H.E. Marianne Van Steen | The price of freedom and democracy

During the weeks before the war, President Vladimir Putin amassed troops at the Ukrainian border while claiming he would not attack. The European leaders made an effort. Diplomacy was active. The chief of the European Union’s Foreign Policy and the European Union Member States created a united front for democracy and respect for the international rules based order.

President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, among other world leaders, held meetings with Putin. He said that he welcomed an open dialogue. He lied. In what is a cynical move even for President Putin, he decided to wage a war of choice.

The Russian authorities assumed that when they decided to invade Ukraine to start an unprovoked and unjustified war, the country would collapse within a few days and a puppet government could be installed. But this was without taking into account the price Ukrainians are ready to pay for freedom and democracy.

President Putin also assumed that he could invade a non-NATO member without repercussions. That was also without taking into account the capacity of the European Union and countries all over the world to unite decisively against this Russian aggression towards a peaceful neighbouring country with a democratically elected government.

On day six after the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, 141 countries, including Jamaica, condemned Russia for starting this unprovoked war in a UN General Assembly resolution, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the Russian troops from Ukrainian soil.

This war is an assault against everything we stand for, against the values, which are so dear to us all. Freedom and democracy, values we share in the European Union and in CARICOM, have become so attractive to all the countries neighbouring Russia that the risk of contagion for its own population was becoming a liability for President Putin. And this liability seems worth a war for him, killing numerous children, women and men, including his own soldiers, many of whom do not even understand why they are being asked to kill their ‘brothers and sisters’.

This war is all the more shocking, given the fact that the Memorandum of Budapest of 1994, which the Russian Federation co-signed, guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for the transfer of Soviet nuclear weapons to the Russian Federation, which Ukraine did. This goes to show that – to the current regime in Moscow – international agreements are to be disregarded as mere scraps of paper.

A HUGE TOLL

Russian representatives around the world are going to great lengths, using disinformation and manipulated narratives as pretexts to “justify” a full-scale war that has simply no justification. At the same time, most independent media are currently unable to operate in Russia and cannot show the reality and the brutality of the war in Ukraine.

While Ukraine is fighting to preserve its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, the war is having a huge toll on the civilian population. Already more than three million women and children have fled the country in search of a safe haven, among them, 1.5 million children, or nearly one child per second since the start of the war. This is, according to the United Nations, a refugee crisis unprecedented in speed and scale since the Second World War, without signs of slowing down.

An immediate ceasefire is absolutely needed.

What have the European Union and its member states done to preserve freedom and democracy? We acted swiftly in opening our doors to the refugees. We are doing everything in our power to provide the necessary conditions for these exiles to seek refuge from the horrors currently being afflicted on their country, including destruction of civilian infrastructure in major cities across Ukraine.

We have also adopted the most far-reaching package of sanctions ever against the Russian Federation. This includes some that will hurt our own citizens, too. The sanctions are aimed at achieving a ceasefire and a withdrawal of the invading troops.

We are – for the very first time since the European Union was founded – helping a friendly country to defend itself.

Many countries, including some in the Caribbean, have imposed sanctions, too.

Worldwide, all citizens of countries, big and small, are going to be impacted by the increase of energy and commodity prices as a direct consequence of this invasion. This will, unfortunately, be the price to pay for freedom and democracy, falling upon all who disagree with President Putin launching an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country against all rules of international law and humanitarian principles.

As of today, 38 states parties to the International Criminal Court have asked the public prosecutor to investigate President Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine.

MOVING FORWARD EUROPEAN UNION’S COMMON DEFENCE AND SECURITY POLICY

The genuine solidarity of the European Union and its member states towards its close neighbour Ukraine is undoubtedly remarkable and makes us proud.

‘Realpolitik’ has shown us, however, that our 70-plus years of investments in economic and social well-being, in health and education, in fighting global challenges such as climate change and transnational crime and our continued support to developing countries to reduce poverty turns out to be fragile, if not accompanied by robust and coordinated defence spending.

We cannot allow a gun to take away all we built. So President Putin is directly contributing to moving forward the European Union’s common defence and security policy, an area that had always been a difficult one to address in an essentially peace-oriented undertaking.

This can never compensate for the pain caused by war, but President Putin has made us stronger. Europe has never been as united as we are today and indeed also with its allies and friends, all willing to stand up against the unnecessary atrocities of President Putin’s army and all willing to pay a price for freedom and democracy.

That does give some hope during ‘Europe’s darkest day following the Second World War’.

H.E. Marianne Van Steen, Ambassador, EU Delegation to Jamaica; H.E. Hugo Verbist, Ambassador, Embassy of Belgium; H.E. Diego Bermejo Romero de Terreros, Ambassador, Embassy of Spain; H.E. Olivier Guyonvarch, Ambassador, Embassy of France; and Jan Hendrik van Thiel, Charge d’Affaires, Embassy of Germany. All contributed to this article. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com