It’s war! In the spring of 2022, Vladimir Putin’s regime in Moscow invaded a neighboring country, creating the most dangerous moment the world has seen since the 1930s. What can be the results and what can and must be done, by whom? Are the Russians lost? Will Ukraine be destroyed?
What is needed so that both the Ukrainians and the Russians suffer as little as possible, and so that the hope of coexistence between Russia and Europe can live on. We ask:
- Are the majority of Russians actually imperialists on par with Putin?
- Is it possible for Russia to "normalize" and become a regular country?
- What can the West do to help the democratic forces?
What is found between the statements: Ukraine cannot lose the war. Putin cannot win the war. The philosopher Jürgen Habermas wrote "An article for negotiations" this spring which was translated around the world, and met with strong opposition in some cases, and which he concluded as follows: "Precisely because the conflict is part of a more extensive interweaving of interests, one cannot rule out in advance that a compromise can be found between the hitherto diametrically opposed demands, which allows both parties to save face.”
Introduction to debate by Sten Inge Jørgensen, foreign journalist in Morgenbladet with Europe and Germany as a specialty, who in his latest book "A European tragedy. How the West and Russia became enemies - and can find themselves together again", argues that Russia and Europe are in a shared destiny. When the guns fall silent, only a democratic development can provide a passable way forward, that even after the brutality in Ukraine, coexistence is inevitable. If there is to be a basis for peace and democracy in the future, a thorough settlement is needed after the crimes on the battlefield, a European turn in Moscow and a Western policy that links Russia more closely to Europe. The book was written together with Leonid Ragozin, a Russian journalist in exile, who worked for 12 years for the BBC in Russia and who today delivers articles to a number of English media outlets.
Panelists -
- Oksana Timofejeva, Russian philosopher who is critical of Putin's regime, current with the book "Politics of the Sun", a philosophical analysis of the sun, which is part of the festival program
- Bothild Åslaugsdotter Nordsletten, editor of the agricultural magazine Bondevennen, former diplomat with post-Soviet specialism, has lived for several years in Russia and Ukraine
- Leonid Ragozin, Russian journalist in exile, currently living in Riga, Latvia, worked for 12 years for the BBC in Russia, wrote Lonely Planet's guidebooks to Moscow and Ukraine, co-author of "A European Tragedy"
Moderator is Sven Egil Omdal, journalist, commentator and author, former news editor and head of PFU and the Norwegian Journalist Association