In his new book, Putin, Ukraine, Hidden Faces, to be published by Balland on March 24, Russian historian and writer of Russian-Ukrainian origin Vladimir Fedorovsky gives us the keys to understanding the urgency of this new war on the European continent, the identity of the Russian President and the what Ukraine and Russia are today.
According to the former diplomat, it is necessary to be able to analyze history and reason about the past consequences of news that we thought was over. As it is, nothing is ever acquired.
“Westerners have refused to associate Russia with the free world.”
Vladimir Fedorovsky
on Franceinfo
When the USSR collapsed, isn’t it time for the Europeans to involve the Russians in the common cause, helping them to recover? Vladimir Fedorovsky believes that we “isolated Russia, even humiliated her, and today we are paying a very high price for this …” Russia, instead of allowing it to plunge into a serious economic crisis that plunged part of the Russian population into extreme poverty during the Yeltsin era . “Russian public opinion is still convinced that the West did not want to kill communism, but Russia,” says our guest. It is true that Europe has too often had a short memory.
May 9 is a national holiday in Russia (Victory Day, or Victory Day), it is celebrated and celebrated in memory of the soldiers and citizens who offered heroic resistance to the German invaders, who traveled thousands of kilometers on the Russian front, from June from December 22, 1941 to the beginning 1944 This war, referred to in Russia as the Great Patriotic War (Great Patriotic War), cost Russia from 27 to 30 million dead, military and civilian. Not to mention the blockade of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) for almost 900 days, when the city was surrounded by the Wehrmacht.
This siege lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944, resulting in 1,800,000 Russian casualties. Precisely because 153 to 201 German divisions (a division is between 10,000 and 30,000 men) were blockaded by the Russian front, the Allied landings could have taken place in Sicily, Normandy and Provence. However, on May 9, 2015, during the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany, not a single European head of state or government came to Moscow. No European tribute was paid to Russian fighters. The insult was not forgotten. By their absence, the Europeans intended to indicate their condemnation of the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s participation in the war in Donbass, Ukraine.
“During Gorbachev’s time, 80% of Russians were pro-Western, today hardly 10-15%.”
Vladimir Fedorovsky
on Franceinfo
According to our guest, “Putin is strengthening NATO, but for now NATO is strengthening Putin.” The war in Ukraine, odious as it was, led Vladimir Fedorovsky to say: “We have entered a world of all dangers: bloc against bloc, with the prospect of an anti-Western alliance between Russia and China and possibly Iran.”
It is true that all dangers are at our doorstep, and if we often become victims of an information war, then this conflict also finds its source in the anxiety that reigned in the circles of Russian power in the face of NATO expansion, and this, to the borders of Russia. Shouldn’t we regret the lack of dialogue between Europe and Russia? The current situation in Europe, including sanctions against Russia, could be a turning point in the history of the EU.
Faced with the human drama of this war, with refugees killed and wounded, with children who, like all children, are marked by war, we may have entered a new dimension of the European continent, as Vladimir Fedorovsky said. For our guest, “the sanctions will be gigantic for Europe and will not have the desired effect for the Russians.”
Can we conclude that European and US sanctions against Russia will result in higher prices for Europeans, especially for food, as the increase in fuel costs will affect the cost of transport?
Could these sanctions also raise concerns about the risk of shortages in certain sectors, as well as give rise to retaliatory measures from the Russian side by Maskirovka? This Russian military doctrine is a technique for disinformation of the enemy. Camouflage also means camouflage, which means drawing the attention of another to a given point, while one will act at another point.
Thus, Russia can undermine certain sensitive sectors of the West by destabilizing our daily lives through Russian actions, for example, in relation to submarine cables. Because 90% of global communication is via submarine cable, not satellite.
However, the effect of the sanctions was not long in coming in the space world. The departure of Russian specialists from the Kourou base in Guyana, which has two launch sites, one for the Ariane rocket and the other for the Soyuz rocket, will delay the launch of European satellites until the arrival of Ariane-6, that is, not earlier than 2023.
As for the surrounding Russophobia, Vladimir Fedorovsky points out that it’s time to learn how to distinguish between Vladimir Putin and the Russian people. May diplomacy lead to an early de-escalation of this conflict that concerns us all.
A new book by the historian and writer Vladimir Fedorosky, which will be published by Balland on March 24, 2022. (EDITIONS BALLAND)