The world looked on in horror when the Trump regime, backed by the genocidal murderer Benjamin Netanyahu, inflicted “Operation Epic Fury” on Iran at the end of February. The war rapidly expanded into a wider regional conflict plunging Iran even deeper into a humanitarian crisis and displacing over a million people in Lebanon.

That feeling of horror was comparable to what people felt in 2022 when another imperialist marauder, Russian President Vladimir Putin, launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One person who didn’t share in the horror, however, was Ukraine’s own president Volodymyr Zelensky. The day “Operation Epic Fury” began, Zelensky took to X to gush praise for Trump: “It is important that the United States is acting decisively. Whenever there is American resolve, global criminals weaken. This understanding must also come to the Russians.”

As the war raged on, Zelensky made a tour of various repressive monarchies across the Middle East who have been dragged into the US and Israel’s bloody mess. From March 26-29, he visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. He came out of the tour with a series of 10-year arms deals, where Zelensky would provide the dictatorships with “Not just interceptors alone, but also defence lines, software, electronic warfare systems, and so on.”

For those who look up to Zelensky as a hero standing up to Putin’s imperialist aggression, his support for Trump’s war should be a wake-up call. It also shows that the various regional wars and imperialist conflicts around the world can’t be separated from the wider US/China inter-imperialist conflict that dominates the current era of global capitalism. Understanding the wars in Ukraine, Iran, and elsewhere—and stopping them—requires recognizing them as theaters in this wider inter-imperialist conflict.

Connected Theaters

Beyond being morally repugnant, Zelensky’s support for Trump’s war can seem downright illogical. Trump and Zelensky have had a notoriously poor relationship. Under Trump, US imperialism has pulled back support for Ukraine, rammed through exploitative mineral deals, and repeatedly tried to broker peace deals favorable to Russia. Trump has effectively broken up the western alliance with NATO that Zelensky has relied on. When some NATO countries refused or hesitated to back Trump’s war in Iran, Trump threatened to leave (and hence destroy) NATO altogether.

The immediate consequences of the war on Iran materially benefited Russian imperialism. Military aid for Ukraine has been diverted to the Middle East. The rise in the price of oil following the shutting down of the Strait of Hormuz has given a boost to the Russian economy, making it easier for Putin to fund his war machine. Meanwhile in Ukraine, the rising oil prices have worsened the effects of the Russian military attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure.

Nonetheless, there are reasons why Zelensky wants to see US imperialism “acting decisively.” While Trump has been busy butting heads with longstanding US allies, the alliance between Iran, Russia, and China has strengthened. In the past five years, the Iranian dictatorship has supplied Russian imperialism with $2.7 billion worth of missiles. Just a month before “Operation Epic Fury” began, Iran, China, and Russia signed a trilateral strategic pact, though this counted for little when US/Israeli bombs started to drop on Tehran. After shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, Iran granted China and Russia special passage through the Strait, alongside Iraq, India, and Pakistan.

As for Trump, as much carnage as he may inflict on US imperialism’s traditional alliances, he’s not “Putin’s pawn” as many liberal commentators would suggest. While Trump would like a rapprochement with Russia to pull it out of Beijing’s orbit, he shares the same US imperialist interests as those who rallied behind Ukraine in the first place. For Trump, the most efficient way of reasserting US hegemony has been through attempting to wage an economic war against China rather than waging an endless and unwinnable proxy war in Europe.

In 2025, Trump notoriously threatened NATO members who failed to meet their defense spending targets saying, “If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them.” While some saw this as a sign of Trump being under Putin’s sway, some of the most staunchly anti-Russia politicians in Europe, like Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, used Trump’s comments as a rallying call to ramp up defense spending. Zelensky is playing a similar gambit.

The Atlantic Council, a pro-NATO think tank, declared Zelensky’s tour of the Gulf monarchies “a masterclass in wartime diplomacy.” They argued:

“Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine has been widely seen as a recipient of military aid and a drain on international resources. Zelenskyy’s visit directly challenged this unflattering and outdated view. For the first time, Ukraine was presented as a potentially attractive security partner with much to offer in terms of unique military experience and innovative defense technologies.”

Zelensky is signaling to the world that, whether Trump likes him or not, he’s willing to turn Ukraine into the most effective, and profitable, proxy for US imperialism. The Iranian regime has similar motives for selling Shahed drones to Russia and letting Russian and Chinese ships bypass their blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Faced with its own internal crises, China’s “solidarity” with its close ally has been largely limited to mild statements of “concern” at Trump’s aggression. But the Iranian government still sees a bloc with Chinese imperialism as its best hope against the US.

The inter-imperialist conflict doesn’t mean every country acts in lockstep with their imperialist master. The capitalists in different countries have their own unique interests. The various regional conflicts, from Ukraine to the Middle East to the South China Sea, have their own histories predating the US-China conflict. But that conflict remains the central axis that drives how those competing national interests play out.

For the national ruling class of a country torn between the two imperialist powers, liberation from one requires becoming a proxy for the other. For the working class, a different road to liberation is needed.

You Can’t Fight Imperialism With Imperialism 

Zelensky portrays himself as championing democracy and national self-determination against Russian authoritarianism. Faced with the real horrors of Russia’s invasion, many on the left quickly abandoned opposition to NATO, and became cheerleaders for the war on the side of Ukraine and its imperialist backers.

Similarly, the Iranian government portrays itself as leading an “Axis of Resistance” against the US and Israel. Another segment of the left, faced with the real horrors of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the current wars in Iran and Lebanon, became cheerleaders for the Iranian government.

The various shady arms deals Ukraine and Iran have made with “friendly” imperialists and dictators shows how wrong these approaches are. They serve as a vindication for those who have stood firm against all imperialist invasions and proxy wars. The workers of Ukraine and Iran can’t be liberated by hitching their fate to a “lesser evil” in an inter-imperialist conflict.

Genuinely revolutionary socialists stand for the defeat of US imperialism in its war on Iran and Russian imperialism in its war on Ukraine. But these defeats have to be brought about by the organized working class in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and internationally. Such an internationalist, anti-imperialist stance also stands in solidarity with working-class struggles against the Iranian dictatorship and Zelensky’s right-wing government in Ukraine.

The only force capable of stopping war and dictatorships is the international working class. All those who oppose “their” corrupt and repressive rulers—from the US and Israel to Russia and China to Iran and Ukraine—need to take the lead in the fight against imperialist wars of aggression, together with the fight against exploitative capitalism at home. We need an international, working-class movement that can take on all the capitalist regimes globally and fight for a shared socialist future of peace and freedom from occupation and oppression.