To see in the Ukrainian conflict a struggle between two world views, between autocracy and democracy, between tyranny and freedom, is a mystification. What is being disputed is the space that the loss of hegemony by the imperialist West leaves to the new powers that yesterday were in the shadows and were therefore sidelined and that are now asserting themselves with the capacity to compete on the world stage.

It is unclear what form the new order heralded by the conflict will take. But it is certain that it will reflect the irremediable change in the world balance of power. Those forces that align with the U.S. and EU camps — on the pretext that they represent “Democracy” and “Freedom” — are in fact once again capitulating to imperialism — and this time their surrender is no longer to a rising force, but to an old world that is sinking.