The Pokrovsk (formerly Krasnoarmeysk) direction has become the focal point of Russia’s grinding offensive in eastern Ukraine, with Moscow’s forces......
No he’s right. Wagner was basically created to help Russian proxies in power in Africa, and Russia arm(ed) many militias and fueled plenty of conflict.
Besides the Western empire it’s pretty much only Russia who actively participates in armed conflict around the globe. Albeit on a far smaller scale and more concentrated around their own interests.
Those as you called them “Russian proxies” are the Sahel states fighting against western backed jihadists and trying to decolonise from centuries of French occupation. This is opposite of imperialism.
So Russia is helping the Sudanese government from the bottom of their heart and not for monetary gains of gold? I call them proxies because they would fall apart without foreign backing since they don’t have the support of the population.
Sure Russia can “back the good guys”. In fact since the Western empire is the colonizer of Africa, it means that whatever Russia backs is by default “fighting imperialism”. But Russia isn’t helping countries out of goodwill. They also want natural resources in return.
China on the other hand is a lot better because they don’t get involved militarily.
Nobody here is suggesting that Russia is helping African nations due to some altruistic reasons. They directly benefit from decolonialization and these nations not being under western domination. What you’re doing is creating a false equivalence between what Russia is doing in Africa and what the west has done. It doesn’t mean that Russia would’ve behaved differently if they had more resources, but the reality is that they do not have the means to colonize Africa. Yet they can help decolonize it, and they benefit from new trading partners resulting from that.
Yes some break free from the West but Russia is backing full on “bad guys” which, just like what the West does, provide Russia with their resources. Hell they’re backing both sides in Sudan, of which the RSF is objectively awful and mostly on the side of the West.
I guess the “positive” is that because Russia provides an alternative for opposition, it becomes far more costly for the Western hegemony to maintain the colonies.
Please point out the resource plundering that you keep talking about. Show me Russian corps taking over resources in these countries, or incidents of Russia forcing them to sell resources below market value the way the west has been doing. I’ll wait.
I really recommend you read the article I linked, if you haven’t. It directly addresses the Russian Federation. Here’s an excerpt from that section:
Russia lacks finance capital and division of the world’s resources. It only has 4 of the top 100 corporations in the world and 6 of the top 500. 82% of Russian exports are raw materials, including 58% oil, 11% metal, and 6% food. In 2017, Russia imported $106.2 billion worth’ of machine goods and only exported $12.8 billion. Russia does not have any of the top 100 corporations in terms of capital export, and most Russian capital export is capital flight to tax havens. Russia only controls 0.7% of the world’s wealth and has much less wealth per adult than the United States ($8,843 vs $336,528). Russia has intervened militarily in other countries such as Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria, but not to seize natural resources like imperialist countries do.[7]
Simply put, the Russian Federation doesn’t have the same mass of financial capital by which they can dominate the global south like the west does. No country intervenes millitantly without doing so for personal benefit, that would be absurd, but that also doesn’t mean Russia is an empire either. The vast bulk of Russia’s consumption comes from goods it produces fot itself, this is quite opposed to western countries that consume the bulk of the value the global south produces while in turn producing far less.
Russia not being as massive and having far less influence doesn’t discard if from doing imperialism. There can be multiple empires.
But are you saying that nothing in my linked article is true? I know NYT regularly makes stuff up but Russia definitely backs the Sudanese government militarily.
The Western backed UAE is currently trying to overthrow the Russian backed government in Sudan with the RSF. The gold flow from Sudan to Russia isn’t much of a conspiracy.
As part of an investigation that sheds further light on Russian involvement in Sudan’s gold mining operations, the former official said that on 23 June 2021, a Sudanese general, acting on an order from Burhan, prevented the search of a plane operated by the Russian military.
Sudanese officials, who were part of an anti-corruption body that was dismantled after last year’s military coup, at the time suspected that the plane was one of a number of Russian military aircraft involved in smuggling gold directly from Sudan to Moscow.
