COMMENT | All countries must stand up in solidarity with Ukraine

COMMENT | The unthinkable has returned to Europe: war. Russia wages a war against Ukraine. How could that happen?

Europe had enjoyed a long period of peace, from 1945 to 2022, with the exception of the wars of succession to Yugoslavia in the 90s. Yes, for many decades, this was an unfriendly peace; it had not even been called peace but rather a Cold War.

There was the confrontation of two military and ideological blocks, the free West and the Communist East. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the decline of the Soviet Union and the dismemberment of the Warsaw Pact, however, a new era of peace, security and cooperation seemed to dawn.

The Paris Charter for a new Europe documented the end of the Cold War and the separation of Europe, the heads of state and the governments of the European states committed their countries to democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. The Soviet Union and the US, among others, signed this pact.

At that time, the Soviet Union agreed to the reunification of Germany and to the adherence of united Germany to Nato. There was never a mandatory commitment that the other countries of the former Warsaw pact were not allowed to join Nato, despite...