Russia is sending a shipment of drones to Iran including upgraded versions of the drone technology that Tehran originally supplied to Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine, U.S. and European officials told The Associated Press.
That’s not really what they mean by imperialism. When Marxists speak of “imperialism,” we mean the existing system of international extraction helmed by the US and its vassal states. Imperialism in the Marxist sense is economically compelled by late-stage capitalism, and is its necessary evolution, into a highly financialized system of plunder from the global south.
Russia and Iran are both sovereign countries working against this system, because both stand to gain from a multi-polar world. Ukraine and Israel are so close together because they share a similar geopolitical position, as attack dogs for the US Empire against their adversaries.
Without an understanding of how capitalism turns to imperialism, under what conditions, and how this can itself be negated, then it’s understandable that it would be difficult to understand the world. I really recommend reading Lenin’s Imperialism, the Current Highest Stage of Capitalism. Imperialism has evolved since his time, namely from competing imperialist powers into a single imperial hegemon and vassalized imperialist powers, but the basis is still correct and necessary for understanding the modern era.
You call Russia imperialist. Materially, it is not. Imperialism requires export of capital, enforced unequal exchange, subordinated peripheral economies to a core. Russia does not command the IMF. It does not control SWIFT. It does not own global platforms or academic gatekeeping. It is an oligarchic kleptocracy with regional ambitions and security concerns. Conflating it with US hegemony serves Western propaganda.
Also it’s not just the US it’s the imperial core as a whole: Europe, NATO, Five eyes and their vassals like the ROK and Japan.
The biggest country in the world military conquering his neighbors is imperialism. The only reasonable things to do is supporting Ukraine against Russia, and Iran against US and Israel.
The US is helping Russia against Ukraine despite Russia helping Iran against US. (Lifting sanctions to Russia, raising oil prices financing Russia, withdraw military and financial support from Ukraine)
Ukraine and Israel are used in similar ways by the US Empire, to attack their geopolitical opponents. Russia seeking to annex the Donbass region, a region that had already seceded from Kiev in 2014 after the right-wing coup overthrew the president they supported, isn’t imperialism in the sense that Marxists are talking about.
When Marxists speak of imperialism, we mean a specific stage of capitalism by which finance capital becomes dominant and international extraction becomes economically necessary for continued existence. Russia is fighting against that system internationally, because the US Empire is keeping them boxed in and wishes to re-imperialize Russia like it was in the 90s, before the nationalists overthrew the liberals.
Marxists do not have an issue with anything anyone can call imperialism, but with imperialism as it exists as a necessary and scientifically observed phenomena of late-stage capitalism, because this phenomena is the biggest obstacle to global socialism. Russia is helping Iran, Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, and more in resisting the US Empire, because Russia benefits from the end of a US-dominated world. Western Europe is vassalized by the US Empire, which is why they side with the US Empire. They benefit from this system of plundering the global south, Russia does not.
The articles talks about russia providing intel to strike the usa not israel. You can read about russia praising russia and russia praising israel and collaborations during the war in syria
You can read about russia praising russia and russia praising israel and collaborations during the war in syria
So in your book “praises” is more important than extensive military involvement on the opposing sides? Even wiki lists Russia firmly at the same side as government, together with Iran and Palestinians, against (among others) Israel.
That is simply false. A simplification that is not helpful. Ukraine is allied with Europe and was a strong ally of the US under Biden. Now Ukraine has a practical approach: in no way makes sense to help Russia and Iran as both are bombing Ukraine, so it is better to help the US to force them not to further help Russia and help with NATO cohesion as Ukraine depends on NATO working for them on continuing support against Russia.
2014 was not a US-backed coup, you would need to demonstrate that. The scale and spontaneous origin of the protests, the leaked US diplomatic phone calls, and the immediate return to democratic elections monitored by OSCE are all clear indication that it was not an US-backed coup. Stop spreading false propaganda
Playing a part in Ukraine’s “color revolution.” During the 2004 Orange Revolution, NED provided US$65 million to the Ukrainian opposition. Between 2007 and 2015, NED allocated more than US$30 million to support Ukrainian NGOs and promote “civic participation.” During the 2013-2014 Euromaidan, NED financed the Mass Media Institute to spread inflammatory information. NED also spent tens of millions of dollars in the use of such social media platforms as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram to spread disinformation, heighten ethnic tensions in Ukraine, and stir up ethnic antagonism in eastern Ukraine.
you are saying this like Russia propaganda machine and hybrid warfare is not multiple times more extensive and pervasive. Moscow financed the pro Russian government with between US$50 and US$300 million and further energy schemes in the billions. To prevent an agreement with the EU Russia invested 15 billions.
