Over the past year a number of extensive publications came into print in Italy, which attempted to investigate what had really happened in Ukraine and to explain it to Europeans. Den/The Day has already written about the Putin and Neotsarism book by Sergio Canciani (see The Day issue No. 73, November 19, 2014) and about the issues of Limes geopolitical journal dedicated to that topic. Now the readers have the opportunity to strengthen their grasp of the current events through The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict: Geopolitics of a New World (Dis)Order, a book by Eugenio di Rienzo, famous Italian historian and professor of La Sapienza political science department.
The presentation of the book, which was held past week, took the form of a discussion. Top geopolitical analysts, historians, Slavic culture and history researchers reviewed the principal reasons of the war in the east of Ukraine. As it is written in the book’s preface: “Russia regarded the recent developments in Kyiv as an important step on the path to NATO, which would lay the foundation of the final disintegration of Russia as a powerful state. Seeing this as an attempt to undermine the basis of Russian geo-strategic security, Putin frantically expanded his sphere of influence over the post-Soviet countries. He decided to demonstrate the world community that “the Russian bear” still has its claws and is still capable of deflecting attacks. He thinks that by defying Russia, the West has started the global crisis, which made any attempts at a peaceful world order in the coming years impossible.”
The author utilizes a very broad approach to the conflict. He digresses into the past and the future, analyzes the similarities with the events in former Yugoslavia, and draws economic parallels between different parts of the world. Italian reader can get the understanding of what had happened on Maidan and in Crimea, and what is happening in Donbas on a large scale. “Too cynical and too fascinated by Realpolitik, the new ‘Tsar of Kremlin’ knows that none of the Russian opponents is ready to ‘die for Kyiv’ after acknowledging their ‘deaths’ for Baghdad and Kabul,” the historian says.
Di Rienzo is convinced that under these extremely dire economic circumstances the newly-elected Ukrainian leadership is in the danger of becoming a puppet, but this time its strings would lead to the US and Germany. But in case the leadership finds the strength needed for survival and consolidation, Russia would play the role of a “chained giant” in the global scenario, being forced to defend without the opportunity to strike back. By the way, di Rienzo is a co-editor of the Italian New Historical Journal. Thus the historian’s subject of interest is regularly represented in the journal’s issues.
