The international Security Conference is being held in Munich from 14 to 16 February 2025. Horst Teltschik, previously advisor to former Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl, was the chairman of the Conference from 1999 to 2008 and would invite me to discuss the topics, objectives and substance of the annual Conference. This year I received an official invitation to participate in this event. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to come to the Conference.  That is why I have sent the key talking points of my planned speech to the 2025 Munich Security Conference to its Chairman Christoph Heusgen, former ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations. 

Allow me to express my respect for every one of you as participants and my hope for a positive outcome of the 61st Munich Security Conference, an important annual forum which brings together leading politicians, high-ranking representatives of the armed forces and top experts from all over the world to discuss international security issues.

I would like to thank in particular the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference and diplomat Doctor Christoph Heusgen for the personal invitation that he sent me.

The conference is being held at a significant time in history. It had already become crystal clear by the start of 2025 that the previous world order was a relic of the past, while the new one has yet to take shape. It could be said that we find ourselves in limbo.

The role and place assumed by the USA in international politics is changing. At the same time, it is virtually impossible to determine definitively and delineate the vector and character of these changes. Leading European countries are confronted by their own serious and appreciable economic and political challenges. There is growing uncertainty about the future. The inviolability of state borders is already being called into question at the highest level — and not only during military conflicts. For example, this topic is already being discussed seriously and substantively in North America. Judging both by media reports and public statements, a number of European politicians have been shocked and irritated and even disconcerted by recent events, such as the one-and-a half hour telephone call between the President of the United States Donald Trump and the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

As a rule the international political developments and recent events that we are observing represent a clear demonstration of the significant escalation of instability and are indicative of an overt lack of understanding, which in turn cast into doubt the reliability and even the actual existence of previous political and military alliances. The extremely disturbing situation in the Middle East and the tension in the Asia-Pacific Region attributable to threats emanating from China and the People’s Republic of Korea — all these factors taken together attest to serious instability in the world and the real risk of large-scale armed conflicts. It is no coincidence that the hands of the Doomsday Clock, which have symbolised since 1947 our proximity to a global nuclear war, have now reached critical levels.

Against this backdrop, both the role and significance of the Munich Security Conference have increased significantly.

The horrific bloody war now entering its third year between Russia and Ukraine, whose participants are to all intents and purposes European countries and the USA, could become a catalyst for the precipitant escalation of armed conflict in Europe. This is something that everyone needs to understand and be aware of.

I will state what is also important here. Russia started its military operation in February 2022 and assumes its share of responsibility for what happened. History will set the record straight. However, today the key goal here is different – to achieve an immediate ceasefire. We need to find a way out now – we need to find a solution that will bring to an end the loss of lives and the destruction of the future. And if we are talking about the restoration of justice, then today the ultimate justice is to save human lives, stop the advance towards a global nuclear disaster and not to allow the future of our children and grandchildren to be destroyed.

Regrettably, the hysterical reaction of the western press and a number of European politicians to the recent phone call by Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin merely attests to the populism and irresponsibility of such voices. In actual fact, we should be welcoming both the actual contact between the presidents of major nuclear powers and the creation of the initial framework for constructive negotiations.  The United States and Europe must, together with Russia and Ukraine, step by step develop the grounds for and persistently try to reach agreement on a ceasefire, and draw up a plan to end the war and subsequently bring peace to the European Continent. This is a major objective that is extremely hard to achieve in the new environment that we find ourselves in.

It is clear that the efforts of the new American administration on its own will not suffice for a long-term solution. A common action plan should stipulate all the key problems and facilitate the development of a diplomatic strategy to achieve this goal. This implies not only the development of a road map for a long-term ceasefire, but also the elaboration and approval of a plan of negotiations to determine ways to guarantee Ukraine’s security, the provision of incentives for both sides and the creation of a strategy to stabilise Russia’s relations with the West.

The topic of European security against the backdrop of a change in the previous role played by the United States on the European continent, namely, America’s departure from Europe, is a fundamentally new concept and this issue should in my opinion become one of the central tenets to be discussed at the Conference.

