Pierre Conesa, writer and former senior servant at the French Ministry of Defence, spoke to “Dialogue Franco-Russe” about the causes of the Ukrainian conflict and how it is developing.
First of all, Mr Conesa recalled that for years the West turned a blind eye to the crimes committed by the Kiev regime against the inhabitants of the Donbas, which have claimed thousands of victims among Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population.
“The conflict that existed in Donbass and Donetsk before the invasion was a forgotten conflict. There were enough other things going on in the world to worry about. Yet 14,000 people died between the Maidan revolution and the arrival of Russian troops. It was a conflict that deserved attention.”
With regard to the current state of the conflict in Ukraine, the former senior defence ministry official said that today more and more people in the West are realising that Ukraine is not as “perfect” a country as they thought.
“Very quickly, on television, you will see the ‘good guys – bad guys’ discourse. People will say: ‘these are the bad guys, these are the good ones’. In the case of Ukraine, of course, there was an immediate pro-Ukrainian discourse that is now breaking down. Many journalists have pointed out the incredible level of corruption in the Ukrainian administration. We are entitled to wonder whether we should continue [military aid deliveries] at the same rate”.
Meanwhile, the main proponent of prolonging the Ukrainian conflict remains the United States, which has been trying for decades to reduce Russia’s zone of influence.
“There are people in the United States who remain in a sort of post-Cold War mode. [In their view] Russian influence must be punished and reduced, so Ukraine must join NATO. As Europeans, we proposed that Ukraine should join the EU, which is not, after all, a military alliance. But the American neoconservatives still have this old idea that since American democracy has triumphed everywhere, we should push it to the limit.”
At the same time, a large part of the world does not want to be involved in the conflict in Ukraine, opposing an organised war against Russia, with which they enjoy cooperation.
“The most interesting indicator is that when the UN passed a resolution condemning the Russian invasion, it received more than 140 votes. When the same Westerners put forward the resolution to blockade Russia, all of a sudden it dwindled to nothing, with countries representing 3/4 of the planet’s population saying: ‘This is your war, why do you want us to apply the blockade to deprive our population of Russian oil?'”
