24 February 2026 marks four years since Russia invaded Ukraine and NATO intensified its proxy war. It is Europe’s deadliest conflict since the second world war, with just under two million casualties, and remains the sharpest expression of rapidly intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry. While US imperialism pursues a unilateral settlement as it turns its focus elsewhere, Britain and Europe’s major imperialist powers are preparing for direct conflict with Russia. They are clear on the need for a brutal offensive on the working class to prepare for the wars to come.
On 6 January 2026 Britain and France signed a ‘declaration of intent’ to deploy military forces in Ukraine in the event of a peace deal being reached. This was the outcome of a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ summit in Paris, chaired by Britain, France and Germany and including 32 other nations. Also in attendance were the leaders of the US peace negotiation process Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
US-Russian negotiations have not progressed significantly since the US released its 28-point peace proposal on 18 November 2025. On 24 December the US and Ukraine hollowed this to a 20-point peace plan, leaving the key questions, such as Ukrainian territorial concessions, unresolved and making Russia unlikely to accept it.
British, French and German imperialism created the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ in March 2025, named after the group of imperialist states which decimated Iraq in 2003. Its purpose is to bolster their military aggression against Russia, allowing them to manoeuvre independently of US imperialism which seeks to cut them out of a settlement.
Britain and France are Europe’s most parasitic imperialist powers, with a vast network of overseas interests that they are prepared to defend militarily. Germany did not immediately commit to placing troops in Ukraine, but on 6 January Chancellor Friedrich Merz refused to rule it out.
On 9 January a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson called the threat to place British and French troops in Ukraine ‘dangerous’, saying ‘all such units and facilities will be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian armed forces’. Russia has repeatedly warned this, but British and French imperialism are proceeding undeterred, threatening to provoke direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
On 21 November 2025 French army chief General Fabien Mandon declared: ‘if our country wavers because it is not ready to lose its children … or to suffer economically because the priority has to be military production, then we are indeed at risk’, telling a congress of mayors ‘you must speak of this in your towns and villages’.
On 16 December British chief of the defence staff Sir Richard Knighton parroted the words of the French general, saying: ‘sons and daughters. Colleagues. Veterans… will all have a role to play. To build. To serve. And if necessary, to fight. And more families will know what sacrifice for our nation means.’
This is a clear warning to the working class and its youth: they will have no choice but to be put to the slaughter in the imperialist wars to come. On 5 December the German parliament voted for mandatory medical exams for 18-year-old men to assess their fitness for military service, beginning in July 2027. Thousands of youth demonstrated in German cities against the law on 6 December. The European ruling classes are aware that any moves towards mandatory military service will generate resistance. At the same time, they are bolstering the repressive apparatus of the state. When then Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the proscription of Palestine Action, days after it broke into RAF base Brize Norton on 20 June 2025, she laid bare the inextricable link between state repression and militarism: ‘the UK’s defence enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this government will not tolerate those who put that security at risk.’
The British ruling class sees its military as inadequate for defending Britain’s interests amidst intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry. Britain has just 70,000 active personnel in the regular army, compared to some 1.5 million in Russia, nearly ten times less on a per capita basis. On 7 January The Times reported Britain could only send ‘fewer than 7,500 troops to Ukraine’.
Britain’s military faces similar shortages in funding. Labour’s commitment to boost arms spending to 3.5% of GDP and an extra 1.5% on wider security spending will cost £800bn by 2040, according to consultancy firm EY Parthenon. On 9 January The Times reported the Ministry of Defence is facing a £28bn funding shortfall over the next four years.
On 12 January Knighton told MPs that raising the necessary funds to expand the military ‘requires ministers to make difficult trade-offs’, a nod towards further austerity and swingeing cuts. The Telegraph went further on 20 January: ‘some [spending] will be found from raiding the overseas aid budget but cuts will be needed elsewhere to find savings to divert to defence. This will inevitably run into resistance from backbench MPs especially if the welfare budget is targeted’. The British ruling class, through its various mouthpieces, is signalling intent to further erode working class living standards to boost arms spending. Far from leading the ‘resistance’, backbench Labour MPs have for years legitimised these attacks on the working class by remaining in the pro-austerity Labour Party.
Despite Britain’s military shortfall, it continues to play a central role in escalating the conflict with Russia and other enemies of British imperialism. On 10 December a British paratrooper died on active duty in Ukraine. The Labour government claimed he was killed in a ‘tragic accident’ while observing Ukrainian forces test ‘a new defensive capability, away from the front lines’ – an obvious prevarication which obscures Britain’s more active military role in the proxy war. On 7 January British forces joined the US in seizing a Russian-flagged tanker linked to Venezuelan oil in the North Atlantic, at the same time both a brazen escalation against Russia and a signal of support for US imperialism’s criminal attacks on Venezuela.
Britain’s role in the proxy war risks direct conflict with Russia and nuclear conflagration. We must build serious resistance to this warmongering, imperialist Labour government.
NATO – alliance of imperialist warmongers
NATO is an imperialist alliance which has always militarily defended the interests of US, British and European imperialism. It was created in 1949, spearheaded by the ‘socialist’ Labour government of Clement Attlee, to confront the threat of communism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ‘defensive’ alliance destroyed much of former Yugoslavia in 1999, invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Libya in 2011. It aggressively expanded eastward, in 2022 provoking the Ukraine proxy war with Russia, a key obstacle to Western imperialist domination over the region.
The Trump administration’s posturing over Greenland has reignited debates about the character of NATO, as the US has threatened to annex the territory of another founding NATO member Denmark, also an EU member. It is another stark example of US imperialism applying political and military pressure to European imperialism. Since its creation NATO has been led de-facto by the US and underpinned by the post-war cooperation between US and European imperialism. Now, the growing hostility between the two is threatening to break up the NATO military alliance. Whilst communists and anti-imperialists would welcome an end to NATO, its tearing up by intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry would not cease the drive to war and militarism. Britain and Europe’s major imperialists are already rearming and escalating their attacks on the working class in preparation for the end of the post-war transatlantic alliance.
