Grigory Yavlinsky Speech to the Munich Security Conference

Grigory Yavlinsky:

Russian started its military operation in February 2022 and assumes its share of responsibility for what happened. History will set the record straight. However, today the key goal here is different – to achieve an immediate ceasefire. We need to find a way out now – we need to find a solution that will bring to an end the loss of lives and the destruction of the future. And if we are talking about the restoration of justice, then today the ultimate justice is to save human lives, stop the advance towards a global nuclear disaster and not to allow the future of our children and grandchildren to be destroyed.

Regrettably, the hysterical reaction of the western press and a number of European politicians to the recent phone call by Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin merely attests to the populism and irresponsibility of such voices. In actual fact, we should be welcoming both the actual contact between the presidents of major nuclear powers and the creation of the initial framework for constructive negotiations.  The United States and Europe must, together with Russia and Ukraine, step by step develop the grounds for and persistently try to reach agreement on a ceasefire, and draw up a plan to end the war and subsequently bring peace to the European Continent. This is a major objective that is extremely hard to achieve in the new environment that we find ourselves in.

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It should be acknowledged here that over the past thirty-five years the West has taken a number of actions which led ultimately to the conflict and confrontation with Russia.

Everything started with the failure of Russia’s economic reforms at the start of the 1990s conducted under the direction of the IMF and with overt political and exceptional financial pressure exerted by  the United States, with hyperinflation reaching 2,600% and criminal privatisation. This was followed by NATO’s actual expansion eastwards: Poland, Czechia and Hungary were admitted to the alliance in 1999.