STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT- The Russian-Ukrainian war has a past history that Russia can’t forget the background and implications of the 2014 far-right coup in Kiev, which overthrew the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, is critical for understanding the current Ukraine-Russia war. This coup was openly supported by US and European imperialism and implemented primarily by far-right shock troops such as the Right Sector and the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party.
It represented the temporary culmination of long-standing efforts by US imperialism to install a puppet regime on the borders of Russia and brought the world a major step closer to a war between the largest nuclear powers, the US and Russia. Ukraine has since been systematically built up as a launching pad for a NATO war against Russia.
The regime change prompted the outbreak of an ongoing civil war in the east of Ukraine, between Russian-backed separatists and the US-backed Ukrainian army, that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands and displaced millions.
In the US, the coup was a catalyzer for an ever more aggressive campaign against Russia and a significant shift to the right among layers of the upper middle class. US imperialism and NATO have funded the Ukrainian state and far-right forces with billions of dollars.
The German ruling class seized upon the coup as a pretext for aggressively stepping up its campaign to remilitarize and justify the crimes of fascist forces. For the first time since the end of World War II, representatives of a German government were seen on photos with avowed Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
Internationally, pseudo-left forces such as the International Socialist Organization (ISO) in the US, the New Anti-capitalist Party of France (NPA), and the Russian Socialist Movement (RSM) supported the coup, falsely proclaiming it a “revolution.” The ICFI and WSWS alone advanced a principled, socialist opposition to this imperialist operation, warning the working class of its dangerous consequences.(Red).
