THE NEW "D DAY"

The beginning of summer 2014 was no less tense for world politics than 70 years ago when, on 6 June 1944, the biggest landing of an invasion force (156,000 soldiers and officers, 196,000 sailors and 7,000 vessels) in history, the landing of allied troops in Normandy [France] took place. The first part of operation "Overlord" is also known as "D Day", which became the opening of the long-awaited Western front. The days of Nazi Germany were numbered. It was finally being pressured from both sides simultaneously.

In our time, "D Day" is  marked as symbol of reconciliation and it is incidentally precisely for this reason that the countries of the coalition against Hitler take part in the commemoration, as well as those who fought on the side of the Third Reich.

But in 2014 the main motive for all the European meetings was by no means to recall the heroic past, but the problems of today, mainly those connected with the situation in Ukraine. The atmosphere of unity and sad joy befitting such a date was greatly toned down by the serious international problems, which have from time to time been pointing towards the beginning of a second cold war or even a third world war. The circumstances are tense ones and slightly theatrical; for the commentators every word, every gesture is important, even where the presidents were seated at the table or whom they stood next to during the group photo shoot. All they wanted to do was to guess beforehand how events would turn out and try to align themselves correctly.

The activity in Normandy did essentially begin a few days before 6 June, that is on 3 June when 40 heads of foreign delegations arrived at the Royal Castle in the Old Town of Poland's capital, Warsaw. The arrival had been timed to coincide with the Lech Walesa "Solidarnosc" ["Solidarity"] award presentation ceremony. The head of the White House, Barack Obama, was present too, who, having taken advantage of the occasion, chose precisely this moment to "present to the public" the recently elected president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. 

The former "chocolate king" looked rather lost in the circles of the world elite, but on the whole he coped with his new role extremely successfully. The American leader did what he could to support his newly-fledged counterpart, after praising, in his person, all Ukrainians who had "rejected violence and corruption and had wanted to determine their own future independently". Obama also added that he had been struck by Poroshenko's vision of how the Ukrainian economy needed to be developed. For the moment, Washington is not promising Kiev significant financial aid, but has offered to provide training for the Ukrainian military and the police force. You see, on the whole, the American president is convinced that the NATO presence in the Baltic States and Poland is in itself a sign of support for the latter and for Ukraine and other countries aiming for a rapprochement with the Euro-Atlantic community.

To put it in a nutshell, it looks as if Obama and the other world leaders liked Poroshenko so much that they decided to take him to France with them to attend the commemoration ceremony. The fact is that representatives of the other former republics of the USSR were not invited to the ceremony. Earlier spokesmen for the Elysee Palace had stated that only Russia was the rightful successor to the Soviet Union. Thus, it is obvious that the leaders of the Western countries had decided to use the event to "force" Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin "to become acquainted". For the moment new sanctions have not been imposed on Russia, but it has been made quite clear to Moscow that punitive measures are still on the agenda.  

Western politicians think that Russia is aiding the Donbass [Ukraine's Donetsk region] separatists with weapons, military equipment and manpower. The head of the American State Department, John Kerry, has asked Poroshenko to provide the USA with evidence of Russia's involvement. It is noteworthy that this happened almost at the same time as Putin told French journalists in an interview that "it's one thing to say things and another to actually have evidence". "The entire world remembers the US Secretary of State demonstrating the evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, waving around some test tube with washing powder in the UN Security Council. Eventually, the US troops invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein was hanged and later it turned out there had never been any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Putin noted in his conversation with the French media.

Stepping up the sanctions imposed on Russia was discussed during the "G7" summit, which was to have been a "G8" summit until a few weeks ago, and should have been held in [the Russian Black Sea town of] Sochi. But it met in [the Belgian capital] Brussels on the following day after the Warsaw meeting. Russia has been excluded from the club because of Crimea and the situation in the rebellious south-east of Ukraine.

But the leaders of the USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain and Australia did not go so far as to withdraw Vladimir Putin's invitation to the ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the allies' landing in Normandy. It looks as if the Western politicians themselves, as well as the Western media, have not definitely decided what their attitude to Putin should be and to Russia as represented by him. It was initially stated that the Russian president would be completely isolated in France, but, as soon as he arrived in Paris, he had meetings with French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron,   as well as meeting up with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama too, with whom he had an informal 10-15-minute-long conversation.               

The meeting with David Cameron lasted longer, but did not start with the customary hand-shake, while the meeting with Francois Hollande was much friendlier. Moreover, in order to meet the head of the Kremlin, the host at the palace on the Champs Elysees had to overlook his own health by having two suppers in different places, one in the Elysee Palace with President Putin and a "simpler" one in an ordinary restaurant with President Obama. And all this so that the heads of the Kremlin and the White House did not come across each other earlier.

