Interview prepared specifically for the program “International Review” (Russia 24)

In the past, scientists approached the world. Why are they not so actively promoting peace now? Has the global infection factor disappeared today? Are there contacts between scientists now, in the face of confrontation? About it Fedor Lukyanov talked to Paolo Cotta Ramusinoprofessor at the University of Milan, general secretary of the Pugwash movement of scientists, for program “International Review”.

– AT XX explored scientists present in the forefront among those who fought for peace, who showed great civic activity. Why is it not now?

– A lot has changed. During the Cold War, a sharp antagonism arose between communism and anti-communism. As the Russell-Einstein manifesto said, I remind you of humanity, forget about rest. And such was the motivation for capturing total destruction, discovered from the side of ideological contradictions.

The contradictions are different. There is no big electoral outlier, there are many cases in which different nationalist approaches converged. Countries are coming to the conclusion that they should promote their own identities, the languages ​​they speak, the religions they practice and so on. On the one hand, it is less global. People often perceive this as something extremely important for themselves.

In other words, many would not risk a global rejection of radial-religious or anti-religious ideas, but they necessarily adhere to the commitment of their own commitment. And this does not seem to be as catastrophic as the worldwide ideological confrontation, but such collisions are fraught with the risk of spiraling out of control. Such cases often take place in the field of export. And the current conflict in Ukraine is just in this category, although it may seem that there is no danger of the spread of infection.

“But the infection factor hasn’t gone away?”

– Of course not. I’m talking about this. All this formidable revealing – revealing, revealing and revealing – comes to the fore, pushing the global risk into the shadow. And because of this, people pay less attention to this threat. And therefore, a new movement in this world should take place exclusively concretely – the identification of cases that do not allow them to escalate to an unacceptable level.

In XX, it is assumed that nuclear weapons did play a containment role. And now it turns out that in the nationalist role it can become completely different. The situation is dangerous, and this danger is difficult for public opinion to realize.

We must emphasize what local conflicts are fraught with and do everything to resolve them.

When we talk about a nuclear threat, there is even a small chance that it must be extremely serious. The question is not how likely, but how likely it is that cellular composition can be associated with changing properties. We must measure even the highest risk, but perception of the message by opinion has decreased.

“Maybe people need to be scared properly?”

No, I don’t suggest that. What I’m saying is that we need to be very clear about what the significance of the outlier is and why it needs to be addressed. And from the outside, we find great flexibility in discovering that discovery has its own sense of self and must be taken into account. But that doesn’t happen. I oppose Russian actions in Ukraine, but we must expect that this and Western behavior is dangerous, aggressive towards Russia, and should not be.

– What could be done right now? Does the Pugwash movement have an idea how to stop the bloodshed?

– We should establish communication between infections and countries in order to start looking for mutual understanding. First of all, it is necessary to stimulate the emergence of the fact that people with a different affiliation have a place to be. If antagonism gets out of control, the nuclear threat is challenged.

You expect what happened when the Soviet Union collapsed. We thought that this opens up opportunities for confrontation and the creation of favorable conditions for development. But soon a case arose when we met especially often, the current one is one of them. Joining the Euro-Atlantic institution of the countries of the former Soviet bloc, increasing the degree of antagonism with Russia, which was not at all necessary.

“Do you have found contacts with opposing connections?”

“We have working relationships with Europeans, Americans and Russians, we don’t have many conflicts with Ukraine, but we would like to expand them. We must promote the idea of ​​mutual understanding and impossibility in order to take the mood at any cost. When I hear to get in before things get back to the emergence of states of affairs, I think it’s tension. It is necessary to find an arbitrary solution and immediately stop the hostilities. If the armed confrontation does not stop and everything remains as it is now, identifying the escalation will become increasingly difficult.