The revelation comes as details of the involvement of the Wagner Group, a private military contractor with close links to the Kremlin, in gold mining across Sudan and its neighbouring countries continue to emerge. In Sudan, records show that the Russian mercenary network has secured lucrative Sudanese mining concessions that produce a stream of gold.
The reason why I keep recommending you read the article I linked is because we are talking about 2 entirely different concepts. We can’t really have a conversation about imperialism if that means two completely different things between the two of us. I am not saying everything the NYT says is wrong, I’m saying we need to get on the same page to even have a discussion.
If you aren’t going to at least read the article and try to understand my perspective, would you at least do me the favor of explaining what you believe imperialism to be? I think that’s the least you could do.
We might indeed be talking past eachother. I read your page before writing my response but from what I understand it seems to just add arbitrary requirements to the word “imperialism” so that it can only encompass the West.
Imperialism for me is meddling in the politics of foreign countries for the benefit of the home country and heavily against the interest of the foreign country. Especially when people are put in power whom the population dislike but cannot get rid of because of the foreign backing.
The reason imperialism is outlined the way it is by Marxist-Leninists is because it’s a useful definition. It very specifically describes the way the world functions today, what gives rise to imperialism and why, and how to overcome it. Lenin’s analysis is useful because it explains how all capitalism works towards imperialism if it is able to, and gives us the tools to overcome it. It explains why revolution happens in the global south, not the global north.
As for your definition, it’s a bit loaded here. All countries meddle in others for their own benefits, the second part where you say it’s against the interests of the imperialized country is doing all of the heavy lifting. Moreover, there’s no systemic analysis for why this comes to be in some countries and not others. The reason Marxism-Leninism is useful is because it’s actionable, and helps make predictions for the future.
As for Russia, Sudan is in the midst of a civil war right now, it’s in the interests of everyone that it is stabilized as quickly as possible. Russia having an extraction industry in Sudan is not the issue at hand, nor is Russia directy contributing to civil strife. Russia has a good reputation in Africa, genuinely, for being a much better business partner than the west, similar to the PRC but not as good, and this is because Russia lacks the financial capital to dominate African countries.
Russia is moving to develop and secure its strategic interests in Sudan, offering the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) weapons while continuing to help supply the SAF’s enemy, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, through the Wagner Group.
The definition on your page excludes Russia from anything by literally excluding Communists from being able to do imperialism.
The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers. This expansion to Marx’s analysis of capitalist development was one of Lenin’s most important theoretical contributions to political economy.
Not that I would classify Russia as Communist anyway since the fall of the USSR. Though Russia does have a lot of billionaires falling out of windows lately so maybe the transition is ongoing.
No he’s right. Wagner was basically created to help Russian proxies in power in Africa, and Russia arm(ed) many militias and fueled plenty of conflict.
Besides the Western empire it’s pretty much only Russia who actively participates in armed conflict around the globe. Albeit on a far smaller scale and more concentrated around their own interests.
Those as you called them “Russian proxies” are the Sahel states fighting against western backed jihadists and trying to decolonise from centuries of French occupation. This is opposite of imperialism.
So Russia is helping the Sudanese government from the bottom of their heart and not for monetary gains of gold? I call them proxies because they would fall apart without foreign backing since they don’t have the support of the population.
Sure Russia can “back the good guys”. In fact since the Western empire is the colonizer of Africa, it means that whatever Russia backs is by default “fighting imperialism”. But Russia isn’t helping countries out of goodwill. They also want natural resources in return.
China on the other hand is a lot better because they don’t get involved militarily.
Nobody here is suggesting that Russia is helping African nations due to some altruistic reasons. They directly benefit from decolonialization and these nations not being under western domination. What you’re doing is creating a false equivalence between what Russia is doing in Africa and what the west has done. It doesn’t mean that Russia would’ve behaved differently if they had more resources, but the reality is that they do not have the means to colonize Africa. Yet they can help decolonize it, and they benefit from new trading partners resulting from that.
Being in conflict isn’t the same as being an empire. This article describes what I’m talking about pretty well.
