Interview with Ambassador Francisco Pascual de la Parte, author of "The Returning Empire. The 2014-2017 War in Ukraine" 

▲ Francisco Pascual de la Parte, during the presentation from his book [Manuel Castells]

INTERVIEW / Vitaliy Stepanyuk

Few have a knowledge as direct of Russia's relations with Ukraine and other territories of the former USSR as Francisco Pascual de la Parte, who has been minister-counselor of the Spanish Embassy in Moscow, ambassador to Kazakhstan and consul general in St. Petersburg, among other destinations. He is the author of the book "The Returning Empire. The Ukraine War 2014-2017." During your presentation at the University of Navarra, Global Affairs was able to talk at length with the Spanish diplomat about the Ukrainian crisis and Russian foreign policy.

1. From the point of view of the geopolitics of the region, who are the main actors?

The main actors in the Ukrainian crisis are divided into two groups: those who are directly involved in the armed conflict and those who are not involved in it but are involved in the crisis. The main actors, obviously, are the Ukrainian government and the separatists of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian Republics of Donbass (Donetsk and Luhansk regions), backed and armed by Russia.

In a second concentric circle, the actors are Ukraine and Russia, which has annexed Crimea in response to the overthrow of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and which, as I say, also supports Ukrainian separatists.

In a third concentric circle, there is the discrepancy between Russia and the European Union (EU), which considers the annexation of Crimea and the Russian intervention in the Donbass illegal, for which it has imposed economic sanctions, responded to by Russia.

In a fourth concentric circle we have a rivalry between Russia and the United States, which accuses Moscow of violating Ukraine's territorial integrity and thereby undermining security in Europe. This confrontation has consequences for the entire planet, as it generates mistrust and hostility between the two superpowers that has repercussions on their mutual relations, fundamentally on disarmament treaties and on their positions in crises such as those of Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and anywhere in the world.

Finally, there is the confrontation between Russia and NATO, which Russia blames for the hostile initiative of having spread eastwards, thereby provoking the Russian reaction when, theoretically, after the fall of the USSR, NATO had promised not to carry out its enlargement.

These are all the actors. Some participate in the first concentric circle, others in the second, and others in all.

2. In relation to the previous question, what is the main goal in this fight?

The answer to this question will depend on the actor we are focusing on. Obviously, the leaders of the rebel republics do not pursue the same thing as the Ukrainian government or the Russian government. In my opinion, the Russian regime seeks to ensure its security by regaining great power status. By controlling the post-Soviet space and promoting the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) including Ukraine, Russia planned to strengthen its international position. But when Ukraine refuses to join the EEU and prefers a association with the EU in Brussels, Russia's plan was badly damaged. In other words, as Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor, said, Russia with Ukraine is an empire, but without Ukraine it is a normal state. But because it is not resigned to being a normal state, it does not want to lose control over Ukraine. Russia believes that this is the only way it can guarantee its security.

The purpose of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk Republics is not very clear, because it has changed over time. First it was autonomy, then independence, then annexation to Russia, and then autonomy again. Several of the leaders who proclaimed independence have disappeared under strange circumstances, being replaced by other leaders.

At the moment the leadership of these republics is entirely under Moscow's control. Theoretically, one would have to conclude from this that the end of the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics is the same as the end of the Russian leadership. But I'm not so sure, since there were leaders in the governments of those republics who, at first, wanted another one subject of State. That is, not to be part of Ukraine, but neither to be part of Russia, even if they gave primacy to the relationship with it. A kind of state that would be autonomous from both Russia and Ukraine, but within the so-called "Russian world": a set of cultural patterns, beliefs and customs that identify the Russian people, based on the traditional values of the Russia of the tsars. Some of its most national-patriotic leaders advocated, after proclaiming secession, fidelity to orthodoxy, protection of the family, prohibition of abortions, gambling, prostitution, divorce... In short, a government that would not have found a place either in a Ukraine integrated into the EU, open, therefore, to assimilating gender ideology and other values contrary to the "Russian world", or in a Russia like the current one, which they considered to be governed by disbelieving ex-communists and former heads of the Soviet intelligence services. The first separatist leaders renamed their new state "Novorrossiya", resuming the name of Eastern Ukraine in tsarist times, whose territories had been conquered by Catherine the Great from the Turks and Ukrainian Cossacks in the 18th century.

