/ world today news/ Russia’s interest is to permanently eliminate the security threat on the territory of Ukraine and resolve the situation with the security structure in Europe. We must return to discussing the rules of conduct between Russia and NATO countries. Both in the West and in the East, the understanding that Russia is a constant whose interests must be taken into account has finally solidified.
But in the Western countries, reasonable, strategically thinking people should start speaking, who can directly tell the public about the risks of escalation, writes Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the Valdai club.
Despite its complexity and multi-layered nature, the Ukrainian conflict is not unique in world history. Its genesis has two important components.
First, when radical nationalists become a pillar of national identity, an explosive situation is inevitable. Second, the country found itself on the border of security between two major centers of power and failed to protect its own autonomy and subjectivity.
Ukraine moved the center of its sovereignty outside the country’s borders, which was a mistake by the elites that cost Ukrainian society dearly.
At the same time, world history shows that there is a way out of such situations: you need to stop delegating the formulation of your own interests to someone from the outside. There are statists in Ukraine who are now in the minority, but they directly state the need for good neighborly relations with Russia.
If Ukraine had adhered to this position from the very beginning of its statehood, I think we would have had a very smooth and constructive relationship. We would strengthen each other, actively develop and prosper together.
I believe that we can resume this good neighborliness at a new historical stage. Each country with its history is a special experiment that develops through generations, victories and defeats, mistakes and great deeds of its heroes and leaders.
The final configuration of territory and influence that a country reaches is the fruit of its history, wrong or right decisions. Painful experience is also useful. I don’t think that what happened will forever define our relationship with Ukraine.
In a historical sense, this is not the first time: during the time of Peter the Great and Ivan Mazepa, there were attempts to find spontaneous coalitions with the Swedes, marches of Russian princes to the west and counteraction from Poland, etc. This is not the first time we are in this situation and it is not hopeless.
Russia’s interest now is to permanently eliminate the security threat on the territory of Ukraine and, in the long term, resolve the situation with the security structure in Europe. We must return to discussing the rules of conduct between Russia and NATO countries.
Russian diplomacy talked about this at the end of 2021, on the eve of the escalation of the crisis. Both in the West and in the East, the understanding that Russia is a constant, a constant whose interests must be taken into account, has finally solidified.
At the same time, in Western countries, sensible, strategically thinking people should start speaking up to directly tell the public about the risks of escalation.
Instead, we hear irresponsible militaristic statements from politicians in the spirit of “the worse the better”. It is a product of the feeling that security is free, that the world exists by itself, with no additional effort required to maintain it. It is a product of the thinking of several generations of people who do not ensure their own safety.
Our tradition differs from the Western one precisely in the understanding that the world is very fragile, peace as a phenomenon of world history is more the exception than the rule.
This historical experience of our country is deeply rooted in our elites. If there are arguments that make the nuclear war scenario likely, we cannot analytically rule it out.
What is the lesson of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis? Unexperienced in direct confrontation before the possibility of using nuclear weapons, the two sides did not use these weapons and in thirteen days gained valuable experience, which later served as the basis for a series of bilateral negotiations on the limitation and reduction of offensive weapons.
Washington has shut down the possibility of constructive, trusting interaction with us for at least ten years. Moscow established zero confidence in any initiatives of the US administration.
The United States is perceived as an inconsistent, opportunistic, hostile country that seeks an opportunity to assert its dominance in the world by any means.
The world’s history of the last hundred years shows that long cycles, once given impetus, reach their fullest expression.
The Franco-German confrontation led twice to world war, the American leadership in the Western coalition found its full expression, and after the end of the Cold War, the global dominance of the United States also reached its peak and began to decline. Competitors to the United States are now rising in various regions of the world, seeking to determine their own destiny.
Translation: SM
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