The “allied” parade on red square, a new “realpolitik”

(BRUSSELS2) When we see the military parade organized this Sunday by the Russian authorities in Red Square to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, we can only be struck by the small feeling to have an air of deja vu of a Soviet fashion show. However, we should beware of falling into appearances to look at two elements.

First of all, the presence of the allies, but above all of Poland, should be noted. This joint parade seals the political will in Moscow and Warsaw to ignore the dissensions of the past, and the bloodshed, and thus symbolizes the rapprochement that began months ago. The Smolensk crash of the Polish presidential plane did not slow down this movement; the two parties having decided not to argue about the causes of the accident (the pilot is responsible, period).

Secondly, in this parade participated the forces of the former USSR. And one cannot but be struck that the absence of Georgia has not in the least bothered the British or American, and even Polish allies, who had no harsh enough words less than two years ago to condemn the Russian intervention in Georgia. While the Russian “coup” somehow succeeded: NATO did not expand to Georgia or Ukraine; the two autonomous entities of Georgia (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) have definitively separated themselves from Georgia - and no one is to question this state of affairs; Ukraine swung to a government more open to Russian views and renewed the deal on the Russian Navy base in Sevastopol.

In short, there is a normalization of relations between the European continent and the West and its Russian neighbor, and the acceptance of geopolitical realities. Realpolitik has struck. And to his great return that we witnessed in Moscow on May 9, 2010. It is surely more important in my opinion than the celebration, a little outdated, of the 60th anniversary of the Schuman declaration.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)