Opinion

Anything can happen in Ukraine

photo_camera Russian troops on the Ukrainian border

This Ukraine thing is getting complicated, if only because none of the big players involved, Russia and the United States, can lose face after what they have said and done. Or, to put it another way, they cannot go home empty-handed, especially Russia, which has deployed 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border as an instrument of pressure. Neither can Ukraine, which would like to find a way out of the mess that puts it at its epicentre, but cannot give up its sovereignty, and certainly not the EU or NATO. This may be one of those situations that end up dragging its protagonists into doing things they do not want to do, as happened in the Great War of 1914-1918 in which three of the four emperors involved were cousins, which cost the lives of millions of people and not only caused three of the four to lose their crowns, but also sowed the seed that twenty years later brought Hitler to fruition with the familiar results. One should not play with fire and that is precisely what Vladimir Putin is doing right now.

It is undeniable that Russia has its reasons, even if it is not right in the way it presents and defends them. In 1991 it was communism that was defeated, not Russia. But Moscow lost two million square kilometres of territories it dominated and also lost the status of a great power (Obama dismissively called it a "regional power") as well as not being integrated into the geopolitics that resulted from the end of bipolarity and in which the United States remained the sole superpower. This is when Francis Fukuyama missed the mark by announcing "the end of history" with the definitive triumph of liberalism, which had got rid of the other two great ideologies that dominated the 20th century: fascism and communism. If only he had not been mistaken, but it is typical of empires to think that they will last forever, as the Romans believed after the defeat and destruction of Carthage. And now it turns out that barely thirty years after the Soviet implosion, Moscow and especially Beijing offer an alternative model of global governance that resembles ours in its capitalist component but differs in its authoritarian essence. Above all, it is based on values that are very different from our own.

Russia has drawn a red line in Ukraine after twelve former Soviet republics joined NATO because it feels the Alliance's breath on its neck and has a sense of encirclement and suffocation. It believes that Kiev is sliding inexorably towards the European Union and NATO and has put its feet up. This is as far as we have come, the Kremlin has said, where the independence of Belarus or Ukraine is not understood to begin with. In an essay published last June, Putin referred to Ukraine's borders and said flatly that "we have been robbed". What the Kremlin wants are guarantees that Ukraine will never join NATO or agree to become an aircraft carrier full of Western weapons along its borders. And it doesn't stop there. It also demands that the US give up its nuclear weapons in Europe and that the conventional ones the Alliance has stationed in the Baltic states, Poland and Romania be withdrawn. It is not clear what Russia is going to do now, whether the troops deployed along the Ukrainian border will invade or whether they are merely posturing to negotiate with more force. No one knows.

In any case, these are conditions that the US cannot accept because they affect Ukraine's sovereignty, because it cannot accept blackmail as a form of politics, and because it understands that Europeans' hair stands on end in the face of Russia's nationalist expansionism. We all swallowed, albeit protesting, after Russia's interference in Moldova, Georgia and Crimea itself. But we no longer want to continue to swallow because we too have red lines and Ukraine or the Baltics define them. Nor can we accept that Moscow should decide whether or not Finland or Sweden can join NATO if one day they wish to do so. Moreover, if we do not defend Europe's borders as enshrined in the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference (1972), the continent may fall apart.

This is not to say that the Americans and Russians cannot talk about many other things, such as disarmament, the resumption of talks to extend the START 3 Treaty on intercontinental missiles, the INF Treaty on intermediate-range missiles in Europe intercontinental missiles, which Donald Trump abandoned on the grounds that Russia was violating it, the confidence-building Open Skies Treaty, the deployment of certain weapons in Europe, the holding of manoeuvres, the use of drones, cyber warfare ... the Americans can talk about many things with the Russians but what they cannot do is give in to blackmail because that would be perceived as weakness after what happened in Afghanistan, would send a very bad signal to the world about their resolve, would be badly read in Europe and could lead China to make a mistake in Taiwan with potentially very serious consequences.

This crisis has once again highlighted Europe's powerlessness, marginalised in negotiating issues that affect it directly and directly because they touch its very heart. And the EU has not been part of the talks, although its member states have been involved in the contacts that have taken place within the ECESB or NATO itself. But we are 27 countries with different positions on Russia and it is difficult to have a common foreign policy without first agreeing among ourselves, which will require imaginative formulas such as qualified majorities, positive abstentions or whatever it takes to allow us to speak with one voice and avoid the need for consensus on each and every foreign policy issue. Because down this road we are going nowhere, for as long as we do not do so and we do not have a military force, no one will listen to us or respect us. No one will take us seriously, except when it is necessary to dip into our chequebook. It is as clear as that.

The one that stands to lose, even if there is no invasion, is Ukraine. Crimea has already been taken away and Russia will not give it back no matter how many economic sanctions are imposed. And I fear that the same will happen sooner or later with the "republics of Donetsk and Lugansk". If things stay there and do not get worse. For a start, what has happened will strike fear into Ukraine's soul and put lead in its shoes for a long time to come.

Today, after initial contacts that apparently have not made anyone change their initial negotiating stance (the Americans say that Russia's claims are a "non starter", i.e. not a valid basis for starting negotiations), anything can end up happening because nobody really knows where history is going to lead. Even Russia's experts acknowledge their bewilderment and ignorance. And with each passing moment the tension increases and the problem is no longer just Ukraine but how to avoid a war in the heart of Europe. This is not scaremongering, although I personally believe that blood will not run to the river, even if we should not exclude mistakes by one or the other that might end up spilling blood. And that is what is most worrying. It makes one's hair stand on end, however distracted we may be with Omicron and the pandemic, because we must never forget that there is no bad situation that cannot get worse, that nationalism is expansive by nature and that playing with fire is very dangerous.

Jorge Dezcallar, Ambassador of Spain