RMT leader who brings strike misery to millions caught on camera with warlord and Communist Party flag
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Eddie Dempsey spotted alongside Russian separatists
Gareth Corfield Transport Correspondent
16th January 2026
The leader of Britain’s biggest railway trade union joined in pro-Russian chants and posed with a Communist Party flag during a visit to occupied Ukraine, The Telegraph can disclose.
Eddie Dempsey, the general secretary of the RMT, visited the Donbas in 2015 as part of what he has described as a “humanitarian convoy”. The region had been invaded by Russia the previous year.
Video footage and photographs from his visit show him holding the red Communist Party flag; posing in front of a statue of Lenin, and chanting slogans in Russian – including “United we are invincible” and “The Donbas, the tomb of fascism”.
Mr Dempsey, whose union has repeatedly brought British train services and the Tube to a halt through strike action, was attending an “anti-fascist” event in the city of Alchevsk, organised by Luhansk Communist Party on behalf of the Prizrak Brigade, a separatist group.
He had been invited there by Aleksey Mozgovoy, the brigade’s founder, who died two weeks later.
Mozgovoy, described by academics as seeing himself as a Che Guevara figure leading a communist uprising against Ukraine, was assassinated by Vladimir Putin’s security services over fears he was not willing to take orders from the Kremlin.
During his visit, Mr Dempsey wore a T-shirt showing the coat of arms of Novorossiya, a 19th century Russian province covering southern and eastern Ukraine. The name was adopted by pro-Putin militants who believed they could resurrect Novorossiya as part of a modern Russian empire.
The footage and photos from May 2015 show the full extent to which Mr Dempsey took part in the Anti-Fascist Forum propaganda event, which was intended to legitimise Mozgovoy’s control over Alchevsk and the surrounding area.
He was travelling with about 100 communists on a trip led by Banda Bassotti, a far-Left ska-punk band from Rome. Ukrainian authorities later sought the extradition of the Italian, Spanish and Greek members of the band’s “humanitarian convoy” under local anti-terror laws.
In a Facebook post thanking the Prizrak Brigade for allowing them to visit, Banda Bassotti said: “Both times that we went through Russia to arrive to Novorossiya [sic] with the Antifascist Caravan, we were welcomed by Russia with affection.
“We want to thank the Russian people for its warm welcome and for its help. We know that the attack against Novorossiya is an attack against Russia and its people as well.”
In footage shot by members of the Prizrak Brigade, whose name is Russian for “ghost”, Mr Dempsey is seen getting off a coach and filming Mozgovoy, who is denouncing the Ukrainian government as “money launderers” and boasting about plans to build collective pig farms.
In one photo, the RMT leader is seen in a group of people holding a red flag with the words “Communist Party” in yellow writing below the hammer a sickle symbol.
Other images show banners for extreme-Left groups, including Italy’s Communist Refoundation Party, Germany’s Anti-Imperialistische Aktion, the Luhansk Communists and the Soviet Union’s Victory Banner, a symbol of Russian nationalism since 1945.
Footage also captures the group chanting slogans in Russian, including “United we are invincible” and “The Donbas, the tomb of fascism”.
Mr Dempsey, who was a London Underground driver and member of the RMT’s Paddington No 1 branch at the time of the visit, went on to write about it for the Morning Star, a Left-wing newspaper.
The past informs the present in rebel-held eastern Ukraine
By Eddie Dempsey
… here we were on a cold and damp May morning, crossing the Russian border into rebel-held eastern Ukraine.
…
We arrived at night during a power cut, entering the barracks by torchlight. Our beams illuminated a red flag, complete with hammer and sickle. This was not the Soviet national flag but a military variant, the Banner of Victory, which had been raised above the Reichstag in April 1945. Here was a replica, hanging in pride of place.
…
The highlight of our trip came on May 9 when we joined thousands of locals and the people’s militia on a parade through the streets of Alchevsk to mark the 70th anniversary of Germany’s surrender.
… Children wore Red Army outfits and held balloons adorned with the hammer and sickle.
Such displays are today illegal in areas beyond rebel control, where Soviet symbolism has been banned by the US-EU-backed regime that seized power in the Kiev coup of February 2014.
…
After the concert a little girl approached me holding a pen and paper. I was astonished — she was asking for an autograph. Despite my protests she was persistent and, having relented, I was rewarded with a precious hug.
I drew a hammer and sickle next to my signature below the words “No Fascism!” spelt as best as I could in the Cyrillic alphabet.
… The experience left me shaking with emotion.
An extract from Eddie Dempsey’s article in June 2015 for The Morning Star
Mozgovoy, a former soldier in the Ukrainian army, formed an armed mob that seized control of Alchevsk and the surrounding area when Ukrainian authorities lost their grip on Luhansk in 2014.
He swore loyalty to Russian warlord Igor Girkin, leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic. Girkin was convicted in absentia of murdering 298 people on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down a few miles away from Alchevsk in 2014.
By 2015, Mozgovoy and other pro-Russian militia leaders were vying for territory that they could hand to Putin, in the hope they would be allowed to keep personal control of it.
At his peak, he led around 3,000 armed fighters, who established their headquarters in Alchevsk, a city of 100,000 built around a vast iron and steel processing plant.
The RMT faced criticism after members at its 2025 annual conference passed a motion demanding that the Government cut off financial support to Ukraine.
An RMT spokesman said: “Eddie Dempsey is a lifelong anti-fascist with an extensive track record of fighting racism in Britain and abroad.
“His decision to go on a humanitarian convoy to Ukraine was motivated by the appalling House of Trade Unions fire in 2014, in which at least 42 people were killed, following clashes with far right Ukrainian nationalists.
“Mr Dempsey has at no time supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.”
The House of the Trade Unions fire broke out in a building in Odesa after Molotov cocktails were thrown into it during clashes between pro-Ukraine and pro-Russia activists.
“His decision to go on a humanitarian convoy to Ukraine was motivated by the appalling House of Trade Unions fire in 2014, in which at least 42 people were killed, following clashes with far right Ukrainian nationalists.”
These communist cocksuckers have dug out that old kremkrapp lie fest yet again.
* I have stated many times that the U.K. trade union movement is dominated by Putin-loving Irish communists. It is important because the ruling Labour Party is bankrolled by the trade unions, who already succeeded once in electing a putlerist communist as leader; JeremIRA CorbLenin. They will be trying to repeat that feat soon.
* This article is proof of that fact and also that communism and fascism are in reality one and the same. Both being super-violent, genocidal, totalitarian in nature and both always with a cult of personality built around a psychopathic ruler.
* China sells itself as communist. In reality it is fascist, with a dictator and his cronies; all of whom enriching themselves off the state. The putler business model in other words.
* We live in a sick world with three would-be emperors seeking to divvy up the world between them : Jiz-Ping, putler and his sidekick Krasnov.
* Krasnov is preparing to leave his empire to a verminous nazi; Vance, who will then at some point be required to hand over to a creature even more vile than both : Krasnov Jr.
WTF?