THE war between Russia and Ukraine is part of a wider conflict between capitalist powers, between Russia on one side and Ukraine and the expansionist Nato powers on the other.

Neither side in this war stands for the real interests of the peoples of Russia, Ukraine, or of Europe more widely, which include living in peace and determining the future of their own society free from outside domination.

Putin represents the interests of Russia’s big business oligarchs who profit from the theft of that country’s economic assets from the Russian working class. Far from wishing to restore the Soviet Union, he rejects socialism and has explicitly attacked Lenin’s policy of federalism and autonomy which guarantees the rights of nations and nationalities.