Since the end of World War II and
until the invasion of Ukraine, with the exception of the conflict in the former
Yugoslavia in 1990, Europe had lived in peace. The commitments to preserve
peace, enshrined in the United Nations Charter (1945), the Helsinki Act (1975)
and the Paris Charter (1990), had been effective in preserving peace and
resolving discrepancies within the framework of dialogue and International Law.
The annexation of Crimea by
Russia in 2014 was a serious violation of the commitments made and the first
time since World War II that a territory was annexed in Europe. Soon after, the
pro-Russian separatist conflict broke out in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, on the
border with Russia. The agreements concluded in Minsk, the capital city of
Belarus, in search of finding a peaceful solution to the conflict finally
failed. In 2022 Russia recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed
republics of Luhansk and Donetsk and shortly after invaded Ukraine in
complicity with Belarus.
With the invasion of Ukraine,
Russia has violated the principle of territorial integrity. It did so in 2014
when it annexed the Crimean peninsula and again in 2022 with the aim of
annexing Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The pressure with which
the Russian government tried to prevent Ukraine from joining the European Union
and the rejection of Ukraine's entry into the Atlantic Alliance violate the
principle of sovereignty and determination of the peoples because the Ukrainian
government and people demonstrate and fight for join the European Union. With
the invasion and annexation of territories, Russia violates these three
fundamental principles of International Law.
In the illegal and unjustified
invasion, Russia has launched attacks against populated areas, critical
infrastructure and even hospitals. Amnesty International and Human Right claim
to have evidence that Russia has committed war crimes. When Russian troops
withdrew from Bucha, a few kilometers from Kyiv, evidence was found that they
had committed mass murder and torture. Russian troops have also launched
attacks on a Red Cross building and are known to have recently deported
children. The evidence of all these crimes committed by Russia has been enough
for the International Criminal Court to issue the arrest warrant against the
President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
Everything suggests that Russia
seeks to expand to the west in search of recovering the space it occupied in
times of the Soviet Union or perhaps with the intention of recreating Kievan
Rus advancing through the holy war that to which the Patriarch Kirill referred
to. It attempts to do so by blatantly invading, disregarding the laws and
customs of war, and ignoring the United Nations Charter and the treaties on
which the international order is founded.
This conduct contrasts with the
initiative of Tsar Nicholas II who, in 1899, convened the first Peace
Conference in The Hague, in which the Convention for the peaceful settlement of
international disputes was adopted and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the
first international organization for the settlement of disputes that is still
active.
Although Russia interprets the
incorporation of states from the former Soviet space into the European Union
and the Atlantic Alliance as an invasion of its area of influence,
and probably one of the reasons why Russia invaded Ukraine was to avoid it, it
is clear that the accessions of Eastern European countries have been voluntary,
adopted by democratic regimes, and supported by popular demonstrations.
Russia, on the other hand, has
not been able to create, with the initiative of the Eurasian Alliance, an
alternative project that would be attractive and would allow it to recover its
influence. Quite the contrary, it exerted strong pressure to prevent Ukraine
from joining the European Union and in response to this, the large
demonstrations of the Euromaidan took place, which were a clear sign of the
adherence that the values of the European Union arouse in
the Ukrainian people: freedom and democracy.
What is at risk in this conflict
is not only the freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and
peace and stability in Europe, but the maintenance of a rules-based
international order, the full validity of the United Nations Charter and from
the human rights.
It is also evident that currently
the borders of many countries do not depend on their military power to preserve
them, but on an international order regulated by rules that would sanction any
State that tries to modify them illegally. If Russia managed to complete the
annexation of the Ukrainian territory, it would set a dangerous precedent
because the world order will no longer have the resources to guarantee respect
for the borders as it has done up to now and in the near future many other
States will be threatened because the territorial ambitions, mistrust and war
in many regions of the world.