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On March 7 in the newspaper “ADN” was published an article by Albanian publicist D.Shasha. The material, titled “A New Europe”, promotes the idea that over the past three decades, the European Union has remained a “political dwarf”, preferring to pursue a “soft power” policy and not invest in its own security system, which is why it has lost geopolitical weight in the eyes of its American allies and is now forced to build up its military capabilities. In this regard, I would like to make some comments.
The statement that the USA was left “alone” after the fall of the Berlin Wall does not correspond to reality. Over the past decades, Western European countries have repeatedly taken part in military operations against various states as a part of US-led coalitions, including armed “peacekeeping” in the Balkans, which culminated in the military intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995) and NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia (1999), the so-called “fight against terrorism” in Afghanistan (2001), the invasion of Iraq (2003), the “humanitarian” intervention in Libya (2011), etc. The result of these actions was the same – ruined, collapsed states, the spread of terrorism. What kind of European rejection of “hard power” does Mr. D.Shasha claim?
It would be much more useful for the entire continent if the European states really used their “soft power”, for example, by forcing the Kiev regime to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk agreements of February 12, 2015, thereby ensuring the observance of the linguistic, cultural, religious rights and freedoms of the Russian-speaking population and national minorities living in Ukraine, as well as promoting direct dialogue between Kiev and Donbass. Instead, for eight consecutive years, the EU countries did nothing, indifferently watching the Kiev regime’s violence against civilians in the region. If Kiev considered Donbass as part of a united Ukraine, then the Europeans needed to use their “soft power” to force the Ukrainian regime to establish a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk, take their interests into account.
We also deem inconsistent an assumption that the EU countries sought to work with Russia as partners, while Moscow, allegedly, was not ready for this. In reality, the situation was exactly the opposite. For many years, Russia had been trying to build an equal partnership with the West. There were mutually beneficial projects for practical cooperation in the field of economics, trade, energy, security and culture. However, the West, and Europe in particular, verbally declaring the principles of openness, did not dare to dismantle the containment mechanisms left over from the era of bloc confrontation. Instead of a unifying policy, a strategy of NATO expansion to the East was chosen. It is not clear why it was necessary to expand and strengthen the military alliance if the Warsaw Pact and the USSR ceased to exist. Europe could also use its “soft power” and political will to prevent the collapse of the ABM Treaty, the INF Treaty, the Treaty on Open Skies and CFE Treaty. The mechanisms of cooperation within the OSCE gradually degraded. Russia’s proposal to sign two agreements on legally binding security guarantees with NATO and the USA in December 2021, which had a chance to open the way to lasting peace on our continent, was arrogantly rejected by the European countries and the previous US administration.
Mr. D.Shasha criticizes President D.Trump for his efforts to normalize relations with Russia, clearly stating that this attempt is doomed to failure. But all the previous years, the European policy and overall foreign policy of the J.Biden administration were built on the principles of confrontation, participation in the military actions and NATO expansion. Maybe it is time to understand the futility of such a policy?
Today, amid ongoing Russian-American contacts for a diplomatic settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, European states express their desire to become part of the negotiation process. What role can the European Union play? European countries, guided by the narratives of confrontation, are elaborating new initiatives on Ukraine, including a deployment of some “peacekeeping forces” there. However, the stationing of Western armed forces in Ukraine in any format is absolutely unacceptable for Moscow, as our Foreign Minister S.Lavrov clearly stated. Mr. D.Shasha writes in his article about the establishment of a “new Europe”, suggesting its militarization for further confrontation with Russia. It is obvious how unstable such “peace” will be. The security of countries on our common continent – Eurasia – does not depend on the volume of military expenditures, but on the readiness to create an equal and indivisible system of international security for all, and to reject confrontational approaches in this area. This is the essence of the proposals that the President of Russia V.Putin made on June 14, 2024.
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