But that plan didn't seem to suit Russia. At one point, Moscow stopped supporting the "project Novorrossiya" and brought about the replacement of the leaders who advocated it. Why? Many analysts believe that the emergence of a state like Novorossiya would have given wings to the already powerful Russian far-right nationalist current (advocated, among others, by Alexander Dugin) that accused Putin of treason for not having unceremoniously invaded all of Ukraine, and would encourage the emergence within Russia itself of similar initiatives in other territories of the Russian Federation where national-patriotic traditionalist elements had popular support. As a result, Russia appeared to choose to keep those republics inside Ukraine, but controlled by it or, in the extreme case, to proceed with a de facto annexation. Both solutions benefited him, as they prevented Ukraine from joining NATO and from having enough room for manoeuvre as a sovereign state, as it had within it the Trojan horse of those republics, controlled by leaders close to the Kremlin. 

The EU's aim is stability and prosperity on its eastern border, exporting its economic and political reform programmes to the former Soviet republics. To this end, the EU launched its so-called "Eastern Partnership" programme with several of these republics. The more countries of the former Soviet Union assimilate the principles of the EU (human rights, transparent elections, equality before the law, absence of caste privileges, etc.), the more secure the eastern border will be and the more the European market will be able to extend to these countries, gradually incorporating them. In final, for the EU the aim would be the stability of the eastern border, the extension to the countries of Eastern Europe of the principles which gave rise to the EU and the extension of its power to them. area of security and prosperity. 

For the U.S., the main goal it would be to prevent the USSR from rebuilding itself under another name and from once again being a factor of instability for democracies. The U.S. has seen how little by little Russian control or influence in former Soviet regions and republics has increased and how these have been regained by Moscow, one after the other. First it was Abkhazia, then Transnistria, then South Ossetia..., as well as Russian influence in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and, now, Ukraine, after the annexation of Crimea and control of the Donbass. Some analysts see this process as a reconstruction of Moscow's control over the post-Soviet space, as was the case under the USSR. In the face of this, Washington maintains that each country has the right to freely choose the international organization and the collective security system to which it wants to belong, so Russia does not have the right of veto over the free choice of a given Eastern European country to become a member of NATO, or to cease to be one. a decision to be made by its own citizens, as would be the case in Ukraine. In short, each side in this crisis is pursuing a goal different.

3. The conflict in Ukraine erupted unexpectedly. Hundreds of people took to the streets calling for better living conditions and an end to corruption. How could we explain the fact that the conflict arose so suddenly?

In reality, this is not an isolated conflict, nor did it come as a surprise, but since the dissolution of the USSR, Western chancelleries and embassies have already received up to eight warnings of what was going to happen and did not know how to interpret those warnings.

The first notice It took place in December 1986, in Kazakhstan, with a series of popular revolts that already indicated what was going to happen. Serious riots broke out there when the President of the Kazakhstan Soviet Socialist Republic, President Kunayev, resigned and was replaced by a Russian, Gennady Kolbin. At that time, young Kazakhs took to the streets to protest against Moscow's decision to appoint a president who was not ethnically Kazakh and who did not even know the language, or the particularities of the country. To this day, the issue of deaths in the repression of the KGB troops, the army and the police, who were urgently sent from Russia to crush the insurrection.

The second notice It consisted of the 1988 war in Nagorno-Karabakh (an autonomous mountainous region, populated by Armenians, of Orthodox religion, nestled in the middle of the Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan). When the inhabitants and authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh saw the USSR disintegrating, they feared that in the chaos of the disintegration they would suffer repression and settling scores from the vast Muslim majority around them. Consequently, the parliament of that autonomous region requested annexation to Russia. When this happened, the Azerbaijani authorities sent their troops to prevent secession. A war has ensued that has not yet ended.

The third notice, which occurred in 1989, was the "Tbilisi Massacre" (Georgia), when thousands of Georgians took to the streets in favor of Georgia's independence from the USSR. The Soviet army sent special troops to suppress the uprising, as had happened in Kazakhstan. Many civilians were killed there. That massacre gave rise to the Tbilisi Syndrome: no position From then on, the Soviet Union wanted to take responsibility for having given the order for the intervention. From that moment on, the army would not intervene against the people again unless it received a written order to signature of the person who decided the intervention.

