MainPublications -

Oleksiy Danilov: "The time of political prostitution is over. The time for subjectivity in a new world order has come"

A new political order is emerging in the world, and it is important for Ukraine to find its place in it, says Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council. However, any discussion of the future should begin with a rethinking of the past and work on our own subjectivity, he said at the discussion panel "What should be the strategy of Ukraine and the world towards Russia after our victory?" as part of the New Country joint project by LB.ua and EFI Group in Kyiv on 25 October.

"I feel like I'm on Khreshchatyk [Kyiv's main thoroughfare], where they used to sell globes of Ukraine in stalls. And we seem to be holding a globe of Ukraine and starting to talk about some new country. What we need to do is to answer the question of what we should do with the old country. This is a very important issue because if we do not learn the lessons of the past, talking about the future is a waste of time," he said.

In his opinion, in 2013, when the People's Republic of China announced the One Belt, One Road initiative, the world began to move within a different paradigm, and today it has already crossed the Rubicon.

"Of course, we, as typical Ukrainians, do not pay attention to what is happening in the world. We consider ourselves a globe of the world, a separate country, an institution that goes its own way without looking back at what is happening in the world. And a lot has happened in these 10 years. And now we are at a certain point.

At a private meeting on 20 October, US President Joe Biden made a statement about a new world order. We have to answer, first of all, the question of what this new world order is and where our country is in this new world order. What is our mission, or will we continue to live under the illusion that we can go both left and right at the same time? This is called 'political prostitution'. It has been inherent in us for a long time. When, on the one hand, we believed that Russia was our friend and partner. On the other hand, we were focused on the European Union, on the Anglo-Saxon world. This period is over. We need to make the final choice," he said.

And this choice will be influenced by the world order.

"If some people think that we have already made this choice, unfortunately, it will depend not only on us, but also on the policy the world adopts. If the world adopts the policy laid down by Mr Kissinger in his time, the so-called realpolitik, when you can betray your friends and partners, ignore your principles, this is one situation. If the world moves into a new paradigm where values come first, we will have a chance to use values to get into a different situation," Danilov added.

Photo: Max Trebukhov

Ukraine can no longer stand aside from global processes if it wants to remain a subject of international politics, he is convinced.

"I don't think there is a single person who would not be surprised how a country like Israel missed this situation. If it missed it, it means that someone needed it to happen. Now it is important to see what happens next. We have reached a plateau, and it is important for us to participate in global processes, and to do so, we need to understand them, to be mature and responsible. I believe that today we are a subject of such processes, and the main thing is not to lose this subjectivity in the modern world," he concluded.

Read LB.ua news on social networks Facebook, Twitter and Telegram