We are at war and no one refers to it in the electoral campaign. As if it were not with us, as if the cost of living had not skyrocketed, as if the most flourishing industry in the world was not arms, and as if Putin was playing the lyre in the Kremlin while thousands of Russian soldiers and Ukrainians have died and will die as a consequence of their unilateral decision to invade and subdue a sovereign country like Ukraine.
Pedro Sánchez's visit to Washington was not to lift tariffs on pitted black olives, but rather a geopolitical meeting with agreements of a military nature of which Congress has not been informed. I am one of those who think that Sánchez's foreign policy is correct because he has played the Atlantic and European cards in the war in Ukraine, which basically consists of defending the international order against the totalitarian and expansionist drift of Putin's Russia. The president has to explain the Copernican turn regarding Morocco with a king almost always absent from his country and that at any moment he can insinuate the blackmail of Ceuta and Melilla.
The war in the Ukraine has stabilized in destruction and death as now a century ago with the Great War that led Paul Valéry to write that "war is a slaughter between people who do not know each other, for the benefit of people who know each other." but they don't kill each other." The dead on both sides, tens of thousands according to the most conservative estimates, will one day be placed at the negotiating table to reach a peace that will be precarious and will not erase the hatred of the Ukrainians towards Russia.
President Zelensky has shown unexpected courage and courage. He has resisted an invader who has shown no appreciation for life. This war has not been started by NATO or the West. Putin thought of a quick annexation of Ukraine and has been met with unexpected resistance from a people who send their children to their deaths to defend their sovereignty and their freedom. It seemed that after the tragedies that Europe experienced in the last century, barbarism would not return to the heart of the continent.
Well, he has returned and it does not seem that an armistice or ceasefire is close. Zelensky wants to recover the territory occupied by Russia with the help of Europe and the United States. In five days he has visited Rome, Berlin, Paris and London. In meetings with Meloni, Scholz, Macron and Sunak he has secured more economic and military aid and political and moral support for his cause. The meeting with the Pope was more delicate because Zelensky, in thanking Francis for mediating intentions, told him that "there can be no equality between victim and aggressor" and asked him to condemn Russian crimes.
China has sent a senior official to Moscow and Kyiv to open a negotiating space. The Chinese Xi Jinping is perhaps the best placed to demand that Putin withdraw all or part of the occupied Ukrainian territories. Putin has lost the war even if it lasts a long time and does not leave Ukraine. He is the aggressor. Zelenski can lose it, but he is the one attacked and defends a cause that he considers just. On both sides the end justifies everything and on the battle fronts you don't play bridge, you kill the other, the enemy. War is not a continuation of politics by other means, Clausewitz said. It is a failure of humanity.
