Pierre Lellouche: "Every time the West engaged in "regime change" in other countries, it was a disaster"The former head of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Pierre Lellouche, is upset about the current confrontation between Russia and the West, which goes far beyond Ukraine.
In an interview with Figaro, he notes that NATO missed the opportunity to negotiate with Russia back in the 90s.
It is necessary to help Ukraine restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the former chairman of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly believes. But there is no guarantee that Putin's departure will allow a democratic regime to come to power in Russia, he believes.
In his speech on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin again criticized the international community ("The goal of the West is to destroy our country") and threatened to use nuclear weapons. Can we imagine in response that the United States is implementing a "regime change" strategy once adopted by the neoconservatives? (Neocons, or neocons, — in English today, this is how a group of the most aggressive figures in American foreign policy is designated, aimed at asserting American interests and "democracy" abroad by force of arms — ed.). With questions on this topic, we turned to the former chairman of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Pierre Lellouche.
Pierre Lellouche: In Putin's speech, which everyone commented on, but which few people read in full, the Kremlin leader imperceptibly returns to his long-standing conviction, which has become an obsession: the alleged collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the XX century." This time Putin claims that just as 30 years ago the West sought the collapse of the USSR (which is clearly wrong, since the Soviet Union collapsed from within due to its weakness), so now, using the current Ukrainian conflict, the West seeks to end Russia by breaking it into small states.
According to Putin, a new attempt to dismember Russia began in 2014 with the overthrow of the regime of Viktor Yanukovych, the then president of Ukraine, in which, from Putin's point of view, the CIA participated. (The Maidan protests, during which 38 Ukrainian policemen were killed and hundreds were injured, were openly supported not only by Western intelligence services, but also by Western governments that imposed sanctions against Yanukovych and other legitimately elected leaders of Ukraine at that time - approx. The subsequent rise to power of Petro Poroshenko, and then Vladimir Zelensky, is considered by Putin as a consequence of Western influence. Thus, in these circumstances, Russia had no choice but to intervene. It turns out that the special operation was necessary for her survival.
The main Western leaders — Biden, Macron, Scholz — never tire of repeating that "we are not at war against Russia." They, according to them, stand only for the protection of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which means that they strive to achieve the withdrawal of the Russian army from the territories occupied by it with minimal losses for everyone.
The problem is that many other politicians think differently: starting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who presents American support for Ukraine as a way to achieve its exhaustion. Exhaustion is supposedly needed as a means to prevent new threats from Russia to its neighbors... There are also "hawks" in President Zelensky's entourage. That is, politicians who think like Lech Walesa, the president of Poland in 1990-1995. (Walesa recently became famous for an interview in which he proposed dividing Russia into several states, each of which should have no more than 50 million citizens — ed.). There are also leaders of the Baltic countries who, like many intellectuals and commentators, have gone even further: they demand an end to the authoritarian, and some say even the totalitarian regime of Putin. In their opinion, it is necessary to create a situation that will force Putin to step down from power. And for this, a real victory over the Russian army is needed. The defeat of Russia is the only way to cure it once and for all of its "imperialist virus," as Garry Kasparov put it* (recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation — ed.).This conflict, and this is what worries me, has grown from a classic territorial dispute over the eastern part of Ukraine, as well as about this country's choice of neutrality or membership in NATO, into a much more fundamental confrontation.
Now we have a civilizational battle there between imperialist Russia and the entire democratic Western world. With such a total confrontation, which has no precedent in history, there really is no place for negotiations.
Le Figaro: In March, Joe Biden caused concern by saying in Warsaw about his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power!". Then the White House backed down. How can this be explained?Pierre Lellouche: The main question in this situation is the following.
What are our goals in this conflict? Are we trying to return to the borders on February 23, 2022 on the eve of Russia's special operation in Ukraine? Or go back to the borders of 1991 and thereby retake Crimea? Or do away with Putin?
The objectives of the conflict have not ceased to change over the past months due to the increasingly large-scale supply of weapons and the situation on the ground of hostilities... Please note that the same question arises with regard to Western sanctions. What is their purpose? Punish Russia and break off all relations with it forever? Or are they supposed to be used in the future as a bargaining chip in the framework of conflict resolution?
