This work is a deep immersion into the depths of the struggle between capitals, of the struggle of capital against political power and its ideological forms. It is a work about the crude, rough, at times ungainly, but absolutely ruthless and uncompromising political transformation of states on a global scale, which modifies principles and, in particular, correctly adapts and applies them to national and nation-state differences.

The book was originally written in 2021, and after the outbreak of the war, the authors returned to it, reworking and substantially expanding the original text. The book is based on a simple proposition: a conflict of this scale cannot be understood by entering into a race to follow daily, short-term events. The authors reveal the essence of this conflict through the prism of the events that directly preceded it, as well as those that are yet to occur. Many people ask the question, “Why did the war become possible?” and have been circling around it for several years, blaming one person for it — the President of Russia — while naively supposing that he unleashed it himself, simply because he happened to wish to do so one morning. The authors, however, point out that it would be a mistake to think in this way and, through their work, cut through the thicket of such naïve misconceptions. The authors show not only the origins of the war, but its very mechanics and how those mechanics should be classified

Instead of concentrating primarily on the public statements of governments or the immediate chronology of military events, the authors pose three fundamental questions: What caused the conflict, and how did it arise? What processes created the conditions from which it emerged? And if these conditions can be identified, where does the way out lie?

In search of answers to these questions, the authors employ scientific methods that reveal to the reader the transformation of Ukraine — from its socialist model to its return to the family of capitalist states. They show how it came to be seized by international syndicates, trusts and alliances of billionaire capitalists; how they stitched it through with thousands of their financial threads; how free trade and competition gave way to aspirations towards monopoly, towards the seizure of land and towards complete subjugation. They show how the liberators of the Ukrainian nation, having governed “for the benefit of their people”, ultimately brought matters to the point where they turned themselves and their own people into a nation deprived of rights; how the Ukrainian people became completely defenceless in the global political arena; and how the country itself, once respected, independent and possessing an international voice, was transformed into the property of foreign states. This is not a narrative of a happy metamorphosis; it is a scientific approach to calculating the future of the country and its people.

Who said that people are not traded today? They most certainly are — they are transferred together with entire states. The authors reveal the redistribution of Ukraine’s property among its new owners — who are they? — as well as the development of competing economic interests around the country. Ukraine is therefore not considered in isolation. The analysis extends to Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and China, placing the country within a broader struggle connected with markets, resources, capital and spheres of influence.

The authors trace the evolution of the conflict, its direct participants and their methods. Many claim that the liberators of Ukraine are waging a war for the freedom of the people. One would like to believe this. But is that really so? Or is the war in Ukraine a war between the greatest modern slaveholders? The analysis leads to intriguing answers to these questions.

The authors devote considerable attention in the book to the question of the development of fascism in modern society. In the course of their analysis, they establish facts that form a logical chain in which the development of social relations leads to a phase of crisis, during which fascism will only expand and grow stronger. Ukraine and Russia already figure in this phase. In their further analysis, the authors examine the economic and political foundations of fascism, its connection with financial and monopoly capital, the state apparatus and instruments of influence over the people, as well as the character of the modern Ukrainian state, after which they directly pose the question: “Can the modern Ukrainian state be called fascist?” At the same time, this question is considered neither in isolation nor as a justification for the policies of the Russian government: the book simultaneously rejects the notion that the Russian government is engaged in a struggle against fascism as such and examines the great-power, chauvinistic and imperialist tendencies of the Russian authorities themselves.

Thus, the war appears not as an event detached from political economy, but as a development whose origins must be sought in the broader movement of economic and political relations, in the construction of a logical chain and in the further calculation of algorithms for solutions.

“Ukraine. There Is a Way Out…” is therefore not an ordinary book offering yet another set of political recommendations, nor does it propose yet another conventional diplomatic “peace plan”. However, the words “There Is a Way Out” are not merely a marketing metaphor. The answer is contained in the book itself. The authors do indeed assert that a way out exists, and the entire structure of the book gradually leads the reader towards this question.

At the decisive moment, the authors ask directly: “What is to be done? Where is the way out?”

From this point onwards, the character of the book itself changes. Having examined how the existing situation arose, the authors turn to considering the forces capable of changing it. The answer develops through questions of political consciousness and organisation, sovereignty, economic ownership, control and political pressure, the cessation of hostilities and negotiations. These measures are not presented as separate, unrelated prescriptions, since the authors proceed from the premise that the consequences of a political and economic process cannot be overcome without addressing the relations that gave rise to them.

Ultimately, the book returns to the question contained in its very title. If the war arose from particular political and economic conditions, then the cessation of hostilities and the elimination of the conditions capable of reproducing the conflict are not necessarily one and the same thing.

“Ukraine. There Is a Way Out…” raises the question of what must change for the way out not merely to be proclaimed, but to become materially possible.