and a Ukrainian flag.

“The First Minister of Scotland should not be glorifying war,” Labour MSP Mercedes Villalba tweeted, adding that it is possible to oppose it without “celebrating” the deaths of people and that Sturgeon should delete the post and apologize for it.

Another user wondered on Twitter how the Scottish minister can “glorify the deaths” of Russian soldiers, who are “someone’s sons, brothers, fathers.”

Following the wave of negative comments on social media, the first minister removed the post, but it hasn’t stopped the flow of criticism.

Villalba noted that there still “has been no explanation or apology” from Sturgeon and urged the first minister to “make it clear that celebrating lives lost to war is both reckless and wrong.”

Another Twitter user called Sturgeon’s tweet “deeply disgraceful” and said that “despite its removal, this says so much about her Western militarist mindset.”

Some commenters went even further, calling on Sturgeon to “resign immediately” over her “disgusting” comment. “She calls them ‘enemy’ are we at war?” one of the posts said.

Moscow has not updated the numbers of its troop losses since March, when it reported 1,351 military personnel killed. In June, the head of the Russian Duma’s Defense Committee, Andrey Kartapolov, claimed that, due to changes in military strategy, the Russian Army has “practically ceased to lose people.”

Kiev has not disclosed its total military losses either but claims that the figure is several times lower than Russia’s.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

British politician urges West to stop arming Ukraine
The former Labour leader has warned that pouring weapons into the conflict will only prolong it

The West should stop arming Kiev forces as it will only serve to exaggerate the ongoing conflict with Russia, former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn stated in a TV interview on Tuesday. He also criticized Western leaders for hardly ever talking about peace.

Speaking to Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV channel, Corbyn said that “pouring arms in isn’t going to bring about a solution, it’s only going to prolong and exaggerate this war,” adding that “we might be in for years and years” of the conflict.

The politician said he found it “disappointing that hardly any of the world’s leaders use the word ‘peace’,” explaining that they only use “the language of more war and more bellicose war.”

Corbyn noted the disastrous consequences of the prolonged conflict for the people of Ukraine and Russia, as well as for the safety and security of the whole world, insisting that more effort should be put into reaching a peaceful resolution.

He urged the UN to be “much more center stage” and proposed involving other international bodies such as the African Union or the League of Arab States to help negotiate a ceasefire.

Corbyn was suspended from Labour Party membership in October 2020 after suggesting that accusations of anti-Semitism within his party were “overblown for political purposes.” He has since founded the Peace and Justice Project – a fund that focuses on environmentalism, international peace cooperation, poverty, social inequality, and corporate power.

He is also one of the former chairs and current member of the Stop The War Coalition, a British advocacy group that opposes the conflict in Ukraine and calls for the crisis to be settled in a manner that respects both the Ukrainian people’s right to self-determination as well as Russia’s national security concerns. The coalition also demands that NATO halt its eastward expansion and refutes the idea that the organization is a defensive alliance.

In an open letter published shortly before Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February, the group also urged the British government to stop sending arms to Ukraine and troops to Eastern Europe as it served “no purpose other than inflaming tensions and indicating disdain for Russian concerns.”

Current Labour party leader Keir Starmer has criticized both Corbyn and the Stop The War Coalition, arguing that the group’s members are “naive” at best and “actively give succour to authoritarian leaders who directly threaten democracies” at worst. He has insisted that if Corbyn was ever to be readmitted to the Labour party, he would need to distance himself from the organization.