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Commentary. If Russia really wanted to safeguard the only possibility of mediation, the Minsk agreements, the decision to recognize the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk cancels any diplomatic effort.

Rejecting diplomacy, Putin has made a serious mistake

The choice to recognize the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk is a show of force for which an attempt will be made to legitimize it as an asymmetrical response to the many wrong choices that led to the wars of the West. And precisely for this reason, we can only call the announcement made by Russian President Putin a serious error, a venture that heralds a new war. Because, if the interests of the Russian people are to be legitimately defended, an asymmetrical response to the arrogance of others, of NATO and the US, is not the solution: we are talking about 2008, when, despite the 1999 Kumanovo peace agreements — after the “humanitarian” air war — which recognized the right of Belgrade over Kosovo, the divisive independence of Kosovo was recognized at all costs.

If, in this dark moment for peace, one really wanted to safeguard the only form of mediation present, that of the Minsk agreements that justly protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the decision to recognize the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk cancels any diplomatic effort. Such efforts should and could be relaunched, even in the face of the bitter truth that these agreements have been boycotted so far by the ultranationalist parliament in Kiev. Now it will be difficult to restart a negotiation process, and only the use of force will have a meaningful effect, as happened in Georgia in 2008. This is between the United States, engaged in pursuing the final post-Cold War victory against the Soviet enemy — which no longer exists — and Russia, which, driven by this ideological and military expansion, is responding in an imperial direction. And please, leave Lenin out of this.

This is a risk in Europe, possibly a risk to Europe itself, while the European Union is subordinate because it has no foreign policy and is a surrogate of NATO, and divided on strategic issues such as energy. The Ukrainian extreme right-wing ultranationalists will be happy, because by setting off the murky Maidan revolt — with massacres like the one in Odessa, which has gone unpunished — they eventually produced the prohibition of the Russian language and the expulsion of Russians and pro-Russians, over eight years of civil war, with 14,000 dead and two million refugees of which no one took any notice. The process has come to completion — at the edge of the abyss.

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