Russia's invasion of Ukraine puts the rules-based international order at risk

 

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.