Russia was pouring millions in Ukraine before 2014
This argument rests on a false equivalence that collapses fundamentally different material relations into the same category. Loans, energy agreements, and diplomatic engagement with a neighboring state, however one judges Moscow’s intentions, are sovereign economic transactions operating in the realm of interstate relations. What the NED, USAID, and affiliated NGOs executed in Ukraine was something else entirely: a long-term, coordinated program to infiltrate civil society, capture media infrastructure, and mobilize ethnic divisions toward regime change.
You cite a Google Books snippet and a Guardian article as if they settle the matter. But that Guardian piece simply repeats State Department claims without independent verification, without naming sources, without contextualizing the declassified cable’s purpose. That’s not analysis. That’s amplification. When US intelligence says Russia spent hundreds of millions to influence officials, it’s important to ask: influence how? Through what mechanisms? With what evidence? And while we’re asking, where is the equivalent scrutiny of the millions to billions the NED and other cutout NGOs funneled directly into opposition groups, media outlets, and digital mobilization tools globally?
Let’s talk scale. You want to compare Russia’s hybrid warfare to the West’s? Open the Snowden documents. Look at Tailored Access Operations, the NSA’s elite unit for infiltrating foreign networks, hardware, and infrastructure. Recall Eternal Blue, the exploit the NSA developed, lost control of, and which later powered WannaCry(one of if not the largest ransomware attack in history) and more. Remember Stuxnet, the joint US-Israeli cyberweapon that physically destroyed Iranian centrifuges, a precedent for offensive cyber operations against sovereign states. These are documented capabilities, deployed globally, under a command structure that answers to no international body. Add Five Eyes: a transnational intelligence alliance with unparalleled signals intelligence reach, sharing raw data, coordinating disinformation, and shielding each other from accountability. Assange and Snowden were targeted for revealing this architecture. Russia’s media outreach, however aggressive, does not operate at this level of technical penetration, global integration, or institutional impunity.
Then there’s the propaganda machinery. The Nayirah testimony, fabricated by Hill & Knowlton and funded by the Kuwaiti government, was aired before Congress to manufacture consent for Gulf War I. The WMD lies, repeated across every major Western outlet, were used to justify invasion, occupation, and the destruction of a sovereign state. These weren’t fringe operations. They were central, coordinated, and successful. They reveal a system where intelligence, media, and political power fuse to produce narrative as weapon. To claim Russia’s apparatus surpasses this ignores the material base of Western ideological production: ownership of global platforms, control of financial messaging, dominance of academic and think-tank ecosystems. Russia rents space in that system. The West owns the building.
On Euromaidan itself: spontaneous protests don’t receive sustained, pre-planned funding from foreign government-linked foundations. They don’t feature trained organizers, pre-positioned media teams, and real-time social media amplification calibrated to escalate tension along ethnic lines. The leaked Nulands-Pyatt call was a glimpse of the coordination. And the return to democratic elections you cite occurred after a constitutional rupture, after an elected president fled under threat of violence, after parliament was reconstituted under duress, after the legal order was suspended. OSCE monitoring a vote does not retroactively legitimize the process that produced it. Legitimacy isn’t procedural alone. It’s material. It’s about who holds power, how they got it, and whose interests that power serves.
Then there’s the Donbas, the post-coup government’s first legislative acts included rolling back language protections for Russian speakers. And the response, armed resistance, Russian support, the descent into conflict, was foreseeable (predicted even as the coup in Ukraine to use them as the tip of the spear against Russia was entirely the point). To frame this as purely Russian aggression erases the internal fractures that external intervention exploited. That erasure serves a purpose. It simplifies a complex class and national question into a moral fable which is simply a fairytale.
We are not discussing US vs Russia. We are discussing Ukraine vs Russia. I do not care if Russia is worse or US is worse. Both are terrible, and Ukraine deserves to be his own country. Removing Ukraine from euromaidan and pretend it is a US coup is ridiculous.
Both Russia and US are imperialistic nations. So in Russia (the imperialistic invader) vs Ukraine (the victim of invasion), we must stand with Ukraine.
you are saying this like Russia propaganda machine and hybrid warfare is not multiple times more extensive and pervasive.
to my comment about the NED. Directly bringing up the omparuson of Russian and US hybrid warfare. You claimed Russian operations dwarf American ones. When confronted with the facts of the matter from the NSA to the WMD lie, you pivot to say we are not discussing that. Please at least try stay consistent.
