The second day of the Munich Security Conference is coming to an end
In conclusion, it can be said that all of its participants have come to the conclusion that Europe must make maximum efforts to ensure its own security, end the war in Ukraine, and establish long-lasting and fair peace in the region. To achieve this, Western countries need to focus more on their own security issues, and only then will no authoritarian state, including Russia, have the desire to attack them.
It is worth reminding that for 30 years since the founding of the Munich Security Conference, its participants were only political leaders, military experts, political scientists, and journalists from NATO countries. In the early and mid-1990s, representatives of Ukraine, Russia, other Eastern European countries, as well as Japan, India, and China, joined them. After the collapse of the USSR, everyone spoke about peace at this forum, and no one thought that in the 21st century, Russia could unleash such a brutal and bloody war in the heart of Europe.
The first alarming signal came in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference, when Russian President Vladimir Putin directly stated that Russia did not want to remain an outsider in world politics and to live in a unipolar world. Back then, Putin considered the United States to be Russia’s main competitor on the international stage. However, the leaders of the US did not take the ambitious words of the Russian president seriously, considering the economic and technological backwardness of the Russian Federation.
Later, Putin’s public speeches also hinted that Russia would soon implement its imperial plans, but again, no one paid attention to this. The West only realized its mistake on February 24, 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At that point, its leaders began openly threatening NATO, hinting that Russia wanted to return to the times of the creation of the defense alliance of socialist countries, that is, to restore its influence over the countries that were part of the Warsaw Pact. The Russians would never have dared to take such a step if Ukraine and Georgia had been accepted into NATO at the time. However, back then, the leaders of Germany and France, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, categorically opposed it, and now we are all reaping the bitter consequences of their short-sighted and irresponsible policies. Now, it is clear to everyone that Russia’s war against Ukraine is a blatant attempt by Putin to restore Russia’s influence over the post-Soviet space and return the Russian Federation to the status of a world power, which the Soviet Union once had. This is why the Russians, including their president, Vladimir Putin, always emphasize that they are the legal successors of the USSR.
Under such circumstances, the establishment and long-term maintenance of fair peace in Europe is only possible with the purposeful and coordinated actions of the West. First and foremost, immediate steps must be taken to strengthen the defense capability of the EU and to admit Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova into NATO. The alternative to this is the creation of a new defense alliance of European countries, which would enable active and effective counteraction to the aggressive plans of totalitarian states, particularly Russia, and ensure stability and long-term peace in Europe, the Black Sea-Baltic-Caspian region, and other adjacent parts of the world.
Oleg Bereziuk
Institute for Global Politics
Europe must do its utmost to ensure its own security, end the war in Ukraine and establish a lasting and just peace in the region
