Report Given at the January 2026 General Meeting.

This February, the war in Ukraine will exceed four years, the longest and most intense clash between regular armies since the end of World War II. It therefore constitutes a fundamental test, both for the states involved, and for the proletariat that is its victim. Despite this, relations between world imperialisms are going through such a stormy period that this war has been relegated to the background by the international media.

The impromptu promises of the U.S. president, newly re-elected a year ago, to bring the fighting to a swift end by proposing a division of the Ukrainian spoils between the United States and Russia, have been met with opposition from many European states, excluded from the banquet despite their involvement in the war, while Russia has shown no interest in accepting a compromise agreement.

Just recently, behind the scenes at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a revived Zelensky met again with Trump and other U.S. trustees who were negotiating with the Kremlin.

Zelensky, despite having just received another $90 billion from the European Union – which is busy finding a way to keep Greenland’s ice – did not hesitate to harshly criticize it for its indecision toward Russia, and announced a first three-way meeting in the United Arab Emirates between the US, Russia, and Ukraine, which was then held on January 23 and 24.

Thus, the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, in dire straits, seems to be moving away from the embrace of the EU, finally forced to surrender itself into the hands of the U.S. We shall see.

During these long years of war, the Ukrainian and Russian proletariat have paid a very high price in human lives, some regions of Ukraine have been reduced to rubble, but the material damage is also considerable in Russia.

This destruction will affect the proletariat of both countries for generations to come. Against the backdrop of this tragic context, a political class of inconsequential actors continues to organize useless summits, “high-level” meetings, called “peace negotiations”, a media spectacle behind which the opposing imperialist fronts continue to fuel the war. At this moment, no government has a real interest in ending the war, despite its obvious futility.

Russia Wins (for now)

Russia, with an army that has been on the offensive across the entire front for more than a year, has no interest in peace unless it obtains most of what it demanded when it invaded in February 2022. Basically: NATO must stay out of Ukraine; the four eastern oblasts must be recognized as part of Russia, as already enshrined in the Constitution; the Ukrainian army must be reduced to no more than 70-80,000 troops, and for the sole purpose of maintaining internal social order.

Russia’s successes, due to its growing superiority in troops, equipment, and firepower, allowed Putin to state on December 27 that “if the authorities in Kyiv do not want to resolve the issue peacefully, we will resolve all the problems that await us with a special military operation and military means”. This does not seem like bluster to us. The Russian army has already conquered 19-20% of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea, and continues to hammer energy infrastructure, industrial areas, military bases, and especially the port of Odessa with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones on a regular basis. Ukrainian air defenses are proving increasingly ineffective against these attacks. The Ukrainian army is falling apart while the Russian army is growing stronger. It is winning the war and is therefore in a position to dictate the terms of a possible peace agreement, or to impose it de facto once it has achieved its objectives.

The Massacre of Proletarians in Uniform

The most reliable estimates put Russian casualties between 250,000 and 350,000, while those of the Kiev army may have exceeded 800,000. This assessment contradicts Western propaganda, which always speaks of ‘very high Russian losses.’

For many months, the Russian army, which has far superior firepower to the Ukrainians in terms of artillery, drones, and air power, has been able to strike hard at enemy lines.

The situation also favors Russia in terms of recruitment. According to various sources, the Ukrainian army endured approximately 300,000 desertions in 2025, at least 850,000 men of draft age are hiding from recruiters, and approximately 650,000 remain abroad to avoid wearing the uniform. The Russian army, on the other hand, fights by enlisting between 360,000 and 400,000 contract volunteers per year, rather than sending conscripts to the front, and suffers from fewer desertions as a result. It has already planned to enlist 409,000 in 2026.

It seems clear to us that if Russian soldiers were sent to their deaths in “mass assaults”, as the Ukrainian general staff claims, there would not be so many volunteers, despite the good pay.

The Economic Crisis

Western propaganda continues to claim that Russia is in the throes of a serious economic crisis and high inflation, caused mainly by Western sanctions, which should soon lead to political and military collapse.

This too is an illusion. Before the economic crisis causes internal divisions and social unrest that would force an end to the war – something we hope for but which, unfortunately, will not happen in the short term – the Russian army will force Ukraine to surrender unconditionally, the Ukrainian bourgeoisie will lose all its wealth, and its allies will have to come to terms with this.

The Criminal Steadfastness of the Ukrainian Government

However, the Ukrainian government still refuses to cede territory and continues to seek military and financial aid from the West, despite the lack of reserves, rampant desertions, and incomplete replacements of brigades.

