by Stefano Briganti
On June 3 was held at Singapore the annual session of the Shangri-La Dialogue in which 41 countries participated, including Ukraine. Naturally, the main theme concerned the Russo-Ukrainian war and its resolution. During the conference the positions of the participating States were confirmed regarding the actions to be taken to achieve a “peace”. I use the quotation mark because, as I have already had the opportunity to write, I believe that the maximum that can be achieved will be a truce more or less brittle and long.
By resorting to the binary simplifications so fashionable today, we can say that the positions of have been confirmed in Singapore two blocks of countries: the one that believes that the end of the war is reached on the battlefield, which could last years, with a Ukrainian victory; and the one who instead believes that the end of the conflict must be reached through a negotiation diplomatic. The first block includes the so-called “Western countries” (USA, EU, UK, Japan, Canada, Australia) and the second includes Brazil, India, China, ASEAN (the countries of South-East Asia) and South Africa which leads a coalition of African states. The first block represents 12% of the world‘s population and the second 45%.
What I find very interesting was the proposal of theIndonesia. It is based on two key points: 1) the establishment of a demilitarized zone along the lines of conflict, under the control of the United Nations which would guarantee the cessation of hostilities during which negotiations would take place; 2) no referendum Donbass under the aegis of the UN to ask the inhabitants what status their region should have: if autonomous from Kiev and recognized by the international community or if it belongs to the Ukrainian state.
The proposal was, as expected, rejected from the western bloc without much explanation. However, one can think that the very concrete risk, which both Kiev and the EU-US-NATO do not want to run, is that the result of such a referendum could make Donbass autonomous from Kiev with a recognized status. This would allow him, among other things, to choose allies in foreign policy.
In fact, the two points of the Indonesian proposal are found in the Minsk II treaty signed in 2015 by Russia and Ukraine under the auspices of France and Germany.
We do not now deal with the reasons for the failure of the agreement which are many and controversial. However, we know two certain things released to the press: Zelensky a The mirror, February 2023: “in 2019 I first told Macron-Merkel, then Putin, that for me Minsk II was impossible to be implemented”. Merkel al The time, December 2022: “the Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time to arm itself. He also used that time to become harder as you can see today”. For geopolitical reasons the right to self-determination in Donbass was ignored.
When, in one way or another, the weapons fall silent, the separatist demands of the Donbass, if they are not resolved, will not extinguish. If Donbass does not have some “protective shield” – through a form of autonomy or with the long-term presence of a contingent of peacekeepers – the six million inhabitants of the three Russian-speaking regions will be subject to a fierce retaliation and “re-education” by Ukraine, justified by collaborationism with the Russians. Saigon and Kabul make history on this. Nobody talks about security guarantees for Donbass against possible post-conflict “interventions” by Kiev. The only security guarantees Zelensky wants are for Ukraine against possible future Russian attacks.
The West yes will disinterest of the fate of Donbass by declassifying it to an “internal fact within the competence of the Ukrainian sovereign state” as it has done since 2014? The same disinterest of the separatist instances of the Kurdsof the Armenians, of the Western Sahara Moroccan, all labeled as terrorists and therefore to be condemned.