Europe 1 with AFP 5:03 p.m., April 22, 2022

Russian communists on Friday expressed their support for Vladimir Putin's offensive in Ukraine, which they see as a struggle between Moscow and Washington, at a ceremony marking Lenin's birthday.

About 200 people gathered in the morning near the Kremlin walls.

Russian communists on Friday expressed their support for Vladimir Putin's offensive in Ukraine, which they see as a struggle between Moscow and Washington, at a ceremony marking Lenin's birthday.

"The Anglo-Saxons came (to Ukraine) to fight in order to dominate the planet," said the first secretary of the Russian Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov.

"Today, in the Ukrainian expanses, the question is decided whether the world will be unipolar under their command (that of the Anglo-Saxons, editor's note) or multipolar," added the 77-year-old official.

"It is necessary to defend the state," Gennady Zyuganov insisted on Friday, accusing NATO and the United States of fighting "the Russian world".

About 200 people present

The First Secretary of the Communist Party took part in a ceremony in Red Square marking the 152nd anniversary of the birth of Lenin, a revolutionary and the first leader of the Soviet Union whose figure remains revered by Communists.

About 200 people gathered in the morning near the Kremlin walls, brandishing portraits of the communist leader and red flags struck with hammer and sickle.

They then placed carnations in front of the mausoleum where Lenin, who died in 1924, rests, embalmed and is still on public display.

Communists support Putin

The Communists, like the entire Russian political class, gave their support to Vladimir Putin after the launch of the military intervention in Ukraine.

This offensive has exacerbated the already high tensions between Russia and the United States.

Many analysts compare the current situation to the Cold War which pitted the American and Soviet superpowers against each other for more than four decades after the end of the Second World War.