One can only hazard a guess at which of the two suppers was the more pleasant. With Obama the French leader spoke about the fairly difficult talks on setting up a Trans-Atlantic free trade zone and the conflict surrounding the French BNP Paribas bank. With Putin the conversation was most probably about the deliveries to Russia of Mistral helicopter carriers, which, it has to be said, NATO is prepared to purchase, if only to stop Moscow from getting them. If the contract were to be broken, this would lead to the loss of hundreds of jobs in France and Paris would have to pay out millions in compensation for breach of contract. It looks as if even Barack Obama did not manage to persuade Francois Hollande to do that. Washington has incidentally admitted that punitive measures against Russia may cause other countries economic difficulties. The US president's deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, has stated that various European countries are co-operating with Russia in certain fields: Germany in energy supplies, Great Britain in the sphere of finance and France in the defence industry.

The meeting between the heads of Germany and Russia was evidently just as interesting, for it was precisely Chancellor Merkel (assisted by President Hollande) who acted as go-between in the 15-minute meeting between Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin. After the conversation, which took place on the way to lunch at the Chateau de Benouville palace, the Russian leader positively assessed the Ukrainian president's ideas with regard to a settlement of the crisis in the eastern regions of Ukraine.

At the same time, in Paris, after an almost two-month-long interval, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov finally found US Secretary of State John Kerry (up until then Sergey Lavrov told journalists that his counterpart had "gone missing somewhere"). It is gratifying that the heads of Russian and American foreign policy have remembered that there are other international problems such as Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Regarding the latter, it is rather indicative that world public has somehow forgotten about it. You see, literally a few months ago the on-going civil war in Syria was the reason for a representative conference in Geneva and controversial discussions on various serious platforms and in the media. But suddenly everything went quiet; even the presidential elections did not cause any alarm, at which [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad did in fact win, although the opposition at that time, supported by many Western countries, was furiously trying to get him to step down.

The crisis in Ukraine is now the focus of attention. Efforts are being made to rescue Kiev from a Damascus-type scenario, whereby on-going rebel activity has already become an everyday occurrence for local residents. At least, south-east Ukraine is turning out to be something like this scenario. On the day of the commemorative events in Normandy, where it was noted that there are no alternatives to a peaceful settlement, the media reported fierce fighting in [the south-eastern Ukrainian city of] Slavyansk, in which heavy military equipment and aviation were being used. The Russian media also reported thousands of refugees fleeing from Ukraine to Russia and a difficult humanitarian situation.

But while the "G7" leaders were referring to Kiev's actions with regard to the south-east as "restrained", they called upon the illegal armed formations to disarm and welcomed "the readiness of the Ukrainian authorities to continue an inclusive national dialogue". Petro Poroshenko's plan for settling the crisis, which he kept under wraps before his official inauguration as president, is allegedly calculated to take three months, and is most likely to contain steps aimed at decentralisation [of authority] and an extensive amnesty.

All hopes rest on this plan alone, since no distinct proposals have been forthcoming from the heads of the world's leading powers. Russia is noticeably trying to distance itself from what is happening in Ukraine. After the meeting with Poroshenko, Putin stated that "the Russian Federation is not a party to the conflict". Earlier, in his interview with French media, the Kremlin head uttered the phrase that Poroshenko "has no blood on his hands so far", so he does have a chance. This statement may be compared with the one that Obama made at the conclusion of the "G7" meeting in Brussels: "Mr Vladimir Putin "has a chance to get back into the lane of international law", adding that we would see how the president of Russia acted in the next few weeks. So, does this mean that Putin is giving Poroshenko a chance, and Obama is giving Putin a chance? 

For the moment shells are exploding and people are dying, no matter who they are, under which flag they are fighting and whose idea they are supporting. The actions of the world political elite are making observers play a guessing game. Thus, the "New York Times" made a truly heroic attempt to understand what is going on by comparing Putin's and Obama's suppers (!). In the opinion of the journalists, "A dinner at the presidential palace seems hardly anything to sniff at, but there may be reasons to view it as a lesser culinary option than a Michelin one-star restaurant. The ?lys?e has a new chef whose cuisine has not been to everyone's satisfaction." This means that Hollande respects Obama more than Putin. It is excellent that they "saw through" the French leader. But, if I may, what does this mean for the inhabitants of Ukraine?

The different formats of the world leaders' meetings in Europe have left journalists plenty of food for thought, but the Ukrainians have been left with "an empty plate". It remains to be hoped that President Poroshenko's plan is more definite. A clear-cut menu, for which the "head chef" is fully prepared to take responsibility is what is needed in the situation that is taking shape.