“I could never have imagined that one day you would travel on an overnight train to a war on European soil. And this war already has global dimensions. We live in a new world”, thought Foreign Minister Schallenberg during the 14-hour drive from the old imperial and royal fortress city of Przemysl, today Poland. The 35 couchette car long Tatzelwurm is today the umbilical cord from Kiev to Europe.
War? What kind of war one might wonder at first glance in the Ukrainian capital: crowded cafes, restaurants that draw plenty, children frolicking in the parks. People make war when some form of normality allows it. The war has become everyday life.
A sword of Damocles hovers over the idyll
But the tranquility is deceptive. A sword of Damocles hovers over the summer idyll: Putin’s terror missiles could strike again at any moment. Then fate rolls the dice and it would have hit another apartment building.
Not only missiles, Putin’s troops were also able to come back. The war has left its mark just a few miles from Kiev: tank barriers in the shelled suburbs testify to Putin’s Blitzkrieg debacle on February 24.
Now the war of attrition is raging in the east, and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has announced the annexation of more territories. He also indicated that he was not interested in negotiations with Kiev. Putin boasts: “We haven’t even really started yet.”
Anti-Americanism disguised as peace ethics
Zelensky & Co. are used to foreign political visitors asking about their willingness to negotiate – 125 so far. But the negotiators are in the wrong place here. Their peace ethic is often a cover for their anti-Americanism.
The war, or rather the fighting, will end when Putin has had enough. No one outside the Kremlin knows his goals, which he hides well. He says everything is going according to plan, but does not reveal the contents.
The minister’s talks with Zelensky & Co are also about this. What are the goals of Kiev? win? recapture? Schallenberg counters: “Everything must be done to help Ukraine defend itself so that the war can be ended as soon as possible. Ukraine must decide for itself what it is ready for, but peace should certainly not be dictated by Russia.”
Kiev: No criticism of Austrian course
In any case, for the Austrian Foreign Minister, the war is a decisive battle for the future of the world order: “Will the law of the jungle, the rule of thumb, or the legal system prevail in this civilizational decline? ? The security of small states in particular rests on the validity of a network of norms, international law.”
Not once has he, according to the minister, Zelenskij & Co. Austria’s neutrality criticized: “The premise here is that those who cannot provide weapons can express their solidarity in other ways.”
For example, Austria was the first to set up an airlift for Ukrainian war refugees who ‘overrun’ the bitterly poor Republic of Moldova. Or ÖBB has already brought 1.7 million tons of grain from Ukraine; which is far too little known. Unfortunately, it would cost five million tons a month to avert the war-induced famine in the Third World. 50 percent of the UN’s World Food Program is based on grain from Ukraine and Russia.
Large parts of the world are following the Russian propaganda claim that Western sanctions are the cause of the grain shortage. This drives Schallenberg against the wall: “There is no sanction whatsoever against a grain of wheat.”
The following fact is not propaganda, but bizarre reality: Several pipelines for Russian energy products to Europe run through Ukraine. Moscow pays super punctual transit costs for this. To who? To Ukraine! Still! So the aggressor pays the victim.
A very strange war.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
