Jean François Colosimo, author of “The Crucifixion of Ukraine,” gave a lecture on the war in Ukraine on Tuesday, February 27.
Due to the support conference for Ukraine held at the Élysée Palace with European leaders, Nice hosted two conferences to support Ukraine. Since Monday, Emmanuel Macron has sparked much debate over a potential deployment of European troops alongside Ukrainians. Many European leaders, as well as the United States, are hesitant about his proposal. For many, the risk of sending Western troops and triggering “a third world war” is too high.
Jean-François Colosimo is a historian and author of a dozen books, including the 2022 release titled, “The Crucifixion of Ukraine.” This Tuesday, February 27, Jean-François Colosimo led a debate on the two-year war in Ukraine. During this conference, he discussed the relentless cruelty of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the lack of responsiveness from France in face of this conflict. “We are two years into a war, not just Putin’s war, but also our war.”
During his speech, he referred to experts who, at the beginning of the conflict, claimed that he would not attack Ukraine. “Yet Putin has brought Ukraine back to the Stone Age as promised,” he asserts. He further mentioned Europe’s, especially France’s, non-responsiveness to this conflict. “He thrived on our weaknesses,” he claims, recalling the numerous times Vladimir Putin annexed territories without world protest. Like the occupation since 2008 of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions in Georgia, or in 2014 with the Donbass and Crimea.
Jean-François Colosimo wishes for Europe to take part in the conflict, particularly France, which he reminds is the only country in the world present on all oceans. Part of the audience protested due to the historian’s remarks supporting the idea that France should engage militarily alongside Ukraine to say “STOP to Putin’s regime.” Additionally, a man in the audience protested, shouting: “How do you expect to convince the youth to fight? As a grandfather, I would never let my grandchildren go there.”
Q&A Session with the Audience
At the end of the conference, Jean-François Colosimo participated in a Q&A session with the audience.
Audience Question: “The vast majority of the Russian people support the war in Ukraine, and getting rid of Putin and his cronies wouldn’t be enough to stop the war; what do you think about that?”
“What needs to be remembered is that the people no longer have any memory of what Russia was. Putin is simply reinventing what the USSR is. According to the only poll available in Russia, there are 15% of people who radically want the war and 20 to 25% who reject it, but this group has diminished since most have fled. The Russian people are bombarded every day on TV with Ukrainian bombardments in terms of propaganda. Russia nowadays lives in a perpetual lie and is governed by a deceitful, thieving, and murderous regime. Our continent cannot bear two avatars of Stalin on its territory,” he assures.
Audience Question: “Do we have any information about the populations that have been annexed or conquered, and do they possibly have a role to play in resolving the conflict or in movements of resistance or opposition to the Soviet invasion?”
“Regarding the populations, one thing is clear: Putin’s disappointment when he entered Donbass. And his greatest disappointment is that these territories did not support the special operation two years ago. These populations today want the war to end. These are populations that have been shuffled, deported, and mistreated from generation to generation since 1917. One thing they have understood is that they have no freedom of expression, so it is very difficult to know where they stand. But one of the results of Putin’s war is that he created a wall of hatred between people who are very close culturally,” he concludes at the very end of the conference.