The Fourth notice It dates back to 1990 with the civil war in Transnistria, an ethnic Russian-majority eastern fringe of the Romanian-majority republic of Moldova. It so happened that after Moldova's independence in 1991, the inhabitants of Transnistria feared that they would be oppressed in the new country, which was the only way to achieve it. language and mainly Romanian traditions. Therefore, they declared their own independence from Moldova, consequently starting a conflict that would leave more than 20,000 dead.

In all these cases and in others that would come later, Russia always supported the secessionists, since this was a way of keeping the republics that wanted to secede from the USSR controlled by a minority within them, which prevented their consolidation as sovereign and independent.

Next notice consisted of the failed coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991. Although it failed, this attempt opened the eyes of other republics to the danger of regression and return to the USSR and, from that moment on, the secessionist process accelerated.

The Sixth notice consisted of the referendum held in Ukraine in December 1991. Under the question "Are you agreement for Ukraine to secede from the USSR and become an independent state?", 98% of the Ukrainian population voted yes, including Crimea.

Along with these warnings, there had been other indicators, such as the separatist movement in Abkhazia (a region of northwestern Georgia), which in 1992 declared its independence from Georgia, which wanted to gain complete independence from Russia. Russia supported the separatists here as well.

The last notice took place in 2007, in South Ossetia. It followed an attempt by the Georgian government to bring the breakaway region of South Ossetia back under its control by using its army. Russia, which had peacekeeping forces stationed in Ossetia since a previous conflict, intervened on behalf of the separatists, forcing Georgia to relinquish control of the region.

4. Although the U.S. is concerned about the Ukrainian conflict, it is not as concerned as other issues. In fact, the U.S. is not acting and is only verbalizing its concern. Is it possible that he is not giving a clear answer because he thinks that it is fundamentally a European problem?

The U.S. is concerned for the simple reason that the solution to other crises in the world, mainly those in Syria, Venezuela and North Korea, depends on trust and good relations between Moscow and Washington. And there will never be if the problem is not first resolved. topic of Ukraine. What is poisoning relations is Ukraine. In fact, I very much doubt that without the war in Ukraine there would have been a Russian intervention in the war in Syria as there has been.

When the West tries to isolate Russia by imposing sanctions, Russia has to get out somewhere. Therefore, to show that it cannot be isolated and that it is a protagonist on the international stage, Russia intervenes in Syria, Venezuela or wherever it can stand up to the United States. He would be sending a message similar to this: "Even if you want to isolate me and reduce me to a second-rate regional power, I can show you that without me there is no solution to any world crisis. What's more, if I want to, I'll provoke other crises for you."

5. What do Russian citizens themselves think about the annexation of the Crimean peninsula?

The intervention and consequent annexation of Crimea by Russia, within the Ukrainian conflict, is the point that most poisons relations between Russia and the West, but also has an impact on Russian public opinion.

Because, of course, Russia has a GDP the size of Italy's and is maintaining interventions abroad that cost it a lot of money. Their hospitals are in a pitiful condition, the teaching It is going through a great lack of resources and a decline in quality, pensions are very low, the retirement age has been delayed... Many in Russia are disgusted that, under these circumstances, enormous resources are devoted to subsidize Crimea. Because Crimea does not stand on its own. Before, when she was at peace and thanks to tourism, she could sustain herself. But now, who goes to Crimea? Who invests in Crimea? Everything is subsidized by the Russian government. That would be within the reach of a country with a gigantic GDP, but hardly a country that has a GDP like that of Italy or Spain and that dedicates, directly or indirectly, a third of its GDP to its armed forces and police. In addition to having to subsidize Crimea, Russia has to subsidize Abkhazia, Transnistria, Ossetia and the Donbass. For this reason, there are those in Russia who are already wondering whether the annexation of Crimea was not a mistake, such as, for example, one of its most influential newspapers, "Vedomosti".

