Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze: “Carthago needs to be destroyed”

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze is a Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union. She was the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration (2016 — 2019). During the seventh #UkraineDialogue with Aspen institute Germany Ivanna explained why Russia wages war against all the civilized world, and how to help Ukraine to win. 

This war is against the common West and those values we are defending

Ivanna said that right now we all are making that particular choice: where we are, on which side we are on, whether we are together with evil or not let this evil go further. She stressed that it’s important to understand that Putin and Russia have announced the war not exclusively to Ukraine. This war is against the common West and those values we are defending. 

— From my perspective, the Russian-Ukrainian war has already changed the world and it will never be the same. I think it has split the world into us and them. Moreover, I think that as a western civilisation which bases views on values, human rights, rule of law, democracy and economic freedoms, it is currently they who instigated and are aggressively fighting for this barbaric and bloody war on our territory. 

 Russia, the way it is, needs to be destroyed

Also Ms. Klympush-Tsintsadze stressed that whatever Russian territory is called — either Tsarist Russia, or USSR, or Russian Federation — it always produces despotism, dictatorship, and is always trying to fight and conquer in the wars.

— We have to understand that the policy of appeasement, the policy of making more trade with the Russian Federation after the end of the cold war, believing that this more trade will change the Russian Federation, was a serious mistake. And now it is important to understand that Carthago needs to be destroyed. Russia, the way it is, needs to be destroyed. Not necessarily physically, but economically. In particular, that “gas station” has to be left without resources in order not to try to repeat the war again. Not necessarily against Ukraine, but against other countries of Central Europe, Central Asia and so on.

At the end of her speech, Ivanna stressed the ways of helping Ukraine:

— We need weapons, weapons, and more weapons in order to not let Russians continue their offensive, and these weapons include everything that the partners can give to Ukraine, which includes the heavy ones. Then, of course, we need sanctions and  embargoes on energy resources, in particular oil and natural gas. This should also be the permanent tension in the Russian Federation within the work of different international organizations. They need to feel that they are not welcome there, that they are outcasts.

Also, Ivanna added that  we need to bring Russia to justice, in particular, Russia as a state within international legal responsibility but also Russian political and military leadership for a commission of international crimes, namely the crimes against humanity and war crimes on the territory of Ukraine.

It is known that on October 10, Russia launched mass rocket attacks that struck in the heart of Kyiv and a dozen other regions. According to preliminary reports 87 people have been injured and at least five civilians were killed.