Dortmund (Alemania)Talk about Russia, but without Russia. This is the delicate and extraordinary situation of the Security Conference that is taking place in Munich from this Friday until Sunday. Every year this meeting in the Bavarian capital becomes the most important informal meeting on security policy in the world. But the current edition is marked by how the West deals with the crisis on the border between Ukraine and Russia.
For the first time in more than 30 years, no official Russian delegation has traveled to the Munich Security Conference. “We must note and regret that this Conference has been transformed in recent years into a transatlantic forum,” reasoned the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zajarova. On the contrary, the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris; the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski; German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and a hundred prominent speakers have confirmed their attendance.
The signs of distension that Scholz captured last Tuesday during his visit to Moscow seem to have vanished. Concern about an imminent Russian attack on Ukrainian territory is growing again. This was confirmed this Friday from Munich by the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, when he expressed his “deep concern” because, although his government and that of its allies do everything possible to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict, “This is not the path that Russia chooses.” All that he currently observes, Blinken said, is “part of a scenario that is already underway: creating false provocations and then having to react with them and finally perpetrating a new aggression against Ukraine.”
But the great strength of the Western allies, he assured, is cooperation. “As long as we maintain this solidarity, we will be prepared to react whatever path Putin chooses,” said the head of Foreign Affairs of the United States, while assuring that he believes that the Russian leader is “a little surprised” by how good which is the harmony between the NATO states and the European Union.
Blinken shared the stage with the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock. After the shock caused by Donald Trump’s passage through the White House, the relationship between the United States and Germany has regained harmony. “Baerbock has spoken with tremendous moral clarity about what is happening in Ukraine and this is essential,” Blinken said.
The truth is that Baerbock, in office for two months, is the one who expresses himself more firmly on the matter from the Berlin government. “With its concentration of troops, Russia expresses an absolutely unacceptable threat. For Ukraine, but also for our peace architecture in Europe”, he remarked. “That is why this crisis is not a Ukrainian crisis but a Russian one,” he said.
Willing to give up gas
Baerbock has insisted that Germany is willing to pay a heavy price if Russia attacks Ukraine. “For us, all options are on the table, also Nord Stream 2”, he indicated, insinuating that Berlin could consider temporarily giving up the gas pipeline – still to be released – that joins Russia and Germany through the Baltic Sea without going through Ukrainian territory.
“A Russian attack on Ukraine would have massive financial, economic and political consequences. And we have another important message for Moscow: we absolutely do not want these consequences. We want a serious dialogue on security and peace in our common Europe. We want to minimize the risk of escalation. It is precisely for this reason that we have drawn up a number of substantial proposals that are now on the table in Moscow. Every minute, now, today, yesterday, tomorrow, we want to talk about this. But what we do not want and what we cannot do is call into question the security architecture that we have all given ourselves”, he reasoned.
The mayor of Kiev and former world boxing champion, Vitali Klitschko, appeared in the conference audience. “Thank you for the 5,000 military helmets, but we need defense weapons,” he told Baerbock. The German minister has insisted, however, that Berlin will not send this type of weaponry to the conflict zone.
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