But the Kiev government’s stance is not one of national pride, as European warmongering propaganda would have us believe, but of subservience to the party of war at any cost. Zelensky has no other choice, having sold out his own proletariat to his American and European masters. This meant first resisting the invasion, then continuing the war, against all military logic and against any consideration of simple mercy towards his own people.

An article in Le Monde diplomatique argues that “it would be morally unthinkable for Zelensky’s forces, which have sent thousands of soldiers to their deaths to preserve Donbass, to voluntarily surrender the positions they still hold (...) The army would probably refuse to obey.” A capitulation on the other hand, which is what this would be, would certainly be welcomed with enthusiasm by the soldiers at the front, and also with great relief by the civilian population. But the demobilization of the army could trigger a political crisis, the outbreak of unrest, or perhaps even a civil war.

On the other hand, if the Russian government were to give up the occupation of the whole of Donbass, it could not pass off the end of the war as a victory, and this would probably lead to an internal crisis.

Just as the Russian bourgeoisie sacrificed the proletariat, who has nothing to gain from this war, to defend its interests, threatened by the bourgeoisie of the West, the Ukrainian bourgeoisie sacrificed the proletariat for the sake of Ukrainian capitalists, in service to Washington and Berlin. The chickens may come home to roost.

As we clearly wrote in March 2022, a few days after the outbreak of the war: "The working class of Ukraine would have nothing to lose from an immediate surrender of its bourgeoisie in the face of the Russian invasion. Symmetrically, the workers of Russia have nothing to gain from a victory of their state in Ukraine. But the bourgeoisie of Ukraine wanted war, just as much as their Western ‘protectors’ and the Russian bourgeoisie.”

The Internal Situation

Already in 2014, well before the outbreak of the war, we noted how the economic crisis had caused “a massive emigration in Ukraine: the population, which had reached 52,179,210 inhabitants in 1993, steadily declined in the following years, reaching 45,593,300 in 2012. This demonstrates the severity of the crisis and the suffering the population had to endure. For the proletariat and the middle classes, it was like being at war.”

But in the following years, the situation worsened: currently, there are over 8 million Ukrainians abroad, with about 6 million in the EU. 1.8 million were internally displaced by the war in Donbass from 2014 to 2022, and another 5.7 million by the Russian invasion in 2022.

The current population is less than 37 million, compared to 146 million in Russia, a ratio of four to one.

From a financial point of view, Ukraine is also bankrupt. According to International Monetary Fund estimates, it will need at least $160 billion by this spring.

The indefinite continuation of the fighting, bombing, and destruction when the military game is already over, on the one hand demonstrates the strength of the war party, supported by the capitalist oligarchies, the producers, and the arms dealers. On the other, it confirms the weakness of the international proletarian movement, and of the Ukrainian one in particular. In the absence of strong unions and a class-based party, it is incapable of mounting a reaction capable of blocking the imperialist war from below.

The Non-Existent European Union

In this situation of extreme global tensions, the European Union has once again demonstrated that it does not exist as a unified body. The states have acted autonomously and in conflict with each other, showing that the causes of the conflicts of the last century are far from gone.

The EU’s top leaders are crying out about the Russian threat, with the Cossack cavalry ready to drink from the Trevi Fountain, as Christian Democratic propaganda claimed in Italy in 1948, and are launching a huge rearmament plan. But in reality, it is individual states that are rearming, with Germany at the forefront.

Every bourgeoisie in Europe, large and small, is defending its own interests and sphere of influence, strengthening nationalist policies, patriotic spirit, and above all the military budget, in preparation for the future clash that they desire. The Polish president summed up this disastrous policy well with the motto “Money today or blood tomorrow,” which in reality means “Money today and blood tomorrow.”

Even the Ukrainian president in Davos did not spare criticism of the ailing European Union, despite the fact that it had just allocated another $90 billion in aid! This is completely insufficient, but with this additional “loan” EU leaders have confirmed that they are still betting on war “to the last Ukrainian.” In fact, these funds would be “guaranteed” by Russia’s payment of reparations, a prospect that is currently highly unlikely.

On the other hand, the European Union has accepted all the dictates imposed in recent months by the United States, from military spending at 6% of GDP to $600 billion for investment in US industry and $750 billion to purchase expensive American gas, after rejecting cheap Russian gas.

The European states represent the weakest capitalist bloc, and they are paying the consequences.