On the other hand, a major reason why the Russian leadership does not look favorably on discussing this issue could be Chechnya. According to some international law experts, such as Araceli Mangas Martín, professor of international law at the Complutense University, all the arguments that Russia uses to justify the secession of Crimea from Ukraine would be valid to justify a future secession of Chechnya from Russia. What would happen, some analysts ask, if in 10 or 20 years a Chechen majority were formed to demand secession from Russia in a referendum invoking the precedent of Crimea? 

The topic of the legitimacy of the annexation of Crimea is a topic taboo in Russian society, for many reasons. You can't talk about it calmly. In fact, the only member of the Duma (Russian parliament) who voted against the incorporation of Crimea into Russia has had to go into exile because he has been threatened. Debates about the existence and legitimacy of the annexation of Crimea are usually not allowed on TV programmes, and when they are discussed, it must always be from the official point of view.

6. Do you think it is possible that Russia will end up abandoning the war in Ukraine? Also, could Crimea become part of Ukrainian territory again?

Russia has made one thing very clear: it will never allow Ukrainian rebels and separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics to be defeated by the Ukrainian army. He's not going to allow it. 

The only possibility for Russia to abandon its military intervention in Ukraine would be for the secessionists to win their confrontation with the Ukrainian government and consolidate an independence from the Ukrainian government under Moscow's undisputed control.

Second, I see the return of Crimea to Ukraine as very difficult, practically impossible. Because Russia is turning Crimea into a huge military base that it considers essential in the face of an expansive NATO. It is equipping it with the most modern weapons systems: radars, rockets, a modern fleet...

7. Demographically, is the percentage of Russians in Crimea as high as claimed?

According to some analysts, the Kremlin is playing with numbers. Sometimes he speaks of ethnic Russians, sometimes of Russian speakers. Odessa or Kharkiv, for example, are large Ukrainian cities that speak Russian, but are on the side of the Kiev government. What does Russia mean by "Russian"? The Russian authorities say: "The majority of the inhabitants of Crimea legitimately voted for secession and incorporation into Russia in a referendum by an affirmative majority of around 90%, with Russians also constituting the vast majority of the population on the peninsula." Define that to me. What about the 13% of Tatars, what about the 20% of Ukrainians? And what Moscow calls Russians in Crimea, what exactly are they: ethnic Russians, Russian speakers, Russian passport holders, Russians by choice, by birth, by marriage? With what electoral documentation and with what control of the votes was the referendum made? Were troops from the Russian base in Sevastopol counted as registered voters, or were they not counted? How were the votes inside the military barracks controlled? In short, it's like saying "Spaniards" referring to any Ibero-American country. In Argentina or Cuba there may be 700,000 Spaniards. Do we accept then that in a territory of Argentina, Cuba or Venezuela, where the majority are Spanish, they organize a referendum for secession and their reincorporation into Spain and we arm them clandestinely?

The question that should concern us is: what is the difference between citizenship and nationality? In Western countries, citizenship and nationality are the same. However, this is not the case in Russia, and here we go to the heart of the problem. In the countries of the former Soviet orbit, nationality means "belonging to a group ethnic." Citizenship, on the other hand, means "submission to the political, legal and administrative regime of a given State, regardless of the ethnic group to which one belongs".

In Russia it's completely different things. So much so that on the identity cards of Russia and Ukraine, until recently, the "nationality" of the Russian and Ukrainian countries was listed as the name "nationality". group Headline ethnicity: Jewish, Tatar, Russian... That is why, when Russia annexed Crimea, the main reason President Putin gave for doing so was that he had to protect the "Russians" in Ukraine, "his" nationals in Ukraine, from the "board Fascist" in Kiev that threatened them. For a Russian, you can change citizenship; on the other hand, nationality was never lost, and Russia must protect those who held its own.

All this explains why before intervening in an ex-Soviet republic that wants to separate itself from Moscow's orbit, the first thing Russia does is to distribute Russian passports to citizens of those republics whom, from that moment on, it considers Russians, and then argues that it has to protect them.

Of the Ukrainians who lived in Crimea, many have left it. Others have remained in Crimea, of course, but without being able to question that Crimea belongs to Russia, submitting to the Russian authorities, having to, in many cases, obtain new documentation, different from the one they had before, and lending allegiance and submission to another state other than the one in which they lived until recently.

8. Could we say that Russia and the West have different interpretations of the principles that should govern international relations?

