Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the U.S. is ready for anything after Russian officials

warn of the danger of nuclear war. Today we'll discuss the recent news with Ukraine and

also put Ukraine Russian relations into historical perspective. We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have

sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity.

Yeah. Welcome to this week's Welcome to this week's episode of The Real Story on the Socialist Program.

I'm your host, Brian Becker.

Today we'll be talking once again with Eugene per year of Breakthrough News.

Eugene, welcome back to the Socialist Program. Brian, thank you so much for having me.

Well, Eugene, when we talked about a week ago, I wanted to really do a deep dive, and we're going to

do that today about Russian-Ukraine relations or formerly Soviet-Ukraine relations. And of course,

Vladimir Putin talked about that when he explained why

the Russian government was first recognizing the independent republics of Luhansk and Donetsk.

And then further, when he explained why the Russians were conducting what he called the special

military operation and what the West calls the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He talked about Russian-Ukraine relations. He put them into perspective. He talked about

what the Bolshevik policy was. In some ways, he was blaming the Bolsheviks and Lenin for the

current predicament between Russia and Ukraine. So we want to talk about that because as socialist,

that's an issue of great interest. And of course, it does help in some ways frame the issue

of what's going on, although we have a very, and you have a very different perspective. But before

we do that, let's get started with some of the big news, because there is really big news in the last

couple of days. Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State were in Kiev.

They met with Zelensky. They announced then that the U.S. plan for Ukraine was nothing other

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