The end of Europe as we know it?

The battle in Ukraine disrupts the post-Berlin Wall order in Europe: the tip of Scandinavian neutrality and equidistance, battle reminiscences and area decisions within the Balkans and the acceleration of European Union enlargement in Jap Europe. What influence and penalties the battle has on the residents of a Europe which has modified its face maybe eternally.

We have been discussing it throughout a panel collectively organised with Debates on Europe on the Lectorinfabula worldwide cultural competition, which was held in Conversano (Southern Italy) finish of September. The audio system had been Kateryna Mishchenko, author and writer (Ukraine); Faruk Šehić, creator and poet (Bosnia and Herzegovina); Maarja Kangro, fiction and non-fiction author (Estonia) and Carl Henrik Fredriksson, programme Director of Debates on Europe (Sweden, Austria). It was moderated by Serbian-Italian journalist Marina Lalovic.

“Listening to Putin was like getting right into a time machine,” stated Faruk Šehić recounting the déjà vu he had within the days earlier than Russia‘s assault on Ukraine in February. The identical mechanisms that marked the battle within the Balkans within the Nineteen Nineties are at play right this moment, he famous. And what occurred ought to have come as no shock; the speech held by Vladimir Putin simply earlier than the invasion was mainly the identical as these by Radovan Karadžić again in 1992: Bosnia is just not an actual nation and should not exist, Bosnian Muslims make up a faux nation, and so forth. If Russia will win the battle in Ukraine, open battle will instantly flare up in Bosnia”, Šehić warned. “And that battle in Bosnia, won’t keep solely there. It is like opening Pandora’s field.”

Whereas recognizing the solidarity proven by many nations, Kateryna Mishchenko described a profound feeling of loneliness as one of many strongest traits of what it means to be a Ukrainian right this moment. Ukrainians are ultimately alone on this battle: “They are getting weapons, they’re getting cash, they’re getting guarantees of European integration – however it’s they who need to die, to sacrifice their lives.”