The intertwining of Russia and Ukraine: a vision of the whole

In the "third world war in pieces" can Europe use its historical and cultural baggage to return the cheat to the central Mediterranean where Italy would act as the logistic and energy hub projected towards Africa and the East?

Contrary to the predictions of many analysts, the war in Ukraine broke out with all its vehemence. Not a conflict fought in the metaverse - as some are foreseen and imagined the new conflicts - but a war of a conventional order waged on the ground, where the role of technologies acts as a useful and indispensable support tool without however modifying the traditional instrument field action.

Having established that the current conditions are very current, it is interesting to analyze the scenario in which this situation has matured and what could be the repercussions both in terms of new global balances and national interests.

Ukraine, in fact, due to the geographical location that places it at the center of the two continental masses, European and Asian, and the ethnic and cultural composition that distinguishes it, constitutes the classic "fault line" populated by people who, starting from a common genesis, namely that of the Eastern Slavic tribes gathered under the Kievan Rus', they subsequently distinguished themselves into various components divided also under the confessional profile.

In the aftermath of the Soviet bloc, the role of the country became fundamental from a strategic point of view since, as the US strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski had well highlighted, it represents one of the "pivots" on which to build a basis for shifting the "western center of gravity" Eastward and thus expand US influence within the Eurasian mass. Also because, Brzezinski points out, "without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with a subordinate and therefore subordinate Ukraine, Russia automatically becomes an empire". In order to avoid this scenario, the US-led Western camp worked to encourage the expansion of NATO east, making Ukraine imagine membership, and to blow the countries of internal discontent of some pivotal points, including precisely the Ukraine where Euromaidan protests broke out in 2014 with the known results. [img_dx=/media/Mappa Ucraina .png]This situation encouraged that perception of encirclement that was already hovering within the Russian Federation which in the meantime had remained completely isolated. In the space of a few years there was a massive increase in countries that joined NATO and in armaments deployed on the border with Russia. This was followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea, the fueling of the conflict in the Donbass region between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, and the imposition of economic sanctions that offered a greater incentive to the Russian Federation to look east and embrace China.

The intertwining of situations, together with the failure of a certain diplomacy that has focused everything on the double containment of China and Russia, has thus led to the explosion of the conflict that has exploded precisely on that "fault line", which is precisely Ukraine, where Russians, Poles, Turks and Americans are extending their interests and which, without a doubt, represents the most consistent piece of what Pope Bergoglio has defined "the third world war in pieces". Certainly from wars of this kind, so devastating and bloody where the nuclear threat has even been evoked, indeed we can go back by restoring the previous equilibrium. It will come out only through a clear reformulation of them. It will be necessary, at the appropriate time, to make concessions to prevent the triggering of war mechanisms to the bitter end at that point, those yes, with unpredictable results.

To date, among the first and immediate effects produced by the conflict in Ukraine there is the re-compacting of the western camp with the sanctioning reaction against Moscow taken at European level, the massive dispatch of armaments to Ukrainian fighters, the suspension of the north stream gas 2 on the German side, as well as the investment by the German side of 2% of its GDP in defense. Within this scenario, in which Putin with the overturning of the chessboard has generated a clear break between the eastern and western camps, the European countries are those that most of all risk being crushed within this logic of large opposing blocs, with the possible consequence, already underway, of the decoupling of the European economy from the Russian one, with significant impacts on companies and organizations. It is no coincidence, in fact, that Macron and Scholz up to the end wanted everything to avert this caesura which certainly represents a not insignificant problem for our companies.

The hope is that common sense will prevail between the parties and that, as Kissinger argued in a prophetic 2014 editorial published in the Washington Post, we will proceed with a neutral Ukraine that can act as a bridge between east and west. . At this juncture, Europe, due to its historical, cultural, value and scientific-technological background, which has made it the cradle of civilization, has a personality of depth and arrows in its bow that it could use both in the mediation between the two contenders. and to deal with this new global crisis, which is just following the pandemic one. However, with regard to this second aspect, Europe will have to take the opportunity to proceed quickly through the inauguration of a new course that has as its absolute priorities the completion of the unification process, through the implementation of a concrete common defense policy and its own energy autonomy, elements that can guarantee it to have greater strategic autonomy and ample room for maneuver vis-à-vis the great poles of power - the United States, Russia and China - present on the global scenario. Within this process, Italy could play a decisive role in the Mediterranean by acting as a logistic and energy hub projected towards Africa and the East, thanks to its location that places it with its head in Europe and its feet in this strategic basin. This would represent a new life for our companies, in the meantime forced to "grit their teeth", and for our economy which would be facilitated exchange and dialogue with new markets.

Filippo Romeo, Think Tank Secursat "Risks and Scenarios"