As far as the situation in Ukraine itself is concerned Russia’s operation was and remains a moral imperative. Without Russia’s intervention the Donbass republics would have been overrun by what by 2021/22 was a fully reconstituted, NATO armed and trained Ukrainian army. There would have been a bloodbath in which the Nazi punitive battalions would have slaughtered everyone perceived as a rebel or a collaborator, and the remaining ethnic Russian population would have been ethnically cleansed much like what happened in the 90s in the Serbian Krajina. A large scale attack to do just that was in preparation since late 2021 and we have objective evidence (in form of not just documents but also a recorded exponential increase in the frequency of shelling by Ukrainian forces) showing that such an operation was starting to be launched just days prior to Russia’s recognition of the independence of the Donbass republics and the acceptance of these Republics’ official request to Russia for aid in defending themselves from the aggression against them.

The safety of the population of the Donbass can only be ensured if Russia permanently neutralizes the threat emanating from the Nazi Kiev regime as in every other scenario (such as a simple ceasefire) the Kiev regime would not renounce its plans, it would continue insisting on regaining what it claims are its territories (including Crimea which is an inalienable part of Russia and whose population has absolutely no desire to be part of Ukraine, hence why Ukrainian leadership has on numerous occasions announced that should it regain control of Crimea it would initiate a mass cleansing of everything Russian and everyone sympathetic to Russia), and would continue to sporadically attack the civilians living there while being armed and trained by NATO in preparation for another full scale assault at a later date. Russia attempted to resolve the Donbass crisis with the Minsk agreements but despite being ratified by the UN neither Ukraine nor its western backers ever took them seriously. Now we have heard them all admit that the agreements were a ruse all along meant to buy Ukraine time to arm themselves.

Furthermore NATO’s planned expansion into Ukraine posed an existential threat to Russia. Just like with the Donbass situation there were also numerous attempts over many years by Russia to resolve the security situation in Europe which was becoming increasingly untenable. Yet NATO continued to try to surround Russia by regime changing countries around it using color revolution type operations and turning them into anti-Russian strongholds full of NATO military bases capable of hosting weapons that would make the defense of Russia all but impossible, thus significantly escalating the risk of nuclear war since in case of a detection of an attack Russia would not have time to assess possible threats before deciding whether a nuclear response would be necessary.

The goal of this aggressive policy of encirclement was and continues to be to precipitate the collapse of the Russian Federation as a state and its balkanization into easily controllable and exploitable colonies/vassals for the West to extract resources from and from which to complete their encirclement of China to eventually do the same there. Russia put forward draft treaties containing proposals for resolving this critical situation, such as the pullback of NATO military infrastructure to 1997 borders and the establishment of inclusive security treaties in Europe that take the interests of all involved states into account and not just those of the West, but the US categorically rejected any negotiations leaving Russia no other choice but to launch its operation to remove the existential threat to the Russian state emanating from the obstinate insistence of the Kiev regime to join NATO.

In the broader geopolitical picture Russia’s pushback against NATO’s aggressive expansion has proven to be a pivotal catalyst of the ongoing transition from unipolar US hegemony to a multipolar world. The defeat of unipolar US global hegemony is a necessary precondition for successful liberation from neo-colonialism, imperialism and ultimately allowing breathing room for existing and future new socialist states. We have already seen the beneficial effects that Russia’s challenge to the West’s “rules based order” has had in places like the Middle East, where a historic rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been facilitated by China and Russia, and Africa where more and more states are beginning to throw off the yoke of colonial domination, most notably with Francophone West Africa rebelling against French neocolonialism.

And if you think that multipolarity does not benefit us you are severely mistaken. It is no coincidence that the world socialist movement has been in retreat and barely holding on since 1991 as the US’s unipolar dominance has been suffocating revolutionary movements and crushing socialist states with sanctions. Liberalism has ideologically demobilized the working class while military and economic warfare has been waged relentlessly by the US around the world in order to prevent the resurgence of socialism. This has only been possible since there was no serious competitor to Washington. Now finally there is an alternative in the Russia-China led anti-hegemonic coalition (including Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, DPRK, etc.) which is enabling the global south to become more independent and escape neo-colonial underdevelopment, and it would be a serious setback to the multipolar project should the US prevail in Ukraine.

This is just a short summary of the most important points of this conflict, but i strongly advise you to educate yourself further and read more about it and why it is THE most important geopolitical event of our time and why as revolutionaries and communists we cannot afford to be neutral on it as its outcome directly impacts our ability to achieve our goals in the world for the liberation of the working class from imperialism, colonialism, and eventually all forms of oppression and exploitation.