This fundamental principle for the Kremlin of militarily defending Russians wherever they are, including the territory of another ex-Soviet republic, clashes with other basic principles for the EU, the US and Western countries: the territorial integrity of the state, the sovereignty of the state and the equality of all before the law... If you want to protect Russians living in Ukraine by annexing Crimea because it has a Russian majority, you are obviously violating the principle of territorial integrity of the state. However, Russia thinks that it has respected Ukraine's territorial integrity, because territorial integrity has a different meaning for the Russian leadership than ours. For them, territorial integrity refers to the state apparatus, but not to territory. Russia gives priority to other principles, such as the protection of its nationals.

For all these reasons, this conflict is so dangerous, because neither the West nor Russia can renounce principles that they consider basic. That is why, when we talk about EU-US dialogue with Russia to resolve this conflict, we are asking for a dialogue between two parties who speak a different language, because Russia attributes a completely different meaning to the concepts than we attribute to them.

9. Russia's policy of protecting ethnic Russians may be very reminiscent, to a large extent, of Nazi Germany's policy of the 1930s of attempting to unite all ethnic Germans. Do you think that the status Is it similar?

Not only to the 1930s, but also to the time of World War I, which broke out because Serbia wanted to protect Serbs living outside Serbian territory, who considered themselves oppressed and mistreated by the authorities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when it annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. One of those who felt oppressed, the student Gavrilo Princip, with the logistical help of the Serbian secret police, killed the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary during his visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That set off a chain reaction and a World War.

In World War II, Germany demanded that all Germans live within the same state. Unfortunately, not all Germans lived in Germany. The Nazis then decided to ensure that all Germans of the superior Aryan race were placed in a single state, led by a single Führer. To do this, they annex Austria. The Western powers are perplexed. It turned out that there were also Germans in Czechoslovakia, who were not treated well by the Czechoslovak authorities, according to the Nazis. The Führer then forces the Czechoslovaks to cede the Sudetenland to him. Then Germany annexes other territories and the Western powers give in. Later, Hitler claimed the Polish corridor and the German city of Danzig, also a territory with a German population, but located in Poland, and it was there that, definitely, England and France, who had offered guarantees to Poland, reacted.

For some Western analysts, the status it is very reminiscent of what is happening now in the former USSR. First, Russia annexes a part of another country, then settles in a part of another, with the same justification: that there are Russians in them who must be protected. In my opinion, the status It's not exactly the same, but it has alarming similarities.

10. The lesson of the 1930s is that the policy of appeasement did not prevent war, but merely postponed it and made it more difficult to fight. So what is the recommended attitude to Russian policy?

There are two fundamental tendencies: the first comprises the tendencies to appeasement and the second the tendencies to firmness. Among the tendencies towards appeasement we find, in turn, three distinct currents:

–A first group of experts draws attention to a fundamental fact: that Russia is willing to go further than the West in the conflict in Ukraine, because for Russia Ukraine is a vital issue, while for the West it is not. A territorial review would have to be carried out. We're going to give in and let Russia keep its Russians, and that's the end of the problem. We signed a agreement, and Russia has its zone of influence.

The second school of thought defends the idea of turning Ukraine into a neutral state so that Russia does not perceive a threat. This would imply a decision to freeze NATO expansion, which would no longer extend to any other country in Eastern Europe; the regions of eastern Ukraine populated mostly by Russians should be granted very broad autonomy, and Crimea should be admitted to be part of Russia in compensation for NATO's eastward expansion.

According to the third current, Russia, in annexing Crimea and intervening in eastern Ukraine, did not observe aggressive behavior. On the contrary, it was acting in self-defence, and no country can be denied self-defence. We say that because if the Maidan revolution had triumphed throughout Ukraine, including Crimea, and a Western-leaning regime had been installed throughout Ukraine, it would have been a matter of very little time before the new Ukrainian government would have applied for NATO membership. That would have meant that NATO's borders would have moved even closer to Russia, endangering the country's security. Therefore, Russia, in acting in Ukraine, is only doing so in self-defence. This third current advocates the demilitarization of the Donbass, the security of the borders to be guaranteed by a peacekeeping force under the command of the UN, and the admission of Crimea as part of Russia, in compensation for the fact that NATO has incorporated countries that formerly belonged to the USSR.

