25 DE MARÇO DE 2022

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happens – even if there is a «miracle» – Russia's invasion of Ukraine will always be a painful milestone for

democratic societies. Nothing will be like before.

Today, my first thoughts went to Ukrainian women – mothers, daughters, sisters, wives – refugees or not,

who suffer the pain of many losses. I also thought of Russian women victims of Putin's atrocities. Russians are

not Putin. I was born in a dictatorship. I know what de people governed by a dictator suffer.

One can know how and when a war starts, but no one can predict when and how it will end. «Every war

leaves our world worse than it was before» said Pope Francis.

Remembering history helps to understand how far we have come to get here. History does not repeat itself,

but it has affinities. Anyone who revisits the 1930s will recognize in the present some signs that led to the

tragedy of the past. As now in relation to Putin, also in relation to Hitler, the allies devalued evidence and

probabilities and were granting the instruments of absolute power to the leader of the Nazi party. Putin changed

the laws that limited him in time and in the ambition of absolute power. It has already proved that democracy is

not part of its vocabulary. That rule of law is just a concept for others to apply. That human rights are only those

decreed by him. That Russia's borders will be wherever he wants.

Putin's design is to restore the empire lost with the dismantling of the Soviet Union and interfere with the

way of life of Western societies. And, if possible, destroying democracy, as he has tried through funding the far-

right parties in Europe and interfering in electoral processes in democratic countries. Putin has many means to

achieve his ends: nuclear and cyber weapons. Have you ever imagined what Hitler would be like with the

atomic bomb and cyberterrorism?

Ukraine is a member of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe is the guardian of human rights.

Human rights that Putin does not respect in Russia, and with this war, he is brutally violating in Ukraine.

This war is not just with Ukraine. This war is with democrats and human rights defenders. This war is with

us.

Intervenção do Deputado Pedro Bacelar de Vasconcelos (PS)

This is my last intervention as a member of this Parliamentary Assembly. I regret it happens in such tragic

circumstances. Of course, we fully support the draft resolution proposed by the Political Affairs Committee. The

main urgency is to help the victims, reach an effective cease-fire, secure humanitarian corridors and assume a

serious engagement of the relevant parties in peace conversations. The Russian invasion was viewed

worldwide through our media with unparalleled detail and realism. That gave place to a strong condemnation of

this military aggression and a passionate solidarity with the Ukrainian people. To the best of our hopes, the

solidarity with Ukrainian victims ought to signal a new awareness to the absolute need to condemn any

attempts to solve this one or any other conflict by the use of force.

We lost the extraordinary opportunity offered by the peaceful extinction of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw

Pact, thirty years ago! The world keep changing, now, towards a polycentric balance of powers in which the

European Peoples must build an assertive strategic autonomy to promote the values that since the defeat of

the fascism and the Nazism, in 1945, conquered a solid prestige and sound respect from the entire