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I would like to remind you here that as a rule decisions have been adopted in recent years at the Munich Security Conference in the spirit of achieving peace through force. However, it has transpired that such decisions don’t work in Europe in the 21st century as they do not deliver any real results, other than the continuing loss of lives and the destruction of entire cities and regions.

That is why I propose rewording the key political principle to achieving peace through dialogue, and not force. Let me stress that this is not wishful thinking – this is indicative of objective reality in a scenario of escalating risks of nuclear war. In these conditions, the only option is to reach agreement.

And it is specifically at this moment in time that a decision must be adopted at this International Security Conference to start work on what we can call the Munich Plan, consisting of three underlying recommendations:

1. Ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine with the creation of incentives for both sides to observe the ceasefire, an agreement on the exchange of all prisoners and an initial project of a demilitarised zone with clear borders, given that the front line is at present almost 2,000 kilometres long;

2. Post-war security guarantees for both Ukraine and Russia;

3. New concept and measures to stabilise Russian-Western relations.

In my opinion, the appearance of such a plan at the Conference should serve as the key goal for holding the event in the current circumstances. If a plan aimed at terminating the military actions between Russia and Ukraine were not articulated within a month of the Munich conference, with the participation of the USA and governments of leading European countries, this would be an egregious omission.

It goes without saying that such a plan would require the elaboration of a whole range of complex fundamental issues on peace and security within Europe and Russia as a whole, and not only Ukraine. It is already clear that the security of Ukraine alone does not guarantee the security of the whole of Europe.  Fully-fledged and comprehensive security guarantees will be required for both Ukraine and Russia. At the same time, the scale and nature of understandings on the security guarantees required by Russia and Ukraine may differ materially for objective reasons.

When elaborating the position of the Munich Conference, in my opinion, attention should be paid to a number of key points which recently became relevant again:

• Security along the entire contact line (now the length of the borders between Russia and NATO has almost doubled — up to 2,600 kilometres);

• The balance of conventional armed forces in Europe and control of long and medium-range missiles on the continent;

• The new deployment of weapons (including nuclear weapons) and military bases in Eastern Europe;
• Admissible forms of and approaches to containment in order to prevent future conflicts;
• The security and rules governing navigation in the Baltic, Black and Azov Seas.

It should be noted here that when seeking solutions at the first stage, it is not advisable to treat the issue of actual territorial affiliation as the underlying principle.

What needs to be discussed and what can be proposed in the search for compromise solutions? For example, discussion of the neutral status of Ukraine with the retention of its sovereignty, rejection of the idea of deploying foreign troops and military infrastructure on Ukrainian territory and at the same time, the possibility that Ukraine will become a fully-fledged member of the European Union. Incidentally, article 42.7 of the Treaty on the European Union, known as the mutual assistance clause of the European Union, pronounces: “If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.” This wording is possibly even more stringent and specific than article 5 of NATO’s common defence obligation, and Russia has agreed not to interfere with Ukraine’s admission to the European Union.

In the long run, as part of the settlement we will need to come back to the discussion of both a real scenario mobilising that funds that can be used to reconstruct Ukraine, and also the partial lifting of the sanctions against Russia — with a proviso on the possibility of their repeat introduction if the terms of the transaction are violated.

To put it another way, we must focus on the practical issues of achieving a ceasefire and bringing us closer to a lasting peace in Europe. It is on this basis we will move towards greater security. In the current conditions, this is also the first stage to achieving justice.

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The key that we must seek to achieve right now is to secure a ceasefire and bring an end to the continuing loss of countless of lives.

We should harbour no illusions on the elaboration of serious and long-term decisions on peace or even on a truce in the immediate future. Inter alia, in the context of contacts between Putin and Trump. At present there is no common list of topics and there are no alternative solutions, all the more so ones which take into account the positions of Ukraine and Europe.   Indeed there is also no common understanding of the situation.

It is highly likely that the attempts to reach a substantive agreement will not deliver any real results for a long time. The negotiations will be protracted, difficult and initially ill-fated (In Korea, the negotiations lasted two years and there were 159 meetings during the preparation of a ceasefire agreement which did not lead to signing of a peace agreement — and it still does not exist to this day).

