Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine three years ago, a flood of lies has gushed forth from western governments and the billionaire press alike to obscure the real nature of this war.

[Click here for a comprehensive reading list on the background to the Ukraine war: https://marxist.com/top-reads-on-the-ukraine-conflict-war-and-imperialism.htm]

Painting it as a simple battle between good and evil, they have remained totally silent about the fact that behind Ukraine is the world's foremost imperialist power, which has led Ukraine to the slaughter in pursuit of its interests.

Moreover, in their attempt to paint Zelensky as a beloved hero of democracy and Putin as a tyrant, they have concealed the real cause of the war, which did not begin in February 2022 but is the product of the aggressive thrust of western imperialism into Ukraine in the wake of the collapse of the USSR.

Today, Ukraine is shattered. Tens of thousands of young Ukrainians have been massacred in the trenches. As people around the world begin to ask, ‘What was it all for?’, it is vital that communists can explain what lies behind the conflict.

To explain who was really responsible for the destruction of Ukraine, Jorge Martín and Hamid Alizadeh from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International met for another episode of Against the Stream, the weekly current affairs podcast of the RCI.

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