But the proletariat of Europe must shun the political sirens that extol the unity of the Union, its “values” of democracy and freedom. Enabling the bourgeoisies of the continent to defend themselves from pressure from the East as well as from the West would only mean the birth of a third imperialist bloc opposed to those of the United States and China. The international proletariat would have nothing to gain from this. A clash between capitalist blocs is brewing that has nothing to do with the interests of the proletariat. It is with the propaganda of the defense of the homeland, of freedom, of democracy, of peace, that the transversal and international war party will attempt to drag the proletarians to the front.

NATO Collapses

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has also become embroiled in the conflict. As we wrote in our 2022 article: "Officially, since 2014, NATO has had a constant presence in the organization and training of the devastated Ukrainian army. It is clear that work was being done to expand the conflict from a local one involving the separatist republics to an open and general conflict. The presence of Western military structures represented an important Atlantic outpost on Ukrainian territory, even if temporarily outside the Alliance. More recently, under the presidency of the docile former actor Zelensky (2020-21), Ukraine even became an operational area for NATO exercises, with provocative operations to put pressure on neighboring Russia.”

During these four years of war, the member states of the organization have taken very different positions, suffice it to think of the policies pursued by Hungary or Turkey or the opposing ones of Great Britain or Poland.

Despite the Secretary General’s proclamations against the “existential” threat posed by Russia and China, the results are few and far between, and the internal differences between the allies on the level of involvement, timing, and final objectives reveal the absence of a common vision and unmask the propaganda efforts to make the Atlantic Alliance appear a monolithic and cohesive force.

NATO’s political role in this war is ambiguous: it is an active party to the conflict, in fact, but continues to present itself as a non-belligerent entity so as not to openly challenge Moscow. The hypocrisy of formal non-intervention and substantial military support is a clear sign that there is no clear and coherent shared political line. The United States, which has been the linchpin of the Atlantic Alliance since its inception, makes no secret of its desire to ‘emancipate’ itself from it. The guidelines of the new National Defense Strategy, released by the Pentagon, state: ’The absolute priority of the armed forces is to defend the United States. The Department will therefore prioritize this objective, including defending American interests throughout the Western Hemisphere.“ It continues: ”While U.S. forces focus on defending the homeland and the Indo-Pacific, our allies and partners will take primary responsibility for their own defense, with essential but more limited support from U.S. forces.”

On the Grand Chessboard of Dying Capitalism

The war in Ukraine, which pits NATO against Russia, is in fact more a war between the United States and Europe, especially Germany. Washington makes no secret of its satisfaction at having broken the commercial, industrial, and financial ties that united some European countries, Germany foremost among them, with Russia. It has cut off gas and oil supplies and forced European states to drastically increase their military budgets, to the benefit of US arms giants. The Pentagon declares that Russia is not the adversary, openly contradicting the narrative of the NATO Secretary General and drastically reducing military and economic aid to Ukraine. At this point, NATO no longer has a reason to exist, although it will probably continue to stand, surviving itself.

NATO military bases are thus increasingly revealing themselves for what they have always been: strongholds of US imperialism’s military occupation of Western Europe, imposed after victory in World War II. Its purpose has also been to keep a combative proletariat subjugated, in collaboration with the Warsaw Pact states, which were responsible for crushing the working class in Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile, the huge presence of Chinese mega-capitalism is quietly imposing itself on the world.

How long will Berlin wait before demanding accountability for the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, ordered by the US and carried out by a Ukrainian commando unit? Will they put the pro-Nazi Alternative for Germany in government for this?

The contradictions of imperialism are becoming increasingly evident as the crisis deepens and war approaches.

New Scenarios

These new scenarios are causing concern among the bourgeois international diplomatic corps.

The capitalist regime, in its phase of decadent imperialism, is heading straight for war. A catastrophic third world war can only be prevented by the rise of international proletarian reaction.

To achieve this, vast trade union organizations are needed, under the influence of a strong international communist party. These will work to ensure that the proletariat of every country, even if “attacked”, does not join the war or defend the “sacred borders”. Because the enemy is their own national bourgeoisie, whether it cloaks itself in fascist banners or democratic robes. It will fraternize with the proletarian “invading” soldiers, who are also being sent to slaughter, and will prepare for the only war favorable to the proletariat, that of liberating itself, through communist revolution, from this infamous political regime!

This is the immense but exciting task that lies ahead for our comrades in the coming months and years.