The ceasefire in Ukraine by Moscow still appears far away. Yet, in the West we already work to imagine the post-war phase. While Russia continues the massive military pressure on the Ukrainian territory and the sirens of the alarms continue to resonate constantly throughout the country, keeping the level of tension between the inhabitants, Europe – supported by NATO and the United States – is attempted to outline A possible strategy to provide solid security guarantees in defense of Kyiv, even before the end of the war.
The Summit of the so -called coalition of the willing (created last February to define lines of support and protection to long -term Ukraine), convened on September 4 in Paris by the French president Emmanuel Macron and by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, traced three main guarantees: The deployment of a military power of deterrence on Ukrainian soil, aerial patrols and a naval smoking system. Many issues are still in the balance, starting from the sending of troops, on which several governments do not agree (the Italian premier Giorgia Meloni has excluded the presence of Italian soldiers in Ukraine).
The reaction by the Kremlin was – as it was foreseeable – very hard. “If troops should appear there (in Ukraine), especially now during the fighting, we are assumed that they will be legitimate objectives,” said Vladimir Putin, Speaking at the Aastern Economic Forum (EEC) in Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East. Any presence of western soldiers in Ukrainian territory, in short, for the Kremlin would become a threat to Russia and therefore military target of the Moscow forces.
The Russian president added that the deployment of a western force “It wouldn’t favor long -term peace.” Putin also said that “if decisions were reached that led to peace, to long -term peace, then I simply do not see the reason for their presence on the Ukrainian territory. Because if agreements were reached, no one doubts that Russia would respect them fully”. Precisely on this point, Moscow’s reliability in respecting the agreements signed and the commitments made, Kyiv has strong – and moreover justified – fears, on the basis of what has already happened in the past. For this reason, Ukraine considers indispensable of the solid guarantees of safety and long -term protection: Ukrainians are afraid that, in the event of an unjust and not long -term peace, in a few years the country can find itself under the concrete threat of a Russian attack. This is what President Zelensky reiterated by intervening on video at the Economic Forum of Cernobbio: he wants to close the war but if the pressure increases, perhaps he will push him to do so. Nobody trusts, nobody trusts the Russians but it is not a question of trust, we must end the war and we need the USA, Europe and the countries of the global South that unfortunately are not involved today but we will work ourselves “. And he added: “The Ukrainian army is a large army, 800,000 people, it is the largest in Europe. It is a guarantee for the safety of Ukraine and obviously throughout Europe. If the army is strong, Europe is not in danger. These are important things”.
The road to a real dialogue between Kyiv and Moscow remains uphill. On the proposal advanced some time ago by Zelensky of a face -to -face meeting with Putin, The Kremlin leader continues to put obvious brakes. “If they tell us that they want to meet us and that we should go somewhere to have the meeting”, it was Putin’s declaration reported by the Interfax agency, “I think these requests are simply excessive. If they want to meet us, we are ready. The best place is the capital of Russia, the heroin city Moscow “.
(Photo Ansa: the presidents Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris on the summit of the coalition of the willing)
