Vittorio Emanuele Parsi: “Ukraine between Russia and the West”

«The threat of the use of force so explicit by the Kremlin is already an escalation. This situation was all created by the Russians because Ukraine’s entry into NATO was not and is not expected. This does not mean that the Ukrainians cannot apply and that no one can prevent them. nobody can even tell NATO what it can do or not do ». Vittorio Emanuele Parsidirector of the High School of Economics and International Relations of the Catholic University of Milan thus tells the origin of a conflict that seems every day on the verge of breaking out with Russia on the one hand, Europe and the United States on the other. In the middle of Ukraine.

In the press conference last night, the American president Joe Biden he said the US is “ready to impose massive costs on Russia should it choose a further conflict.” In the Donbass and Lugansk, separatist regions of Ukraine, there have been violations of the ceasefire. Women and children are on the run. At least 25,000 civilians have already left the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic. Russian President Putin has two weapons in hand: military strength and energy. He is using both of them with the threat of invasion of Ukraine under the pretext of the Ukrainian willingness to join NATO which, according to him, would put Russia at risk.

Russia’s push towards Ukraine comes from a will that has always been Putin’s according to Professor Parsi. «The Russian aim, since Putin has been in power, is to reverse the consequences of the end of the Cold War. The West, on the other hand, considers them irreversible. For Russia, Ukraine’s approach to NATO is a concern, the path it pursues to remove this concern is unacceptable.“.

Therefore, not the war on Ukrainian territory, not the invasion, are the way to solve the problem in the teacher’s opinion, but “a comprehensive multilateral agreement for a security architecture in Europe a bit like what happened in Helsinki in 1975 which cannot be done under the threat of arms and which must provide for everyone to give up something: if the Russians want the withdrawal of weapons systems from states NATO members such as Romania must be willing to take similar measures by bringing the same systems beyond the Urals ».

If a picture like the divided Europe of the Cold War is unimaginable, Russia is thinking of spheres of influence. The professor of international relations explains: “Mutual security agreements can be madebut not on the skin of third parties, in this case the Ukrainians ».

Ukraine is internally divided between Russophiles and pro-Western who are the majority. In 2014 he already lost the Crimea annexed by Russia, the last previous annexation was that of the Sudetenland by Hitler’s Germany. «The difficulty for us Westerners is to try not to give in to Russian arrogance by trying to avoid ending up in an open conflict. Firmness is, for me, the best thing to show in this narrow way ».

The worst case scenario is that of a open conflictfueled by mutual accusations and threats of sanctions, the others are the surrender to Putin, that of the Russian president to the West or the opening of a great deal “in which, however, the Ukrainians must be admitted as subjects, not as objects , it can’t be the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner. ‘

Professor Parsi considers the firmness of the position of Europe in this affair. “If we gave up we would have an identity crisis of the European Union based on the supremacy of the law, the right of sovereignty and the refusal to use force as a threat. If we did not remain firm on these three points we would find ourselves a Russia convinced that it can do what she wants and we would no longer be ourselves in this post-war identity that we have given ourselves. This is a threat to our existential security and our identity. So far there has been an extraordinary European unity of purpose in this crisis ».