Bernard Guetta: How to restart the dialogue with the Kremlin before Putin goes all-in

Bernard Guetta, Member of the European Parliament

Photo by MARTIN BERTRAND / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian army destroyed a railway bridge across the North Crimean Canal with drone strikes, a former chalk plant in Alekseevka, Belgorod region was hit, a missile threat regime was declared in the Moscow, Astrakhan, Penza, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Ulyanovsk regions, as well as in Tatarstan, Mordovia and Chuvashia. Every day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack targets not only in the occupied regions, but also on Russian territory. MEP from France, our regular author Bernard Guetta, believes that Putin is already ready, and calls on the EU to start negotiations with the owner of the Kremlin so that he does not have time to do anything stupid.

Perhaps it's time for Europe to open a dialogue with Putin, because, having failed to win this war, he is losing it, and the entire continent, including Russia itself, has an interest in preventing him from going all in.

This dialogue would show him that he can still get out of the situation while saving face. Firstly, Ukraine will not join NATO, since the United States opposes this, and the North Atlantic Alliance itself is going through hard times; secondly, Ukraine can completely do without European troops on its territory, since it will join the European Union, which will provide it with the necessary protection. And finally, Russia can conclude a truce along the current front line, while continuing to claim that all of Donbass belongs to it.

Subscribe to read in full

Subscribe to Redefine.Media to read Republic

Subscribe [You can pay with a Russian or foreign card. The subscription is renewed automatically. You can unsubscribe at any time.]

Where does the subscribers' money go?

Most Republic content is available through a paid subscription. We think this is a good way to finance media. After all, as you know, if you didn’t pay to read it, then someone else paid for you to read it. In our case, everything is fair: your money pays salaries and fees to journalists, and they write about topics that are important and interesting to you.

A key feature of our subscription: Your money is split across Republic magazines based on how you read them. If you read materials from one magazine, then your money will go only to him, and will not go to others. That is, you finance only what interests you.

Republic uses a Redefine.Media subscription. To register, we will redirect you to the Redefine.Media website, where you will need to register and pay for a subscription. Logging into the Redefine.Media website will allow you to read Republic materials from the same device.

A yearly subscription is more profitable than a monthly subscription. And if you want to unsubscribe, you can always do this in your personal account.