Signatories argue that the West’s own security and values are on the line in Ukraine, demanding to double down against the Kremlin.
Three years after 24 February 2022, the Europeans have still not grasped the full significance of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its implications in Ukraine and far beyond. The Americans, aware of what is at stake in terms of global security in the Far East, are clinging to the illusion of an alliance of setbacks, ignoring the disastrous consequences of any compromise with the Putin regime, including for Russia itself.
On the basis of these fundamentals, more than 600 leading figures believe that the Americans and Europeans have no choice but to finally allocate to Ukraine all the resources that will enable it to defeat Russia militarily.
With Russia’s hybrid attacks on the Baltic Sea, Romania, Denmark, Germany, Moldova, and Georgia growing in strength and number, we have reached a critical juncture. It is time to acknowledge that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is merely one component of a broader project aimed at permanently fragmenting and weakening the West.
In this context, any scenario involving a freeze in the conflict – particularly one accompanied by the deployment of European troops along a demarcation line – would sanction the de-facto partition of Ukraine.
This would not only condemn millions of Ukrainians to servitude under Putin’s yoke and betray the memory of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians killed, but it would also set a dangerous precedent.
Any state might then feel entitled to use force to annex new territories, including extremely vulnerable ones in the Russian Far East such as Outer Manchuria, which Russia annexed in the 19th century.
The argument that Ukrainians alone should decide the conditions for peace with Russia increasingly appears to be a smokescreen for certain Western states seeking to abdicate their responsibilities.
Yet the values and interests defended by the Ukrainians align completely with those that the entire West is duty-bound to defend. The security, stability, and survival of the West depend directly on the security, stability, and survival of Ukraine. Similarly, the security of the United States itself is inseparable from that of Europe.
The time has therefore come for the West as a whole to respond to Russia’s all-out aggression with a comprehensive strategy. To do so, it must clearly define the political and military objectives that will enable the elimination of the threat Russia poses today. Simultaneously, it must send a clear signal to all those in the Russian oligarchy who recognize the catastrophe that Putin’s war party is preparing to inflict on Russia.
The West should require Russia to:
- Withdraw its troops from all currently occupied Ukrainian territories;
- Release all imprisoned Ukrainians, including soldiers, civilians, kidnapped children, and adults “convicted” on any grounds;
- Pay compensation to all families of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians killed and wounded, and for all destroyed infrastructure;
- Dismantle its military bases in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Armenia;
The West should also:
- Ensure free elections occur in Georgia and Belarus under strict international supervision;
- Support Japan’s rightful claim to the Kuril Islands of Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan, and Habomai, occupied by Russia since 1945;
- Greenlight NATO membership for Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia.
Implementation should at least include these actions:
- Create within NATO a special €300 billion fund, excluding frozen Russian funds, to supply modern armaments to Ukraine worth €100 billion annually over the next three years, with NATO member states contributing in proportion to their GDP;
- Deploy permanently, under NATO command (as in Germany during the Cold War), 300,000 European soldiers in all willing front-line countries – Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania – positioned to intervene rapidly if necessary;
- Establish within NATO a structure similar to the Cold War’s COCOM to ensure compliance with the ban on all exports of arms and dual technologies to totalitarian countries, particularly the PRC, Russia, Iran, and North Korea;
- Impose sanctions through all NATO member countries on Bidzina Ivanishvili, leader of the Georgian Dream party and Putin’s Trojan horse in Georgia, as well as on all Georgian individuals involved in the theft of the recent Georgian election.
In addition to the urgent political, security, and moral reasons already mentioned, this extraordinary military aid of €300 billion or $300 billion to Ukraine would represent only about 0.25% of NATO member states’ annual expenditure. It would be the best guarantee that these states would not have to spend 3% or more of their GDP on defense in the future.
Are the freedom of the Ukrainian people, and both their security and ours, really not worth a budgetary effort of a few tenths of a percent?
Signatories:
1. Viktor Yushchenko, former President of Ukraine
2. Indulis Berzins, historian, diplomat, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Latvia
3. Carlo Calenda, Senator, former Minister, Italy
4. Walter Clemens, Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Boston University, USA
5. Eliot A. Cohen, Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), USA
(…)
333. Lyudmyla Kozlovska, President, Open Dialogue Foundation, Brussels
Source: voxeurop.eu
