Analysis of: Macron ‘very sceptical’ about Russia-Ukraine peace talks as Europe marks four years of war – Europe live
The Guardian | February 24, 2026
TL;DR
Four years into Russia's invasion, European leaders gather in Kyiv while Hungary blocks sanctions and Trump flirts with forcing Ukrainian territorial concessions. The war reveals how inter-imperialist rivalry and capitalist competition for resources and spheres of influence are paid for in working-class blood.
Analytical Focus:Contradictions Historical Context Interconnections
The fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine provides a revealing snapshot of the contradictions within both the Western alliance and the broader global capitalist order. While European leaders perform solidarity in Kyiv—with Macron expressing skepticism about peace prospects and Merz insisting 'Russia is not winning'—the material reality shows a grinding war of attrition that has produced over 200,000 confirmed Russian dead (with Western estimates reaching 325,000), devastated Ukrainian infrastructure, and displaced millions of working people on both sides. The article exposes a fundamental tension within the Western response: the rhetorical commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty clashes with the material interests of various capitalist states. Hungary's Orbán vetoes EU sanctions over oil transit disputes, revealing how energy commodity flows shape political alignments regardless of stated values. Meanwhile, Trump has reportedly 'flirted with' forcing Ukraine to cede Donetsk—a position that would reward Russian aggression while securing American leverage in any post-war settlement. The 'Coalition of the Willing' meeting itself demonstrates that NATO unity is more performance than substance. What emerges from the coverage is a portrait of inter-imperialist competition dressed in humanitarian language. Starmer declares Ukraine 'the frontline of our freedom' while acknowledging the war 'has hit every family with the cost of living'—inadvertently revealing how working-class populations in Western countries also bear the material costs of this geopolitical struggle. The documentary on Ukrainian soldiers' psychological trauma, the 600,000 projected Russian casualties to capture Donetsk, and the destroyed energy infrastructure all point to the same conclusion: it is workers and conscripts who pay the price for great power competition over spheres of influence, resources, and strategic positioning.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Ukrainian working class and conscripted soldiers, Russian conscripts and contract soldiers, Ukrainian state leadership, Russian oligarchy and state apparatus, Western European political class, NATO military-industrial complex, Hungarian comprador bourgeoisie (Orbán), US political establishment
Beneficiaries: Defense contractors and weapons manufacturers, Energy companies benefiting from supply disruptions, Political leaders consolidating power through war rhetoric, Financial institutions managing reconstruction debt, States seeking to weaken Russian regional influence
Harmed Parties: Ukrainian civilians suffering infrastructure destruction, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killed and traumatized, Working-class families facing cost-of-living increases across Europe, Displaced populations, Small producers in conflict zones
The article reveals a multi-layered power structure where Western political leaders coordinate support while pursuing distinct national interests, Ukrainian leadership navigates between dependence on Western aid and demands for sovereignty, and the Russian state apparatus pursues territorial expansion. Working-class actors appear only as victims—soldiers with PTSD, civilians without heating—never as agents with their own political voice or interests distinct from their national states.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: €90bn EU loan package (blocked by Hungary), Russian oil transit through Ukraine, Energy infrastructure destruction and winter heating crises, Defense spending by NATO members, Sanctions regimes affecting Russian and European economies, Cost-of-living impacts across Europe
The war fundamentally concerns control over productive territory, energy transit routes, and integration into competing economic blocs (EU/NATO vs. Russian sphere). Ukraine's potential EU accession represents not just political alignment but incorporation into Western European production chains and markets. Russia's demands for territorial concessions aim to control industrial regions (Donetsk) and maintain buffer zones against NATO expansion.
