Russia and Ukraine are engaged “in a long war”, “with a continuous escalation in the exasperation of a conflict whose generalization” could ravage “Europe and the world”, observes Edgar Morin. The French philosopher took up the pen in order to make known to some media, including The dutyhis reflections on a world in danger, which keeps him alert, but which he refuses to despair of.
War worsens Putin’s dictatorship. Perhaps she will instigate a coup that would overthrow him, which seems difficult given the tight control of the secret police. Putin assumes both the tsarist heritage and the Stalinist heritage, without being either a tsar or a Stalin. He exalts the cult of the great and holy Tsarist Russia and continues the methods of the Stalinist secret police. He does not maintain the cult of his personality, but sometimes likes to show off his virility.
It gradually became more and more authoritarian and repressive. He suffered from the collapse of the Soviet Union while knowing that he could not resurrect it, even if he was able to declare “He who does not regret the USSR has no heart, he who wishes its restoration has no head”. He maintains the will to regroup at least his Slavic core and to keep foot and eye in the Caucasus.
Moreover, the Ukrainian reality imposed itself whereas Putin saw there only an aggregate of little Russians (traditional name in Russia for Ukrainians in the past) and Russians. He did not see Ukraine as a national unit. He had no idea that Russian aggression would complete and consolidate this unity.
However, Ukraine is of formidable complexity. Even if we exclude the Donbass, it has a Russian-speaking minority (impossible to quantify) divided between hostility to a dictatorial and devastating Russia and total adherence to the mother country. Florence Aubenas reported in The world of a small pro-Russian demonstration held on May 9 in kyiv itself. There is also the ambiguity of a cult with statues to Bandera, who was the leader of Ukrainian independence, first an emigrant then a collaborator of the Nazis and an accomplice in their crimes during the occupation of Ukraine by the Wehrmacht. .
Banderism thus left a Nazi heritage, certainly a minority one, but it was the Ukrainian fascists who found themselves on the front line in the war against the separatists of Donbass and who committed abuses there; the Azov regiment was under fascist command and wartime integrated into the Ukrainian guard. Certainly Ukraine has become more democratic through urbanization and has become westernized in its consumerism due to its economic growth. The old popular anti-Judaism of a rural Ukraine gradually diminished, and a Jew was elected president there. All these contradictions have been attenuated in the war.
For there to be a peace of capitulation like that of France in 1871 and 1940, there must be a vanquished in total rout. Otherwise peace is a matter of compromise which is established according to the relationship of forces and the subtleties of diplomacy.
Currently, the balance of forces is almost equal, with the Russian difficulty of occupying all of Donbass: and even a possible occupation would modify the balance of forces without Ukraine being defeated. One could also envisage a Ukrainian offensive which would drive the Russian armies back to the border, but Russia would remain a huge threatening military power. A peace compromise is therefore possible, despite the reciprocal criminalizations and exasperated hatreds which tend to prevent it.
The compromise presupposes the independence of Ukraine, which is absolutely essential, but independence does not necessarily mean territorial integrity. Here arises the question of the Donbass, an industrial region equipped and largely populated by Russians from the time of the USSR and which remains Russian-speaking and Russophile. Admittedly, a certain number of Russian speakers have become hostile to the Putin dictatorship and the brutality of the Russian invasion, but a large part are engaged in the war which has been going on since 2014 against the Ukrainian army.
It is hard to see this region returning purely and simply to present-day Ukraine, which has become viscerally anti-Russian. And if that were the case, the pro-Russians would suffer harsh repression and would not stop revolting.
It is difficult to see its integration into a federal Ukraine. A referendum would be desirable to decide either on the status of an “independent” republic, or on integration into Russia – which could only be done with the guarantee of Ukraine’s independence in return by an international agreement including NATO. —, with neutrality according to the Austrian mode or integration into the European Union. I would add that it would be important to consider in the future the inclusion of Russia in the European Union as a positive outcome to the Russia-West relationship.
The Donbass being of economic and strategic importance for Ukraine, it would be necessary in any case to provide for a Russian-Ukrainian condominium which would share its wealth.
The status of the Sea of Azov coastline should be addressed. A Russian control could be compensated by the constitution of Mariupol and Odessa as free ports as was Tangier.
Refuse anti-Russian hysteria
In addition, it would be desirable that as of the armistice is envisaged the possibility of exporting wheat Ukrainian like that of Russian wheat for the countries which are deprived of it.
The amount of reparations and reconstruction in Ukraine should be borne not only by Russia, but also by the West, who, by contributing to the war, also objectively contributed to the destruction.
Anti-Russian hysteria, not only in Ukraine, but in the West, such as in France, should subside and be fought, like anti-German hysteria, which confused Germany with Nazism. It is shameful that Russian artists, dancers, directors, sportsmen and women are banned and it is fortunate that despite the request of Ukrainian filmmakers, Russian filmmakers have not been excluded from the Cannes Film Festival.
Finally, we must hope that peace will come as soon as possible, because the war produces irremediable human disasters in Ukraine, but also worsens living conditions in the world and produces the risk of famine in many countries. War hides the vital problems that we have to face: the ecological degradation of the planet, global warming, the uncontrolled unleashing of profit which determines the ecological crisis and accentuates the generalized crisis of democracies in the world, aggravated by the pandemic not tamed and which risks being triggered again.
I try not to despair, not so much for my person at the end of life, but for the younger generations and our descendants.