As we mentioned earlier, there is a second trend that advocates firmness: "We are not going to repeat the Munich mistake of giving in, giving in and giving in, because if we continue like this, next time we will find that Russia is trying to annex a Baltic country", where, by the way, in Estonia and Latvia it has very important minorities. The main stream of this group he thinks that we cannot repeat the mistake of Yalta, of allowing Europe to be divided into zones of influence and, above all, of imposing neutrality on a country that does not want it. On the other hand, what would be done by allowing Russia to keep all these regions is to deny Ukraine, precisely, its right to self-defense. 

Other group of this tendency argues that the supporters of the appeasement strategy do not offer any solution as to how the security of the countries of Eastern Europe would then be guaranteed. Moreover, the fact of not extending NATO and of being condescending to Russia to avoid provoking Russia is a false dilemma, because Russia is already doing everything it can to annoy the West, the whole limit of provocation is already exceeded. If you want to achieve stability in Europe by turning a blind eye and allowing Russia to control areas that formerly belonged to the USSR, there is a risk that Russia will continue to occupy territories. How far do Russia's borders have to go for Russia to feel safe?

In addition to the two previous tendencies, there is a third school of thought that is striking. He says that in the case of Nazi Germany there is a differentiating fact with respect to the status Nuclear weapons did not exist at that time. At the time, it might have been a priority to stop Hitler at the cost of paying a heavy price, otherwise the consequences would have been catastrophic. It was a lesser evil in the face of a greater evil. However, now this dilemma does not exist, as now the dilemma is between reaching an understanding with Russia or a nuclear war.

The question posed by this third position is: what is our priority, to punish Russia or to achieve stability in Europe? If we choose the first option, then what we should do is arm Ukraine. However, if our priority is to restore stability in Europe, then we need to start talks with Russia. Actually, in the long run, the West is much stronger than Russia, but the drawback it has in the long run is that you don't know if in that long period of time we will all be dead. If Russia sees that it is weaker in the long run, it will obviously try to take advantage of the status while it's still going strong.

11. There may be an interpretation that what happened in Crimea was a self-defence reaction by Russia to prevent its naval base in Sevastopol from becoming a NATO base.  Russia would have interpreted that as a threat to its security and would therefore have intervened to protect its security. With this in mind, let's take the Cuban crisis of 1962 as an example. Cuba decided to buy weapons to place Soviet atomic missiles on Cuban territory. They could do it from the point of view of international law, they were two sovereign countries that could sell arms to each other. The U.S. felt attacked by the possibility of rockets in Cuba and intervened in Cuba. Hasn't the same thing happened with Crimea and the USSR? In a second scenario, let's imagine that an anti-American government enters Mexico, which feels very insecure towards the United States and decides to install nuclear missiles on the border of the Rio Grande. Would the U.S., in the interest of international law of territorial integrity, allow rocket batteries to be aimed at U.S. cities? What do you think about this?

There are similarities in those cases, but they can't be compared. The differences that I see are, first of all, that the United States imposed a blockade on Cuba, but it did not invade Cuba, as you say, nor did it annex any region of Cuba. Kennedy screwed up with his Bay of Pigs invasion, withdrew his troops from there, and publicly apologized for the initiative. I can't imagine a Russian leader publicly apologizing for the illegal invasion by the USSR or Russia of a sovereign country without a declaration of war: Finland in 1939, the Baltics in 1940, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Afghanistan in 1979, Ukraine in 2014....

Second, the missiles installed in Cuba were very powerful offensive nuclear weapons, installed clandestinely, while the US does not install comparable offensive nuclear weapons near Russia nor has it done so clandestinely. Moscow believes that U.S. anti-missile systems in Poland and Romania can easily become offensive, but such Russian misgivings would be solved with an effective system of inspections and verification. Moreover, Russia's leadership is well aware that such systems do not constitute any effective threat to its massive nuclear arsenal. The test it is that they boast about it and consider it invulnerable, in the words of President Putin himself.