Ukraine deserves sovereignty. Absolutely. But sovereignty is material, not abstract. In 2014, an elected government was removed under threat of violence. The constitutional order broke. US-backed forces took power and immediately positioned Ukraine as a spearhead against Russia. Sovereignty for Ukraine was ended in that moment and it wasn’t by Russian hands.
You call Russia imperialist. Materially, it is not. Imperialism requires export of capital, enforced unequal exchange, subordinated peripheral economies to a core. Russia does not command the IMF. It does not control SWIFT. It does not own global platforms or academic gatekeeping. It is an oligarchic kleptocracy with regional ambitions and security concerns. Conflating it with US hegemony serves Western propaganda.
I stand with the Ukrainian people, not the Banderite government in Kyiv. That government has banned opposition parties, consolidated media control, and committed its population to a war of attrition directed from abroad. Fighting to the last Ukrainian is not liberation. It is sacrifice for US strategic interests.
Since 2014, the population of the Donbas has resisted Kyiv. They have endured shelling, blockade, marginalization. Their preference for association with Russia has been tested under fire for nearly a decade. When this is over they should be given the right to choose who they associate with.
The position that serves Ukrainian workers is not escalation. It is negotiation. It is ending the war, not prolonging it for geopolitical gain. That is not Russian propaganda. That is the only position that centers the lives of the people you claim to support.
2014 was not a US-backed coup, you would need to demonstrate that. The scale and spontaneous origin of the protests, the leaked US diplomatic phone calls, and the immediate return to democratic elections monitored by OSCE are all clear indication that it was not an US-backed coup. Stop
Iran been victim of the west since they removed their puppet the shah. Sanctions hurt normal iranians. How does it make sens to try to destroy iran economy and then tell Iran do not strengthen ties with russia and china. If you can negociate with Russia you can also negociate with Iran but ukrsine never did that and hurted iran economy with sanctions in 2007
This is so self evidently disingenuous that I don’t know why anyone would keep taking you seriously. Nobody talking in bad faith would seriously try to propose that square mileage of land has any link to imperialism.
Need to support Iran and Russia critically at bare minimum. They are the ones resisting imperialism.
This might be the most braindead comment I’ve read on Lemmy.
Wow.
How so?
Russia is not “resisting imperialism”. It is currently stuck in its own imperialistic quagmire with Ukraine.
That’s not really what they mean by imperialism. When Marxists speak of “imperialism,” we mean the existing system of international extraction helmed by the US and its vassal states. Imperialism in the Marxist sense is economically compelled by late-stage capitalism, and is its necessary evolution, into a highly financialized system of plunder from the global south.
Russia and Iran are both sovereign countries working against this system, because both stand to gain from a multi-polar world. Ukraine and Israel are so close together because they share a similar geopolitical position, as attack dogs for the US Empire against their adversaries.
Without an understanding of how capitalism turns to imperialism, under what conditions, and how this can itself be negated, then it’s understandable that it would be difficult to understand the world. I really recommend reading Lenin’s Imperialism, the Current Highest Stage of Capitalism. Imperialism has evolved since his time, namely from competing imperialist powers into a single imperial hegemon and vassalized imperialist powers, but the basis is still correct and necessary for understanding the modern era.
Iran resist imperialism. Russia do not and only help Iran because thry share the same enemy the united snakes
A. k. a. resisting imperialism.
imperialist russia fighting a worse imperialist power called the united states
You call Russia imperialist. Materially, it is not. Imperialism requires export of capital, enforced unequal exchange, subordinated peripheral economies to a core. Russia does not command the IMF. It does not control SWIFT. It does not own global platforms or academic gatekeeping. It is an oligarchic kleptocracy with regional ambitions and security concerns. Conflating it with US hegemony serves Western propaganda.
Also it’s not just the US it’s the imperial core as a whole: Europe, NATO, Five eyes and their vassals like the ROK and Japan.
The biggest country in the world military conquering his neighbors is imperialism. The only reasonable things to do is supporting Ukraine against Russia, and Iran against US and Israel.
The US is helping Russia against Ukraine despite Russia helping Iran against US. (Lifting sanctions to Russia, raising oil prices financing Russia, withdraw military and financial support from Ukraine)
Ukraine and Israel are used in similar ways by the US Empire, to attack their geopolitical opponents. Russia seeking to annex the Donbass region, a region that had already seceded from Kiev in 2014 after the right-wing coup overthrew the president they supported, isn’t imperialism in the sense that Marxists are talking about.
When Marxists speak of imperialism, we mean a specific stage of capitalism by which finance capital becomes dominant and international extraction becomes economically necessary for continued existence. Russia is fighting against that system internationally, because the US Empire is keeping them boxed in and wishes to re-imperialize Russia like it was in the 90s, before the nationalists overthrew the liberals.
