Nobody has any doubt that Russian capital will come out of the invasion of Ukraine with a heavy loss. However, it will not be the only loser, nor will its defeat be the one that will most strongly mark the course of imperialist conflicts in the coming years. Germany and China are proving to be more fragile than they already realized. And the US itself must openly accept that it can only maintain its hegemony by fragmenting the world market against all productive logic.
The erosion of the dollar as a global currency by the Chinese yuan is pushing U.S. capital towards the globalization of war as much or more than the war in Ukraine itself.
The tsunami brought about by the emergence of militarism and the evolution from economic war to a war economy is not going to stop. Least of all with regard to the workers in all the states of Europe, from the Azores to Yakutia. We are at the first moment of a massive impoverishment which will inevitably be accompanied by a strengthening of state totalitarianism. And only struggles, strikes and an increasingly frank confrontation with the ruling militarism will be able to stop and reverse it.
The ban on purchases of Russian hydrocarbons by the USA and Great Britain, the plan to reduce by 2/3 the consumption of Russian gas by the EU and the imminent response from Moscow, are leading to the immediate and general transformation of the economic war into a war economy in the whole of Europe, from Yakutia to the Azores. Already in sight is an impoverishment of the whole continent’s workers of a speed and violence not seen since the last imperialist world war.