Seek viable paths to achieve peace

Andrea Tornielli

A thousand days. A thousand days have passed since February 24, 2022, when the Army of the Russian Federation attacked and invaded Ukraine on the orders of President Vladimir Putin. A thousand days and an unspecified – but very high – number of deaths, civilians and military, of innocent victims such as children killed in the streets, in schools, in their homes. A thousand days and thousands of injured and traumatized people destined to remain disabled for the rest of their lives, from homeless families. A thousand days and a martyred and devastated country. Nothing can justify this tragedy that could have been stopped sooner, if everyone had bet on what Pope Francis called “peace schemes”, instead of surrendering to the supposed inevitability of conflict.

A war that, like any other, is always accompanied by interests, mainly that of the only trade, which does not know a crisis and did not even know one during the recent pandemic, the global and transversal of those who manufacture and sell armaments both in the East and in the West.

The sad course of the thousand days since the beginning of the military aggression against Ukraine should raise the questions: how to end this conflict? How to reach a ceasefire and then a just peace? How can we give rise to negotiations, those “honest negotiations” that the Successor of Peter recently spoke of, that allow us to reach “honorable compromises”, putting an end to a dramatic spiral that risks dragging us into the abyss of nuclear war?

There is no hiding behind a finger. The encephalogram of diplomacy seems flat, the only ray of hope seems to be linked to the electoral declarations of the new president of the United States. But the truce, and then the negotiated peace, are – or rather, should be – an objective pursued by everyone and cannot be left to the promises of a single leader.

So what to do? How can Europe, in particular, reclaim a role worthy of its past and the leaders who built a community of nations after the war, ensuring decades of peace and cooperation for the Old Continent? The so-called West, instead of focusing only on the crazy arms race and military alliances that seemed obsolete and a legacy of the Cold War, should perhaps take into account the growing number of nations that do not recognize themselves in this scheme.

There are countries that have maintained and even intensified high-level relations with Russia: why not deeply investigate the possibilities of finding common peace solutions? Why not develop diplomatic action and constant dialogue through non-sporadic, non-bureaucratic, but intense consultations with these countries? If European Chancelleries are uncomfortable following this path, is it possible to assume a greater role for Churches and religious leaders? In addition to the official contacts, which, by the way, are minimal, from the countries that support Ukraine financially and militarily, one would expect a greater initiative for analysis and proposals in parallel: there is an urgent need for international “reflection groups” capable of to dare, to indicate possible and concrete paths of solution, to propose schemes for a peace acceptable to all. To achieve this, as Cardinal Parolin told Vatican media, there is a great need “for statesmen with a far-reaching vision, capable of courageous gestures of humility, capable of thinking about the good of their people.” There is also a need, never more than today, for people to raise their voices to ask for peace.