Marxists do not have an issue with anything anyone can call imperialism, but with imperialism as it exists as a necessary and scientifically observed phenomena of late-stage capitalism, because this phenomena is the biggest obstacle to global socialism. Russia is helping Iran, Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, and more in resisting the US Empire, because Russia benefits from the end of a US-dominated world. Western Europe is vassalized by the US Empire, which is why they side with the US Empire. They benefit from this system of plundering the global south, Russia does not.
Ukraine is an ally of Israel and the gulf states. Ukraine itself is governed by Nazis thanks to the US-backed coup in 2014.
Russia has good relation with Israel too
Yet they are providing weapons, intel and whatnot to mortal enemy of Israel which is currently in a hot war against it.
The articles talks about russia providing intel to strike the usa not israel. You can read about russia praising russia and russia praising israel and collaborations during the war in syria
So in your book “praises” is more important than extensive military involvement on the opposing sides? Even wiki lists Russia firmly at the same side as government, together with Iran and Palestinians, against (among others) Israel.
Syria was a very important country for iran and the axis of resistance. Russia and syria collaborated multiple time
Yes, that’s my point, Russia is consistently if not directly opposing Israel
That is simply false. A simplification that is not helpful. Ukraine is allied with Europe and was a strong ally of the US under Biden. Now Ukraine has a practical approach: in no way makes sense to help Russia and Iran as both are bombing Ukraine, so it is better to help the US to force them not to further help Russia and help with NATO cohesion as Ukraine depends on NATO working for them on continuing support against Russia.
2014 was not a US-backed coup, you would need to demonstrate that. The scale and spontaneous origin of the protests, the leaked US diplomatic phone calls, and the immediate return to democratic elections monitored by OSCE are all clear indication that it was not an US-backed coup. Stop spreading false propaganda
Playing a part in Ukraine’s “color revolution.” During the 2004 Orange Revolution, NED provided US$65 million to the Ukrainian opposition. Between 2007 and 2015, NED allocated more than US$30 million to support Ukrainian NGOs and promote “civic participation.” During the 2013-2014 Euromaidan, NED financed the Mass Media Institute to spread inflammatory information. NED also spent tens of millions of dollars in the use of such social media platforms as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram to spread disinformation, heighten ethnic tensions in Ukraine, and stir up ethnic antagonism in eastern Ukraine.
The National Endowment for Democracy:What It Is and What It Does
you are saying this like Russia propaganda machine and hybrid warfare is not multiple times more extensive and pervasive. Moscow financed the pro Russian government with between US$50 and US$300 million and further energy schemes in the billions. To prevent an agreement with the EU Russia invested 15 billions.
Russia was pouring millions in Ukraine before 2014
Russia has spent $300m since 2014 to influence foreign officials, US says
How do not see how anything that I have shared or that you have shared change the fact that 2014 Euromaidan was not a US-backed coup
Source: it came to me in a dream.
This argument rests on a false equivalence that collapses fundamentally different material relations into the same category. Loans, energy agreements, and diplomatic engagement with a neighboring state, however one judges Moscow’s intentions, are sovereign economic transactions operating in the realm of interstate relations. What the NED, USAID, and affiliated NGOs executed in Ukraine was something else entirely: a long-term, coordinated program to infiltrate civil society, capture media infrastructure, and mobilize ethnic divisions toward regime change.
You cite a Google Books snippet and a Guardian article as if they settle the matter. But that Guardian piece simply repeats State Department claims without independent verification, without naming sources, without contextualizing the declassified cable’s purpose. That’s not analysis. That’s amplification. When US intelligence says Russia spent hundreds of millions to influence officials, it’s important to ask: influence how? Through what mechanisms? With what evidence? And while we’re asking, where is the equivalent scrutiny of the millions to billions the NED and other cutout NGOs funneled directly into opposition groups, media outlets, and digital mobilization tools globally?
Let’s talk scale. You want to compare Russia’s hybrid warfare to the West’s? Open the Snowden documents. Look at Tailored Access Operations, the NSA’s elite unit for infiltrating foreign networks, hardware, and infrastructure. Recall Eternal Blue, the exploit the NSA developed, lost control of, and which later powered WannaCry(one of if not the largest ransomware attack in history) and more. Remember Stuxnet, the joint US-Israeli cyberweapon that physically destroyed Iranian centrifuges, a precedent for offensive cyber operations against sovereign states. These are documented capabilities, deployed globally, under a command structure that answers to no international body. Add Five Eyes: a transnational intelligence alliance with unparalleled signals intelligence reach, sharing raw data, coordinating disinformation, and shielding each other from accountability. Assange and Snowden were targeted for revealing this architecture. Russia’s media outreach, however aggressive, does not operate at this level of technical penetration, global integration, or institutional impunity.
