Ukrainian dishes and music in the Russian embassy in Rome, evening event for Putin’s performance

“The real causes of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict”. It is the title of an essay signed by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, published by Visione editore and presented last night with a ceremony, defined as a “special evening”, at Villa Abamelek, residence of the Russian ambassador in Rome, Alexei Paramonov.

“A fully Italian project” which contains a series of articles, “first of all” that of the Russian president entitled “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, about fifty pages written “way back in July 2021, and even more current from today’s perspective”, explained the ambassador. A text in which Putin says he is “convinced that the true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible precisely in collaboration with Russia” and states that “Russia has never been and will never be ‘anti-Ukraine’. And “as it should be Ukraine is up to its citizens to decide.”

The Russian president also writes that the “spiritual, human and civilizational ties” between the two countries “have been formed over the centuries, go back to the same origins and have been tempered by common trials, achievements and victories”. Links that were also highlighted during the evening of presentation of the essay: the concert with music created by Russian and Ukrainian composers, refreshments with traditional dishes of the two countries.

Paramonov was keen to underline how the essay is “an initiative that distances itself from the tendency towards simplification that lately seems to dominate the sphere of global politics”. And in this sense, he said that also “many commentators and commentators very often, unfortunately, date the beginning of the Ukrainian events to 24 February 2022, rejecting everything that happened before that date”.

Considerations that they make – explained Paramonov – “even when they provide their interpretation of the new spiral into which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has collapsed. Here too, great emphasis is placed on the date of 7 October 2023, an undoubtedly criminal, tragic, unacceptable, bloody event , but wanting to ignore all the events that over time led to what happened on that date, neglecting every event almost since the end of the 1940s. This approach – he added – seems wicked to us and we are happy that today in the world and in Italy in particular, there is an ever-increasing number of those who share our vision of things.”

In the volume at the center of the evening there is also an article entitled “The creation and structural role of Ukrainian nationalism/Nazism”, by the Russian political scientist Eduadr Popov and the Belarusian historian Kirill Sevcenko, professor of the Misk section of the Russian State University. And followed by a final article entitled “Ukraine as collateral damage on the path of militant Atlanticism”, by the Hungarian researcher Gyogy Varga, former ambassador, former OSCE head of mission in Russia from 2017 to 2021. The text is then accompanied by a preface by Bruno Scapini, former ambassador, now writer and columnist, and the publisher Francesco Toscano.