Thirdly, Mexico is political fiction. It is inconceivable that the U.S. would militarily invade Mexico to protect U.S. minorities settled in that country, as has happened with Crimea or the Donbass. On the other hand, I doubt that it would be possible for nuclear weapons to be installed in Mexico with the bilateral and regional agreements that are in force between the United States and Mexico and in the United States. framework of the free trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada. Let's not forget that, although imperfect, both Mexico and the U.S. are democratic regimes. Their leaders are accountable to their constituents and to their people, and are elected by them. This is not the case of Cuba or the USSR, communist dictatorships, nor, according to some authors, of today's Russia, an authoritarian nationalist regime. Democracies don't usually wage wars with each other.

The only U.S. behavior similar to what is happening in Crimea was the invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada. When a Marxist regime came to power in Grenada, the U.S. argued the need to protect the American students who were there to intervene, even though they were not in danger.

Another difference is that what happened in Ukraine is part of a process or trend (Kazakhstan, Transnistria...), which seems to have been perfectly planned since 1990, as we have mentioned before. It is not a one-off, surprising and improvised case, as was the reaction of the United States to the installation of missiles in Cuba in 1962.

12. What you have said above about Russia's aggressive reaction to avoid the long term is very reminiscent of the direct strategy of US containment during the Cold War. The U.S. response was precisely that it was necessary to rearm and have a sufficiently intimidating military capacity so that the USSR would not dare to act aggressively. That would be another possible conclusion: Do we have to rearm?

In fact, we're doing it. For me, Putin's biggest mistake has been to make it possible for the US to achieve in 20 days the consensus for a rearmament and strengthening of NATO that it had not achieved in 20 years. Now that they have a cohesive and organized NATO, they have secured a commitment to increased military spending by NATO allies who were previously reluctant to do so.

13. Crimea was part of Russia until Khrushchev ceded it to Ukraine in 1954. In addition, the Russian Empire had thousands of deaths for regaining that peninsula in the Crimean War. Is the fact that this territory belongs to Ukraine or Russia something that could be debatable?

First of all, the claim that Khrushchev gave away Crimea to Ukraine is, according to documented authors, one of the great falsehoods spread by Russian intelligence centers, which has been believed by almost everyone in the West. Although it is true that the resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU of 1954 made Crimea dependent on Ukraine, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the incorporation of Ukraine into the Russian Empire, this was not the only reason, since Crimea is a very arid area, and the supply of water, manpower, infrastructure... it's a lot easier from Ukraine than from Russia. For all practical purposes, it is much more profitable, as we are currently seeing, to hold Crimea from Ukraine than from Russia.

Second, the Taganrog region, richer and larger than Crimea, which previously belonged to Ukraine, was allocated to Russia. For this reason, some analysts think that what happened was a kind of territorial compensation, because holding Taganrog from Ukraine is very difficult as well.

Thirdly, the change of administrative boundaries between the different regions of the USSR in the time of Stalin and Khrushchev was a matter of course and frequent. If we consider Khrushchev's transfer of Crimea to Ukraine unconstitutional or illegal, we must also consider illegal dozens of similar territorial modifications that were made at that time in the USSR.

Fourth, Crimea has been part of Russia for 250 years (Cuba was Spanish about 400 years) and all of western Ukraine was Poland until 1939. Poland would then have an equal right to claim its share of Ukraine as Russia would to claim its share. If we are going to justify the annexation of territories on the basis of historical ties without respecting current international treaties, then we would have to remake the entire world map and we would provoke an escalation of war. By this rule of three, the Spaniards should reclaim Cuba tomorrow, because it was a trauma for us to lose it, thousands of Spaniards reside there and it was much longer Spanish than Russian Crimea.

Fifth, and most importantly, in the 1997 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, Russia recognized the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea.

We cannot be immersed in a continuous process of historical demands. To prevent this, there are international treaties that set the borders and prevent us from returning to the forest.

14. A few years ago we witnessed how the United States fought for the independence of Kosovo, which it recognized. So, could we say that the case of Kosovo constitutes a precedent that legitimizes Russia to defend the separation of Crimea?