Resources at Stake: Ukrainian agricultural and industrial capacity, Energy transit infrastructure, Black Sea access and trade routes, Rare earth minerals in contested regions, Future reconstruction contracts worth hundreds of billions, Labor power of Ukrainian workforce
Historical Context
Precedents: Soviet-German Eastern Front in WWII (explicitly referenced), Soviet-Afghan War (1980s), Chechen Wars, Post-Cold War NATO expansion, 2014 Crimean annexation and Donbas conflict, Historical great power competition over Eastern Europe
This conflict follows the historical pattern of inter-imperialist wars where capitalist powers compete for spheres of influence, markets, and resources. The article's comparison to WWII's Eastern Front is telling—that conflict, too, was fundamentally about which capitalist or state-capitalist system would dominate European territory and labor. The current war emerges from the contradictions of post-Cold War capitalist expansion, where NATO's eastward movement met Russian efforts to maintain its sphere of influence. This represents the breakdown of the post-1991 settlement where Western capital expected uncontested access to former Soviet markets and labor.
Contradictions
Primary: The fundamental contradiction lies between the declared Western commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty and self-determination versus the actual treatment of Ukraine as an object of great-power bargaining—visible in Trump's reported willingness to force territorial concessions and the EU's inability to deliver promised support due to internal disputes.
Secondary: Unity rhetoric vs. Hungary's sanctions veto over material interests, Peace negotiations vs. military aid escalation, National sovereignty discourse vs. Ukraine's dependence on external powers, Russian claims of 'special military operation' success vs. catastrophic casualties and minimal territorial gains, European 'values' framing vs. cost-of-living impacts on European workers
These contradictions are unlikely to resolve through current diplomatic frameworks, which treat the conflict as manageable rather than systemic. The war may continue as a frozen conflict, with periodic escalations serving various parties' interests—defense contractors profit from prolonged conflict, politicians from war-time authority, and neither Russian nor Western elites from a decisive resolution that might shift the balance of power unpredictably. Working-class movements in all involved countries remain the absent force capable of demanding peace on terms that don't simply ratify imperialist carve-ups.
Global Interconnections
The Ukraine war cannot be understood outside the context of 21st-century inter-imperialist competition. It represents the violent edge of the broader struggle between declining US hegemony and rising multipolar challengers over control of resources, markets, and strategic territories. The €90bn EU loan, the sanctions regime, and the reconstruction contracts all point to how war serves as a mechanism for capital accumulation and debt-based integration of peripheral economies into core capitalist structures. The conflict also reveals the limits of the post-WWII international order that Western leaders invoke. When Starmer calls Ukraine 'the frontline of our freedom,' he elides how that 'freedom' has always been structured by capitalist property relations and imperial hierarchies. The war's impact on energy prices and cost of living across Europe demonstrates how the world-system operates: conflicts in the periphery and semi-periphery generate ripple effects that discipline working-class consumption in the core while enriching those who control essential commodities. Russia's shadow fleet evading sanctions, Hungary's leverage over oil transit, and the competition for post-war reconstruction contracts all illustrate how capital flows around political obstacles in pursuit of accumulation.
Conclusion
The fourth anniversary coverage reveals a war that has become normalized—a permanent fixture of the global capitalist order rather than a crisis demanding resolution. For working-class movements internationally, the challenge is refusing the false choice between supporting one imperialist bloc or another. Neither Putin's revanchist nationalism nor NATO's 'rules-based order' offers liberation to Ukrainian or Russian workers now being fed into the meat grinder. The documented psychological trauma of soldiers, the destroyed homes and infrastructure, and the hundreds of thousands dead represent the true cost of a system where states compete for spheres of influence and capital accumulation. Building international working-class solidarity against war—connecting anti-war movements with struggles against austerity and cost-of-living crises—remains the only path toward a peace that serves the many rather than ratifying the spoils for the few.
Suggested Reading
- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of how capitalist competition inevitably produces inter-imperialist wars over territories and spheres of influence directly illuminates the structural dynamics driving the Ukraine conflict.
- The State and Revolution by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's examination of how the capitalist state functions as an instrument of class rule helps explain why neither Western nor Russian states pursue peace in workers' interests.
- The New Imperialism by David Harvey (2003) Harvey's concept of 'accumulation by dispossession' and analysis of contemporary imperialism provides tools for understanding how reconstruction contracts and debt mechanisms extend capitalist relations through warfare.