TORONTO – “Suddenly it gets night, the cold wedges raw, the city trembles, bruises trembles. The fires rise to the sky, the fires rise in gloomy flames.” Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, with these words contained in the 1996 song Cupe Vampe (Gloomy Flames), had described the agony and suffering of Sarajevo during the long and brutal siege, one of the most tragic episodes of the Balkan War of the nineties. 

A war fought in the heart of Europe, half a century after the end of the Second World War. We thought – we, poor deluded – that that song was destined to describe a piece of history distant in time, unrepeatable for generations to come, cultivating the illusion, in fact, that diplomacy could always and in any case have the better of the senseless and brutal use of weapons. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

We do not have time to get out of two years of global emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and we find ourselves overwhelmed by this new threat: the war, on European territory, unleashed by Vladimir Putin’s ambitions of conquest.

A few hours before the start of military operations, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces along three fronts and with the bombing of the seven main Ukrainian cities, we have seen again those gloomy flames, those fires that rise to the sky, which until the day before we hoped to have seen for the last time – at least in Europe – in the conflict followed by the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

And already after a few hours we have retouched all the tragic effects of the war: the escape from urban centers, the civilian victims, the collateral damage, the columns of smoke, the buildings hit by missiles and collapsed, the blood, the tears, the despair.

At this moment it is not possible to place oneself in a position of equidistance in a conflict that undermines world stability and that risks spreading like wildfire even in neighboring countries: in this war there is an aggressor – Russia – and an attacked – Ukraine – an executioner and a victim.

And Putin, a long-time skilled strategist who has gone through political eras – he has led Russia since 2000 – this time was unable to provide the international community with a shred of credible motivation for the invasion of Ukraine. The judgment of history against this Hitler 2.0 in Russian sauce will be very severe.