NSDC Secretary on initiative of Brazil and China: Intl law the only basis for just peace
The only basis for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine can be international law, Secretary of the National Security ad Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine Oleksandr Lytvynenko said, commenting on the initiatives of Brazil and China regarding the holding of an international peace conference.
"The Brazilian-Chinese document talks about the need to counter attacks on nuclear power plants and other peaceful nuclear facilities. At the same time, the need to comply with international law is absolutely rightly pointed out. At the same time, in the mentioned document, the holding of an international peace conference to de-escalate the situation and resume dialogue and negotiations is not conditioned on compliance with international law. I am convinced that it should be the basis for ‘an honest discussion of all peace plans,’" he wrote in a column for the French edition of Le Figaro Vox.
In his opinion, it is very important to emphasize the need for terminological clarity and their full compliance with the norms of international law. "A full-scale imperialist war, unprovoked and criminal in nature, unleashed by Russia, and not the abstract ‘crisis’ referred to in the document, continues in Ukraine. This is a principled position not only of Ukraine, but also of key international security institutions."
"If not international law, then what? V. Putin's historical arguments about the ‘unity of Russians and Ukrainians’ and ‘one people,’ according to which Ukrainians do not exist at all? Or is it nostalgia for ‘historical Russia’ and domination over the lands that now belong to Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, Moldova, Belarus, the states of the South Caucasus and Central Asia?" Lytvynenko notes.
"If it were not for Russia's armed attack on peaceful Ukraine, there would be no need for any peace plan, including Brazil and China. The names of the aggressor and the victim should not stand side by side in vague formulations. After all, it is Russia that kills women, children and other civilians and destroys Ukrainian cities in front of the powerless world community, including Brazil and China," Lytvynenko stressed.
"Only with the observance of universally recognized norms of dialogue and negotiations can a just and sustainable peace be achieved, and not a short-term truce - the prelude to a new criminal attack. The unequivocal and principled position of world leaders regarding the unacceptability of resolving controversial issues of the present by barbaric methods of the past could significantly bring the time of peace closer," the NSDC Secretary is convinced.
"It is on such clear and transparent principles that a real consensus should be built. And this is how Brazil, China, and other states can play a constructive role in helping to de-escalate the situation and advance peace talks," he said.
"The participation of the states of the Global South in the embodiment of the Ukrainian Peace Formula is an effective safeguard against the escalation and restoration of block thinking during the Cold War," Lytvynenko is sure.