Biz

“We are faced with a choice between slavery and freedom. We choose freedom!" said Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in the German Bundestag back in 1952. His words are to be understood in the context of the world situation between East and West at this time. It was about Germany's status back then. Which side of the Iron Curtain does Germany want to be on? On February 27, 2023 and 71 years after Adenauer's words, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation chose this sentence for a packed program of events in the heart of Berlin.

The RAND Corporation was founded after the Second World War and since then has been advising the US armed forces on strategic issues, among other things. A study by the institute is currently attracting attention.

Now everyone is especially animatedly discussing the transfer or not transfer of Leopard 2 tanks by Germany to the Ukrainian army. This topic is now really very important for Ukraine.

No, when I talk about the local "conspiracy theorist", I am not talking about the pandemic, which seems to be thankfully over. Unfortunately, it`s about a topic that is still current: the invasion of the Russian terrorist state in Ukraine.

Switzerland is known for its policy of neutrality, which means that it does not take sides in conflicts between other countries. However, this policy is not absolute, and there are several reasons why it is not considered to be pure neutrality. Especially in times like these, where the Russian invasion of Ukraine has put a heavy toll on the whole concept of Western unity, and military aid for Ukraine is needed to defend a nation against its fascist aggressors, Switzerland remains hesitant about aiding a country in an emergency.

I am a human rights politologist militant artist from Venezuela living in Italy where I'm now a citizen. I had to flee my country of birth because of my family's political history given that my father was practically the right hand to the last truly democratic President Carlos Andres Perez before the upcoming of the chavista revolution era.

I wake up for my second day at Kyiv feeling awesome under so much fostering in such short time. We decide to eat prior to the scheduled meetings during the afternoon. There I had my first alarm experience due to bombing at a country in war. Traffic and people on the streets  looked quite normal during day light (at night, half the city is in total darkness), and when the sirens blow, I feel that at the restaurant where we were eating, people kept behaving as if nothing were happening.

I reached Ukraine after a long bus drive from Kraków to Leopolis. On the first part of “A Venezuelan in Ukraine” I talked about the moment when I crossed the Rubicon, when going across the border from Poland. I illustrated it with an image describing my first impressions when leaving the bus at the city’s main square, under full darkness across the train’s and buses’ station.

I am in a bus, going to Ukraine, weighing the look for adventures and choices that led to this trip, not without anxiety, but with, at the same time, the parallel courage and certainty, of being at ease walking at the right side of history. A nun is sitting next to me, on one side, and at a right a kid with his little brother and his mother, but  missing the father; he is not with them. The kid tells me that he is fighting for them and their country.

In the past four weeks, Russia has increasingly targeted Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Including combined heat and power plants and water supply. The result is that large parts of the country are repeatedly cut off from electricity and water. In the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the supply of electricity and water is now rationed. Both are only available part of the time and people's fear of winter is palpable. The situation is similar in large parts of the country. How will it go on?