The conclusion of the actual transaction that the US President Donald Trump talks about all the time in different ways is not only important: the quality of this transaction is important.  Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that the leverage of the USA over Russia is significant, but is not so omnipotent as to force the Russian regime to agree to terms that it deems disadvantageous. The regime is seriously preoccupied with existing threats.

It should be acknowledged here that over the past thirty-five years the West has taken a number of actions which led ultimately to the conflict and confrontation with Russia.

Everything started with the failure of Russia’s economic reforms at the start of the 1990s conducted under the direction of the IMF and with overt political and exceptional financial pressure exerted by  the United States, with hyperinflation reaching 2,600% and criminal privatisation. This was followed by NATO’s actual expansion eastwards: Poland, Czechia and Hungary were admitted to the alliance in 1999.

Nevertheless, even then Russia made concessions and sought to reach a mutual understanding: In February 2001 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at negotiations in Moscow with NATO Secretary-General George Robertson conveyed Russian proposals on the creation of a Russian-European anti-missile defence system, but never heard back from him.

In May 2002 President Putin and US President George Walker Bush signed in Moscow a Joint Declaration on New Strategic Relations between Russia and the United State, but subsequently not a single practical step was taken to implement it.

In 2004 another seven states, including the Baltics, were admitted to NATO. As a result, the alliance was situated immediately on Russia’s borders. In 2008 NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia would become members “one day”. Shortly afterwards specific steps were taken to transform Ukraine into the West’s bastion on Russia’s borders.

In 2013 the European Union proposed that Ukraine sign an Association Agreement, which effectively implied the severance of economic ties with Russia. Meanwhile, American diplomats, including Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, publicly supported the protesters in Kyiv and the overthrow of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych.

The Russian regime interpreted such actions by the West as a direct threat: there was no way that they could allow the neighbouring country Ukraine to become part of a military alliance that is hostile to Russia. Russia repeatedly warned the West of this fact in different ways, including directly in the months and weeks before its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, all these warnings were ignored.

Let us recall the Caribbean Crisis of 1962 when the USA would not tolerate the deployment of Soviet missiles on Cuba. Similarly Russia cannot sit by and calmly watch attempts by NATO to gain a foothold in Ukraine. And while Western leaders would always assert that NATO’s expansion was not aimed against Russia, the Russian regime would assess threats, not based on statements by foreign powers, but instead by the real actions that were being taken, which were perceived by Russia’s leadership to constitute an attempt to weaken Russia strategically.

The mood of the current crop of European politicians and mainstream media today recalls the somnambular movement of the global elite in the run up to World War I more than a century ago. Back then, in 1914, collective European reason, combined with qualitative rapid advances in technology, was unable to cope with the challenge of preserving the peace. Just as is the case today, nobody wanted war 111 years ago, but moved towards it incrementally, step by step, and finally arrived, throwing wide open the doors to World War II, which was a continuation of World War I.

It would not be advisable to draw parallels with Munich 1938. At the time, the real threat of the use of nuclear weapons did not hang over the world as they simply did not exist back then. Now, however, we have to adopt a fundamentally different approach, for if we fail, we will no longer be able to correct anything.

The well-known European philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, drawing on the experience of the 20th century, commented sadly: “It would appear that only a catastrophe enables us to identify and recognise its impending approach (unfortunately, only with hindsight). It is hard to imagine a more disturbing idea”¹.

If the Security Conference and the European and global political elite are unable to help to supplement the efforts of the new US President with informed substance, if they fail to coordinate the direction of such efforts, if they fail to make progress towards a ceasefire and substantive strategic negotiations, then the dynamics of the conflict will not simply return to their previous state, but will instead go into overdrive, become even more bloody and futile, and possibly assume global proportions.

The Security Conference, by elaborating a clear vision of a real short-term goal and laying the framework at the very least for an indicative action plan, might be able to help Donald Trump’s administration to bring an end to this horrific carnage and the growing risks of a big war.

There is only one possible path to peace – to understand that there is nothing more valuable and important than saving human lives and our common future.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening and your understanding and your assumption of responsibility in the tragic and dangerous situation that has developed today. Thank you!

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