From Paris
One of the last threads dialogue to avoid an armed conflict in Ukraine between Russia and the West passed in these hours by the french capital. Delegations from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France met this Wednesday, January 26, in Paris in search of a mechanism capable of defusing a crisis that is about to erupt into an armed conflict. Western powers accuse Russia of having moved tens of thousands of soldiers to Ukraine’s borders in order to launch an offensive. At the same time, The United States alleges that the Moscow attack will be carried out “imminently” within two to three weeks. The Europeans do not fully share Washington’s alarmism and do not consider that they are facing an “imminent” situation. The Paris meeting is being held in the so-called “Normandy” format which refers to a similar summit held on April 6, 2014 in the Norman town of Ouistreham where Moscow, Berlin, Kiev and Paris hosted a conference during the celebrations of the Landing in Normandy of the allied troops during the Second World War. As now, it was then about the Ukraine crisis and in Ouistreham a diplomatic consensus was reached to lower the tension.
The Paris dialogue, however, was interrupted by a new Western provocation. The Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, said that he had communicated in writing to Moscow the Alliance’s refusal to sign an agreement with Russia by which NATO committed to limit the expansion of the Alliance. That is one of the guarantees that Moscow demands from the Western powers to prevent Ukraine from becoming part of the military alliance. Last Sunday, the United States asked part of its diplomatic personnel and their families to return to their country. Lego, the United Kingdom and Canada followed the same example despite the fact that the Ukrainian authorities considered that this decision was “premature”. Europe bets for the moment on the diplomatic letter and so the presidential Elysée Palace made it known. According to the French presidency, “it is very encouraging that Russia has agreed to integrate this diplomatic format, the only one in which the Russians fully participate.” France believes that “this meeting will provide a clear indication of what Russia thinks, and this ahead of Friday’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron”. The presidency insisted that “we want a de-escalation and this goes through both dialogue and deterrence.” For the Americans, that option of dialogue is invalid because, according to US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, everything indicates that Vladimir Putin “will use force at a given time, perhaps between now and mid-February.” A day before the Paris meeting, Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz repeated the importance of dialogue.
The military pieces are being armed. NATO (Atlantic Alliance) had to respond to the list of guarantees demanded by Moscow. On December 17, Russia revealed its draft international treaty containing measures “to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and NATO member states.” Among its nine articles, the text proposed that the signatories cease to consider themselves “as adversaries”. In this context, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, insisted on saying that “if the West continued on its bellicose path” Moscow would adopt “the necessary responses”. Lavrov also denounced Western “hysteria” around an alleged Russian intervention. In fact, Among the guarantees demanded by Russia is the condition that Ukraine does not become part of NATO. Russians and Americans have already held a round of talks and Washington delivered a written response on Wednesday 26 in which there is a “diplomatic path would be if Russia really wants it,” said the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken. The diplomatic official also reiterated that the United States was “determined to maintain and defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and the right of states to choose their own security arrangements and alliances.” Blinken added another piece to the armed confrontation on Wednesday when he said that “the doors of NATO are still open.”
The expression is very provocative and conveys an intention of confrontation far removed from the dialogue that, due to energy needs, Europe is seeking. It is curious that Ukraine considers the 100,000 men that Moscow stationed near the Ukrainian border to be “insufficient” for an attack and that Washington sees in that figure the prospect of an “imminent” attack. Since Monday, January 24, the United States has put 8,500 soldiers on alert who could join NATO’s rapid action force, which has some 40,000 men. However, for now no decision has been made to deploy those troops. The Atlantic Alliance advanced the sending of fighter planes to reinforce its defenses in Eastern Europe. This position can only exacerbate Moscow, for whom the proximity of the Atlantic Alliance troops in its areas of influence is equivalent to an existential threat.
Dialogue as an option above all assumed by the Europeans does not respond to a mere desire for peace but to the problem of hydrocarbons. If the conflict escalates in these winter months, Europe could see Russian gas supplies dwindle. Dependence is very strong: 40% of its needs are covered by gas from Russia.
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