The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 and former president of Costa Rica, Óscar Arias Sánchez, considers that the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine has repercussions for the whole world.
The Central American lawyer, economist and political scientist maintains that Putin is acting irresponsibly violating international law and violating the United Nations charter, he has recognized two republics, Donetsk and Lugansk, and recently in a speech insinuated that Ukraine is not a country because It has a tradition in common with Russia, a similar culture, religion and language because a large part of the population speaks Russian in Ukraine.
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In addition, the former president affirms that the situation is very cruel because much has already been suffered with the pandemic and now the cost of living in these countries and the rest of the world is going to rise.
“Russia is the second largest producer of hydrocarbons, prices are going to rise drastically, as a result of that everything, food and all kinds of consumables, now there is going to be more inflation and the shares of all the world’s stock markets are going to fall” , points out Arias Sánchez about some of the implications of this conflict.
The former president of Costa Rica believes that as part of a solution to the conflict, it is possible that the United Nations Security Council will approve a resolution to condemn this invasion and request the departure of Russian troops from Ukraine. However, he points out that Russia has veto power and already used it in 2014, when it vetoed a resolution condemning him.
“Now possibly I will veto it in the same way, so it is very difficult at this time to know the end of this situation,” he adds.
Russia an expansionist nation
The former president affirms that knowing the history of Russia, it is an expansionist and imperialist nation, and he does not see Putin going back on anything he has done, since he has paid a very high price, and with this invasion it is not known if it is to stay part of the Ukrainian territory or the whole nation.
“Russia has a tradition of being an expansionist country since the 12th century. Putin has been dreaming of this great Russian tradition of being an empire, which, for centuries of having been, during the Cold War, having triumphed over Nazism, being one of the two world superpowers, during the Cold War period from 1945 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989”, affirms the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The Costa Rican affirms that NATO is not going to intervene in Ukraine eventually and the president of the United States, Joe Biden, said that he will send American soldiers to the NATO nations that are neighbors close to Ukraine’s western border with these countries, such as the Baltics, in addition to Romania, Hungary, Poland, but with Ukraine, not being part of NATO, they are not going to cross that border.
“Putin has been taking the temperature of the West and NATO, particularly about decisions he has made in the past, such as the invasion of Georgia in 2008 and later in 2014 of Crimea and Sevastopol, and that there realized that once these actions were carried out he had to face all kinds of criticism and condemnation, but Putin, being what he is, an autocrat, not a democrat, is not interested in world opinion, nor that of the Russian people, nor of the press, or anything,” explains Arias.
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The former Costa Rican president states that Putin has realized that the West has acted as Neville Chamberlain acted in 1938, when he met with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich and returned to England victorious proclaiming that he had achieved “peace for our time.” Very shortly thereafter, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, then annexed Austria, where he was greeted with flowers, and the start of the First World War is considered to be September 1, 1938, when he decides to invade Poland.
One can be an expansionist and if he does not receive very severe punishments he can try again to continue with the expansion, adding new territories, which is what he is doing with this invasion of Ukraine, considers Arias.
“I don’t know if in the end he just wants to establish a kind of corridor between Donetsk and Luhansk, with Crimea and Sevastopol through Mariupol (a city that is on the way) or it could be Odessa or the Black Sea, I don’t know if it is just that, or what he wants (is) to seize all the Ukrainian people”, he emphasizes.
Regarding Western sanctions against Russia, including prohibitions on banks and individuals, as well as limitations on access to markets, Óscar Arias thinks that these actions will hit Putin, because he does not care about the suffering of the Russian people.
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Conflict between Russia and Ukraine brings repercussions to the world: Nobel Peace Prize