Russian communists on Friday expressed their support for Vladimir Putin’s offensive in Ukraine, which they see as a struggle between Moscow and Washington, at a ceremony marking Lenin’s birthday.
• Read also: [EN DIRECT] 58th day of war in Ukraine: here are all the latest developments
• Read also: War in Ukraine: negotiations “skate”, according to Russia
“The Anglo-Saxons came (to Ukraine) to fight in order to dominate the planet,” said the first secretary of the Russian Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov.
“Today, in the Ukrainian expanses, the question is decided whether the world will be unipolar under their command (that of the Anglo-Saxons, editor’s note) or multipolar,” added the 77-year-old official.
“It is necessary to defend the state,” Zyuganov insisted on Friday, accusing NATO and the United States of fighting “the Russian world”.
Mr Zyuganov was taking part in a ceremony in Red Square marking the 152nd anniversary of the birth of Lenin, a revolutionary and first leader of the Soviet Union whose figure remains revered by the Communists.
About 200 people gathered in the morning near the Kremlin walls, brandishing portraits of the communist leader and red flags struck with hammer and sickle. They then placed carnations in front of the mausoleum where Lenin, who died in 1924, rests embalmed and is still on public display.
The Communists, like the entire Russian political class, gave their support to Mr. Putin after the launch of the military intervention in Ukraine.
This offensive has exacerbated the already high tensions between Russia and the United States. Many analysts compare the current situation to the Cold War which pitted the American and Soviet superpowers against each other for more than four decades after the end of the Second World War.