For many analysts, the case of Kosovo and the case of Crimea have no relation to each other. First, they say, the U.S. was not seeking to annex Kosovo, unlike what Russia did with Crimea. Secondly, the recognition of Kosovo's independence came after 10 years of ethnic cleansing carried out by Serbian troops in Kosovo against the Albanian population. The topic it was taken to the UN and discussed for a long time. Nothing of the sort happened in Crimea: there was no conflict between Russians and Ukrainians, no topic to the UN, it wasn't even taken to the International Court of Justice (Kosovo was). They are completely different things. There had been no serious inter-ethnic incidents in Crimea that would justify annexation by Russia. In Kosovo, there were, with thousands of deaths.

This is, according to many authors, another success of Russian propaganda, which has led many people in the West to consider them to be similar cases. In addition, it would be necessary to see under what conditions the referendum was held in Crimea: there were no debates on television, there were no different political parties to present their positions, there were no international observers, there was no reliable census, the polling stations were taken over by the Russian army... We don't know what the majority that voted in favour looks like.

15. How can one explain Putin's enormous power and popularity in a country that is considered democratic and where there are regular elections?

One issue worth commenting on is the failure of democratic reforms in Russia. When communism disintegrated in the USSR and Russia opted for the Economics for free trade and for liberal democracy, expects to receive a model civilized of all that. What he gets, on more than one occasion, are real Western gangsters doing business, appropriating Russia's economic and cultural resources, and Russia's brains... The version of the Economics The market share that Russia receives after the implementation of liberal democracy in the country is horrific and, from that moment on, the words "democracy" and "reforms" are totally discredited in Russia. They have an idea of reform and democracy that is totally harmful and fatal. That was precisely what catapulted leaders like Vladimir Putin to power.

One thing we didn't understand in the West is that, for a Russian, stability is much more important than freedom. Above all, we did not understand a very important thing, which was the astonishing ease of the transition from communism to nationalism. It was astonishing naivety on the part of Western diplomats to think that post-communist leaders were going to build democracy on the ruins of the USSR and against their own interests.

The transition from communism to nationalism is, in fact, very easy, because its basic elements are the same: primacy of the leader over institutions, dogma over principles, loyalty over merit, slogans over reasoning, propaganda over information, virtual history over real history, etc.

16. The population of the Baltic countries has a significant Russian minority. In these countries, the status also because there has been a NATO deployment. Could Ukraine join NATO and that would stabilize the status Or would Russia never allow Ukraine to join NATO?

There was a time when Russia was proposed to join NATO. But Russia didn't want to be just another member of NATO, it didn't want to be subject to the US, it wanted to play a leading role. For its part, Ukraine is not the same as the Baltic countries. I believe that Ukraine cannot, for the time being, join NATO. However, there are already partnership between NATO and the Ukrainian government. For me, it is a consequence of President Putin's actions, because what good is it for him to win Crimea if he loses Ukraine, where, moreover, he has stirred up anti-Russian sentiment? With this policy, Russia has managed to wake up and strengthen NATO (which the US had never achieved before), and to make the majority of Ukraine have a pro-Western feeling. Quite a balance.

In my opinion, Russia will do everything possible to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. However, if Ukraine were admitted to NATO, Russia would respond asymmetrically. In my view, the world would be on the brink of nuclear war.

17. Do you think that the Crimea issue can have a wider impact, set a precedent?

In the opinion of many analysts, including Russians, what Putin has done there is a very dangerous thing. Because the arguments he gives to justify the secession of Crimea from Ukraine would be valid, according to these experts, to justify the secession of other regions of Russia. Not now, but in the future. Russia has about 120 different ethnicities, let's imagine that one decides to apply the arguments used in the case of Crimea to justify its own secession.

There is also another issue to take into account, and that is that Russia has presented itself as the redeemer of humanity throughout history (with the fall of Constantinople, establishing itself as the third Rome and redeemer of what was left of civilization, and with the expansion of communism after the Revolution of 1917, with the redemption of the oppressed), and now Russia presents itself again for the third time as the redeemer of humanity. For Russia, the moral standards that are now part of the basic principles of our civilization in the West are inadmissible. She thinks that our society is dissolving and that it is totally corrupt. For example, gender ideology will never be allowed in Russia and is seen as a plague that is dissolving Western society. This trend, which is known as "Russian messianism", which takes different forms throughout history, is a constant to be reckoned with. Russia thinks that it is not only fighting for Ukraine and Crimea, but for the whole of civilization.