Volodymir Yermolenko, Ukrainian analyst and philosopher
“If the EU wants to force Putin to negotiate, it has to detail much more the sanctions that it would apply, from the economic ones to the arrest of its acolytes”
Ukraine has been at the center of the geopolitical table for weeks, since a possible Russian invasion would endanger the international order. After the meeting between French President Emanuelle Macron and Vladimir Putin, the negotiation enters “a crucial week”, according to European leaders. The positions between the two blocks seem, however, very far apart. For the Ukrainian analyst and journalist Volodymyr Yermolenko, time plays in favor of the West. “Russia cannot keep her troops forever on the border with Ukraine. The EU must make sanctions more concrete and force the Kremlin to sit at the negotiating table », he warns.
– Is this week crucial for the negotiations with Russia, as some European leaders point out?
– Yes, it does. On the one hand, the Olympic Games are being held in China and there is also the end of the Russian military exercises around February 20. It remains to be seen if after that date the troops will stay there, on the southern border of Ukraine and near Kiev.
– However, the two sides seem to be a long way from reaching an agreement.
– The key is whether Russia will try to advance commitments it considers second-rate. It may also happen that Europe has underestimated Putin and that he uses the same strategy as in 2008 in Georgia. So Russia carried out a very quick military operation and the EU could not react in time, so it was forced to come to an agreement. This resulted in a loss of territory for Georgia and the same may happen now. Russia can put us in a situation that forces us to agree to something we do not want.
– The threat as a political instrument
– Putin uses everything as a weapon. Information is a weapon and he uses it to create disinformation campaigns, he does the same with the price of gas, with military interference in countries like Mali… All the pacts with Russia have been reached through threats and coercion to preserve the peace.
– What should Europe do now?
– You should use a similar strategy and force the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table. For this, the sanctions must be much more specified, which can range from the arrest of Putin’s acolytes, to economic sanctions or the dismantling of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Only this will work.
– Do you think it is possible that war breaks out?
– It’s a posibility. I think both sides are waiting, taking their time. And time is ticking in favor of the West, since Russia cannot have its troops concentrated forever on the Ukrainian border. What is clear is that we should not accept peace on the terms set by Russia.
– Meanwhile, the war in Donbass continues…
– We live between peace and war. The conflict is highly localized, but since 2014 15,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million displaced. It is a very clandestine war. In the cities, life goes on and the country’s GDP grows.
– Has the opinion that Ukrainians had of Russia changed?
– For most it is public enemy number one. In that sense, the situation is very different from that of ten years ago, when certain sectors of the population were close to Russia. Now the pro-Russian political forces do not reach 15% of the intention to vote.
– And Moscow knows that it is losing its influence…
– He knows that Ukraine is moving away and trying to force what he cannot win at the polls. But Putin does not seek to return to the territorial configuration of the USSR, he wants to rebuild the Russian empire. He has already made it clear that for him Ukrainians do not exist, he says that we are all Russians.
– The conquest of Ukraine would therefore be only a first step in Putin’s plans…
– It is the desperate counterattack of a wounded empire. This tactic has paid off in Belarus, where it remains influential, and they want the same for Ukraine. The Ukrainians, however, are closer to the ideas of freedom and democracy than to those of authoritarianism and we are ready to defend them. If France and Germany pressure Ukraine to comply with the Minsk agreements – which admit Russian interference in politics national – we will not accept it because it implies a loss of Ukrainian sovereignty.
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