If you listen to some people and publications on the left, Ukraine is dominated by the extreme right and fascists. If there are democratic forces and a democratic movement, they are found on the margins – without influence or representation.

While the right wing in Ukraine is a matter of concern, it isn’t anywhere near as powerful as the right wing extremists led by Putin in Russia. In recent polling before scheduled elections in May, the right wing extremist parties – fascist if you like – were polling in single digits.

Today, the ALBA Board of Governors issued the following statement regarding the horrific events unfolding in Ukraine:

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) condemns the invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces. The resulting destruction, chaos, and loss of life is the sole responsibility of President Vladimir Putin, who has perverted the concept of anti-fascism to justify imperialism and these despicable violations of human rights. ALBA stands in complete solidarity with the Ukrainian people as they suffer these unprovoked and unjustified attacks.

Whenever the fog of war lifts, one conclusion that will be drawn is that much of the disinformation of Putin and his government was uncritically absorbed and repeated by some on the left. The latest example was the alleged “humanitarian crisis” in the Donbas area that was shopped by some on the left and became the rationale for Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

The right wing is a problem in Ukaine, but nowhere near as big a problem as some on the left suggest. Ukraine has democratic voices and movements, which seem to escape the attention of some writers on the left.

Many people on the left are looking at the confrontation between the U.S. and Russia over the status of Ukraine through the lens of the Cold War. But I wonder if this is the only frame that we should employ? Don’t we have to complicate this framing? I believe so.

Putin is more than a reactive and defensive actor in the present circumstances and generally speaking. By his words and actions, he is an anti-democratic, ruthless autocrat who crushes demoracy at home and aggressively interferes in the internal life of other countries (as we know) beyond Russia’s border. He possesses imperial ambitions to restore some version of the Old Russian empire or the former Soviet Union. At the center of both visions is the absorption of Ukraine.

These facts don’t lend any legitimacy to the expansion of Nato eastward at the end of the Cold War, as the U.S. government continues to do.. But it should inform our understanding of the present crisis. The violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty by Putin’s recognition of the independence of the separatist territories in Eastern Ukraine and the introduction of Russian troops to that area is an act of aggression and a violation of international norms. It’s misguided, illegal, and exceedingly dangerous, an attempt to resolve a complicated situation by military means.

What is more, these actions by Putin could well be the opening salvo, depending on how the international community reacts, to further aggression, to scaling up the invasion to the rest of Ukraine. Such an action would carry with it death and destruction on a barely comprehensible scale. Finally, like any war, it would run the danger of triggering a far wider war, including the danger of the use of nuclear weapons. And that would be catastrophic.

Restraint, de-escalation, and negotiation on all sides is the order of the day.