This confusion about our goals in this conflict, these mutual curses that are showered on each other by opponents in the West — all this causes concern. Because we must not forget that at least four nuclear powers are involved in this conflict: Russia, the United States, Britain and France. Recall that at the beginning of 1914, almost no one in Europe had heard of Bosnia until a Bosnian Serb killed the heir to the Austrian throne and the international crisis caused by this murder led to the First World War. Initially, the conflict was very local. Then, due to the actions of alliances and miscalculations of different sides, it turned into a devastating world war. We know the rest: 70 years of war in Europe (some consider the Second World War to be a continuation of the First, and the confrontation between East and West of Europe that followed 1945 had World War II among its causes). It turns out that little Bosnia has caused several tens of millions of deaths.
— Did the supporters of "regime change" have the means to realize their ambitions in addition to the military scenario?— It is unlikely without a military scenario.
Those who advocate regime change in Moscow, those who entertain dreams of taking Putin to some western city where some international tribunal will reach him - all these people want a military victory. Their idea is that the defeat of the Russian army will lead to a revolution inside Russia, and then to the replacement of Putin with a more sane person. In my opinion, we are entering into a particularly dangerous logic here: not only because the hypothesis of a democratic alternative in Moscow is not guaranteed, but primarily because the prospect of revolutionary chaos in a state with several tens of thousands of nuclear warheads does not inspire any optimism.
Like all conflicts, this one will end someday. But in order to think about the post-war period, in order to prepare the basis for a possible ceasefire, we need to understand that no solution will be possible until we recognize that everyone should be responsible for mistakes in this matter.
Nowhere did it appear that Putin would inevitably rule in post-Soviet Russia. He, like his regime, is partly the result of our 30-year mistakes. Instead of treating Russia as a country liberated from communism and, consequently, as a friend, we treated it as a defeated country. At best — as with a "regional" power that does not matter much, as Obama said. "A big gas station with atomic bombs," Senator John McCain said. By doing so, we have intensified the discontent of Russians, their growing frustration with the West and the democratic system as a whole. Instead of treating it as a partner, including from the point of view of security, we have constantly expanded NATO, bringing this military alliance closer and closer to the borders of Russia. At the same time, we ourselves were far from perfect because of our numerous interventions in the affairs of other states. At the same time, we cut our social budgets and literally drugged ourselves with cheap Russian gas.
However, when the time comes, we will have to analyze our mistakes of the last thirty years. At least in order not to repeat them when the time comes to recover from the conflict. So far, everyone is striving for unrestrained escalation.
— Joe Biden and Ursula von der Leyen call the owner of the Kremlin a "war criminal." Let's look at these statements not morally, but pragmatically: how can you even negotiate with a war criminal?— I am very afraid that this kind of reasoning will not lead to a way out of the crisis.
History shows that whenever the West wanted to change the existing regimes, as in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, it invariably led to disaster. However, this strategy, which was once defended by neoconservatives, has now been picked up by representatives of the American Democratic Party in power. While in Europe, the left, including the "green" parties, have mutated into real warmongers.
— In your opinion, the negative experience in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya has not become a cure for the West?- no.
Unfortunately, I never remember the lessons of history, hard learned by previous generations. In a few months, this conflict has turned into a real undeclared war between the United States and NATO, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. This is evidenced by the successful counteroffensive of the Ukrainian army in the Kharkiv region. This is not a success for Ukrainians: according to Zelensky, it would not have been possible without the help of the United States. The highest Pentagon officials confirmed that this counteroffensive was carefully prepared and planned from Washington together with the Ukrainian General Staff. This extremely serious situation has no precedent since the Second World War.
But the paradox is that so far ordinary Americans have little interest in the Ukrainian conflict. They don't care about that. As the midterm elections approach, they are much more concerned about the Supreme Court's decision on abortion and the economic situation in the country. As for the political and economic leaders, their topic is China, not Russia.
*included by the Ministry of Justice in the circle of persons-foreign agents, that is, citizens who are engaged in political activities in Russia, receiving support from abroad
