On February 24, 2022, Kiev was supposed to fall in forty-eight hours. A year later, the Ukrainian flag flies over Kherson. For a year now, the Ukrainians have been giving us an extraordinary test of courage. History is being made in the trenches of Bakhmout and the streets of Kherson, the cellars of Kharkiv and the dugouts of Kiev.
Today Ukraine is the beating heart of Europe; it embodies the freedom of peoples in the face of imperialist aggression; it defends democracy not only for itself, but for all of us, for the entire European continent. We must therefore support them with all our might and increase European aid.
Those who stoke fears of “escalation” when it is just a matter of deterring aggression fail to see that retreating from Putin would only spiral our continent into insecurity and violence. Putin has not kept secret anything about his ideas and his project: he is at war against European democracy, which he sees only as decadence and which he wants to impose on the power of an imperial Russian while disregarding all rights.
The imperialist dynamic set in motion since 1999 by Putin’s regime, backed by the mafia and oligarchic capitalism, will only be stopped if Russia loses in Ukraine. With war raging again on our borders, with the security of all Europe at stake, cowardice and culpable ambiguity are not allowed.
The question is simple: should we give Ukrainians the means of self-defense, or reward the Russian aggressor by letting him destroy international law and commit his crimes against humanity with complete impunity? Those who are calling for an end to arms supplies to Ukraine are not “pacifists”: they do not want peace, they agree to defeat.
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They authorize the sacrifice of Ukrainians by handing them over to their attackers. They hope to have peace by yielding to those who start wars. It’s an ancient illusion that has cost us many times throughout history. The victory of fascism is not “peace” but preparation for other wars.
This war will decide the security of the European continent
The pseudo-“pacifism” of the French and European political class – including the left – which refuses to supply arms to Ukraine amounts to consenting to the oppression and annihilation of a people whose only crime is to want to live freely. Not only do European countries have the right to supply arms to Ukraine, they must step up their efforts.
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