Then there’s the propaganda machinery. The Nayirah testimony, fabricated by Hill & Knowlton and funded by the Kuwaiti government, was aired before Congress to manufacture consent for Gulf War I. The WMD lies, repeated across every major Western outlet, were used to justify invasion, occupation, and the destruction of a sovereign state. These weren’t fringe operations. They were central, coordinated, and successful. They reveal a system where intelligence, media, and political power fuse to produce narrative as weapon. To claim Russia’s apparatus surpasses this ignores the material base of Western ideological production: ownership of global platforms, control of financial messaging, dominance of academic and think-tank ecosystems. Russia rents space in that system. The West owns the building.
On Euromaidan itself: spontaneous protests don’t receive sustained, pre-planned funding from foreign government-linked foundations. They don’t feature trained organizers, pre-positioned media teams, and real-time social media amplification calibrated to escalate tension along ethnic lines. The leaked Nulands-Pyatt call was a glimpse of the coordination. And the return to democratic elections you cite occurred after a constitutional rupture, after an elected president fled under threat of violence, after parliament was reconstituted under duress, after the legal order was suspended. OSCE monitoring a vote does not retroactively legitimize the process that produced it. Legitimacy isn’t procedural alone. It’s material. It’s about who holds power, how they got it, and whose interests that power serves.
Then there’s the Donbas, the post-coup government’s first legislative acts included rolling back language protections for Russian speakers. And the response, armed resistance, Russian support, the descent into conflict, was foreseeable (predicted even as the coup in Ukraine to use them as the tip of the spear against Russia was entirely the point). To frame this as purely Russian aggression erases the internal fractures that external intervention exploited. That erasure serves a purpose. It simplifies a complex class and national question into a moral fable which is simply a fairytale.
We are not discussing US vs Russia. We are discussing Ukraine vs Russia. I do not care if Russia is worse or US is worse. Both are terrible, and Ukraine deserves to be his own country. Removing Ukraine from euromaidan and pretend it is a US coup is ridiculous.
Both Russia and US are imperialistic nations. So in Russia (the imperialistic invader) vs Ukraine (the victim of invasion), we must stand with Ukraine.
You said
to my comment about the NED. Directly bringing up the omparuson of Russian and US hybrid warfare. You claimed Russian operations dwarf American ones. When confronted with the facts of the matter from the NSA to the WMD lie, you pivot to say we are not discussing that. Please at least try stay consistent.
Ukraine deserves sovereignty. Absolutely. But sovereignty is material, not abstract. In 2014, an elected government was removed under threat of violence. The constitutional order broke. US-backed forces took power and immediately positioned Ukraine as a spearhead against Russia. Sovereignty for Ukraine was ended in that moment and it wasn’t by Russian hands.
You call Russia imperialist. Materially, it is not. Imperialism requires export of capital, enforced unequal exchange, subordinated peripheral economies to a core. Russia does not command the IMF. It does not control SWIFT. It does not own global platforms or academic gatekeeping. It is an oligarchic kleptocracy with regional ambitions and security concerns. Conflating it with US hegemony serves Western propaganda.
I stand with the Ukrainian people, not the Banderite government in Kyiv. That government has banned opposition parties, consolidated media control, and committed its population to a war of attrition directed from abroad. Fighting to the last Ukrainian is not liberation. It is sacrifice for US strategic interests.
Since 2014, the population of the Donbas has resisted Kyiv. They have endured shelling, blockade, marginalization. Their preference for association with Russia has been tested under fire for nearly a decade. When this is over they should be given the right to choose who they associate with.
The position that serves Ukrainian workers is not escalation. It is negotiation. It is ending the war, not prolonging it for geopolitical gain. That is not Russian propaganda. That is the only position that centers the lives of the people you claim to support.
NATO is allied with Israel…
Color revolution, not the first time.
Iran been victim of the west since they removed their puppet the shah. Sanctions hurt normal iranians. How does it make sens to try to destroy iran economy and then tell Iran do not strengthen ties with russia and china. If you can negociate with Russia you can also negociate with Iran but ukrsine never did that and hurted iran economy with sanctions in 2007
This is so self evidently disingenuous that I don’t know why anyone would keep taking you seriously. Nobody talking in bad faith would seriously try to propose that square mileage of land has any link to imperialism.