It’s not “conflicts” though. It’s backing a government or militant group, often in the Global South, in exchange for their own benefit
Russia’s Wagner Group ‘getting rich in Sudan’ from gold mines and government
Imperialism would be Russia installing their own puppet regime, then plundering the resources of these nations. What’s actually happening there is that Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso are nationalizing resources. https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/06/23/niger-to-nationalize-uranium-to-wrest-control-over-its-resource-from-france/
Don’t they plunder resources though? https://apnews.com/article/central-african-republic-russia-wagner-d955ae10660d8dc5efdb258dd067be13
Yes some break free from the West but Russia is backing full on “bad guys” which, just like what the West does, provide Russia with their resources. Hell they’re backing both sides in Sudan, of which the RSF is objectively awful and mostly on the side of the West.
I guess the “positive” is that because Russia provides an alternative for opposition, it becomes far more costly for the Western hegemony to maintain the colonies.
Please point out the resource plundering that you keep talking about. Show me Russian corps taking over resources in these countries, or incidents of Russia forcing them to sell resources below market value the way the west has been doing. I’ll wait.
I really recommend you read the article I linked, if you haven’t. It directly addresses the Russian Federation. Here’s an excerpt from that section:
Simply put, the Russian Federation doesn’t have the same mass of financial capital by which they can dominate the global south like the west does. No country intervenes millitantly without doing so for personal benefit, that would be absurd, but that also doesn’t mean Russia is an empire either. The vast bulk of Russia’s consumption comes from goods it produces fot itself, this is quite opposed to western countries that consume the bulk of the value the global south produces while in turn producing far less.
Russia not being as massive and having far less influence doesn’t discard if from doing imperialism. There can be multiple empires.
But are you saying that nothing in my linked article is true? I know NYT regularly makes stuff up but Russia definitely backs the Sudanese government militarily.
The Western backed UAE is currently trying to overthrow the Russian backed government in Sudan with the RSF. The gold flow from Sudan to Russia isn’t much of a conspiracy.
The reason why I keep recommending you read the article I linked is because we are talking about 2 entirely different concepts. We can’t really have a conversation about imperialism if that means two completely different things between the two of us. I am not saying everything the NYT says is wrong, I’m saying we need to get on the same page to even have a discussion.
If you aren’t going to at least read the article and try to understand my perspective, would you at least do me the favor of explaining what you believe imperialism to be? I think that’s the least you could do.
We might indeed be talking past eachother. I read your page before writing my response but from what I understand it seems to just add arbitrary requirements to the word “imperialism” so that it can only encompass the West.
Imperialism for me is meddling in the politics of foreign countries for the benefit of the home country and heavily against the interest of the foreign country. Especially when people are put in power whom the population dislike but cannot get rid of because of the foreign backing.
The reason imperialism is outlined the way it is by Marxist-Leninists is because it’s a useful definition. It very specifically describes the way the world functions today, what gives rise to imperialism and why, and how to overcome it. Lenin’s analysis is useful because it explains how all capitalism works towards imperialism if it is able to, and gives us the tools to overcome it. It explains why revolution happens in the global south, not the global north.
As for your definition, it’s a bit loaded here. All countries meddle in others for their own benefits, the second part where you say it’s against the interests of the imperialized country is doing all of the heavy lifting. Moreover, there’s no systemic analysis for why this comes to be in some countries and not others. The reason Marxism-Leninism is useful is because it’s actionable, and helps make predictions for the future.
As for Russia, Sudan is in the midst of a civil war right now, it’s in the interests of everyone that it is stabilized as quickly as possible. Russia having an extraction industry in Sudan is not the issue at hand, nor is Russia directy contributing to civil strife. Russia has a good reputation in Africa, genuinely, for being a much better business partner than the west, similar to the PRC but not as good, and this is because Russia lacks the financial capital to dominate African countries.
Sudan is in “civil war” (more like proxy war between imperialist powers) and
The definition on your page excludes Russia from anything by literally excluding Communists from being able to do imperialism.
Not that I would classify Russia as Communist anyway since the fall of the USSR. Though Russia does have a lot of billionaires falling out of windows lately so maybe the transition is ongoing.