“Putin jokes with fire: Europe and the US are ready to give a very serious, determined and compact answer”
Despite his young age (he will turn 40 next August), Lia Quartapelle has considerable experience in foreign policy. Economist, researcher ofISPI (Institute for International Political Studies) and profound connoisseur of African issues, she is in her second term as a parliamentary member of the Democratic Party, of which she was a co-founder, contributing to the birth of 02PD, the largest Milanese Dem club. She is married to the former Minister of Justice Claudio Martellitoday director of The Avantiis a member of the Foreign and International Affairs Commission and with Affaritaliani.it analyzes the ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine.
February 16 was heralded as the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The withdrawal of troops from Belarus is a positive sign of de-escalation or is it just a tactical move?
Good for Belarus, because the situation was really very dangerous, but let us suspend our judgment on the overall picture. A video relaunched by the Russian Foreign Minister is not enough. There are international monitoring mechanisms, in particular at the Donbass border, where there are OSCE (including Russian) observers, then there is NATO. We leave it to those who are in the field and therefore have more elements to evaluate.
What must be done to avoid war? Is it necessary to exclude the entry of Ukraine into NATO or are there other ways?
Meanwhile, I would like to specify that by saying “avoid war” we are underestimating the situation, because Ukraine has been at war since 2014, when it was invaded by Russia. We tend to forget it, because it is a low-intensity conflict, but it still cost a lot: thousands of deaths (between 10,000 and 15,000), over a million internally displaced people (out of 44,000 million inhabitants) and a very high military cost, because the ‘Ukraine has grown from an army of a few tens of thousands to one with 200,000 armed soldiers and 900,000 reservists, with 30% of the state budget going into military spending. That said, we all want to prevent the conflict from becoming radicalized.
Let’s go back to the topic of NATO: should Ukraine join it or not?
It is not an issue on the agenda and it will not be in the coming months either. In 2019 Ukraine changed its Constitution, giving itself entry into the EU and NATO as a long-term goal. However, there is no calendar, nor an ongoing discussion and above all there is no unanimity among NATO members on this possible inclusion. Talking about it is therefore very premature and I think it is a pretext on the Russian side. It is quite another thing to say that after the withdrawal of all Russian troops, we can discuss, even with Putin, a new architecture of European security. This must be done, of course, but not while a military threat from Russia is underway!
What, then, are Putin’s real motives?
I believe that they are mainly internal motivations. There is a collapse in consensus that has been going on for a while now and a mechanism that has been described as “addictive”: as Putin’s popularity wanes, Putin unleashes another war. Then I believe that there is an attempt to hide the story of Alexei Navalny from public opinion, given that the trial began yesterday and that his main opponent faces ten years in prison.
Biden has also been accused of having exploited this story to recover consensus: is it a well-founded hypothesis or is there really a war danger at the gates of Europe?
I believe there is a real danger. The Biden administration has already shown in the case of Afghanistan that it is much more focused on internal problems than on international ones, so I think its ultimate interest is to open up conflict situations around the world. It is not the first time that Putin has threatened and then negotiated. Unlike in the past, this time the United States took every intelligence signal seriously and therefore there was an escalation: each time they asked for explanations, without ever getting them.
The crisis between Russia and Ukraine is intertwined with the energy crisis. Romano Prodi said that a long-term agreement with Putin still needs to be reached. Do you agree or do you see other ways out?
We as Europe have a long-term strategy which consists in investing in renewable sources, so as to decrease our energy dependence on large suppliers. This crisis must be a stimulus to speed up the process. The energy issue must also be central in defining new safety policies, but I remember that dependence is a double-edged sword: even suppliers such as Russia are now closely linked to the demand of the European market.
So Putin is playing with fire, literally …
Yes, also because we face a much more united West than it was in 2014. So we acted ex post, while this time we moved first and with a team logic, also between prime ministers of the various EU countries and in coordination with the Americans. Of course, the European institutions can still be strengthened (for example with majority decisions on foreign policy), but they have already given a good test of unity. The Putin regime at this juncture is demonstrating all its inherent weaknesses. Russian commentators, for example, are very concerned about the escalation of the situation. A very one-man system is very dangerous, even for that man himself.
Does Nord Stream 2 still have a future or is it to be archived?
At this moment everything seems to me blocked. It’s one of those things that can be put on the table later, if Russia withdraws its troops.
So the position that Di Maio will also represent in Lavrov is very firm: for Italy and for Europe there will be no room for negotiations, until the Russian soldiers return home. Is that so?
That’s right: that’s the point. We cannot deal with 130,000 soldiers lined up on the borders and with small cyber attacks like those that occurred yesterday in Kiev. So there is no arguing. All the diplomatic channels that have remained open in recent days have given Putin the same message: there are red lines that cannot be crossed, otherwise the answer will be very serious, determined and compact.
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