Frédéric Encel, doctor in geopolitics, lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, assures Friday, February 18 that Russia and the West can “reach an agreement” on the Ukrainian file.
>> LIVE. Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists accuse each other of new bombings
For Russia, Ukraine’s membership in NATO is “the absolute red line”but the “Westerners also have their red lines” like “sending Russian mercenaries all over the world”, “cyber attacks” and “the occasional poisoning of opponents”.
franceinfo: Have we taken a further step in recent hours after the heavy weapon fire in the separatist province of Donbass?
Frederic Encel: No. What worries me is the continuation of the Ukrainian crisis which did not start a few months ago, but started in 2014. The annexation of Crimea by Russia is 2014. The he intervention of green men or little green men, as they are called, because Moscow does not assume their presence in the Donbass, dates from 2014. Since then, unfortunately, more than 3,000 people have been killed on what the in geopolitics, we call a low-intensity front. In recent days, there is nothing really new about these sporadic shootings that have existed for almost ten years now. It’s not new. It’s a conflict that’s been largely forgotten. Shootings of this type, you have had them on a monthly basis and sometimes on a weekly basis since 2014.
Is the particularly active diplomacy of Emmanuel Macron, who went to Kiev, effective?
I want to reverse your question. If Emmanuel Macron, the most powerful head of state in the European Union, the most powerful head of state in NATO on the continent, and the head of state currently holding the presidency turning point of the European Union, had not made this trip, had not tried anything, what would we have said? He would have been rightly scolded. It is too early to say that French diplomacy has had very concrete results. If there is no, what I believe, Russian military intervention, no confrontation, basically, we can put in part, to the credit of the French intervention and perhaps of the German intervention, the keeps us in a state of peace.
Ukraine’s NATO membership is a red line. Is that why Kiev doesn’t ask for it?
Officially, no! But the Europeans, NATO and the Americans said at the time that they would look with interest at an application for membership. For the moment, we are not there, but for Russia, it is the absolute red line. As for the Westerners, they also have their red lines: the stoppage of sending Russian mercenaries all over the world, especially in Africa. Cyberattacks are becoming an extraordinarily important problem. And then, the occasional poisoning of opponents who come to take refuge in Europe. So everyone has their red lines and I think that on that basis, we can reach an agreement.