In February, Belgian peace organizations¹ organized a rally to "say stop" to the war in Ukraine: "Two years on, we call for a rally to reaffirm our condemnation of the Russian aggression of 2022 and our opposition to this war" reads their communiqué², which also called for a halt to arms deliveries.

The turnaround since the first demonstration in 2022 is quite impressive. At that time, peace organizations still dared to point out "the responsibility of Nato, which for three decades, with its permanent expansion, has refused to take Russia''s security interests into account".

Today, peace activists hope to be more ''audible'' by adopting part of NATO''s discourse. For us, this is more than a mistake.

Objectively speaking, and even pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine and pro-Russia people agree with this: if the West stops supplying Ukraine with weapons, the war will stop in a matter of days, just as the Ukrainian army will then have no choice but to stop fighting. Whether this is "Good" or "Evil" is not the point here. We can even go further now, since the information has been confirmed by the Ukrainians themselves: if "the West" hadn''t pressured Zelensky to reject a peace agreement in April 2022, the war would have stopped by now³.

This is where the question of the war''s origins comes into sharp focus. Positing, as the communiqué does, that Russia is responsible for the war, while completely ignoring the issues of NATO and global mutual security, has logical consequences that are impossible to avoid.

What does it mean to call for a halt to arms deliveries when it is clear to all that this will inevitably lead to the collapse of the Ukrainian army? It can''t mean, one way or another, pleading to give full satisfaction to the aggressor we''ve designated. There is a difficult contradiction to be resolved, in condemning unreservedly the said invasion of Ukraine on the one hand, and on the other calling for an immediate halt to all aid that would enable the victims of the invasion to defend themselves. This position removes any force from pacifist protests.

On the other hand, if one asserts that the origin of the war is really Russia''s unprovoked aggression against the Ukraine, then one is inclined to admit that since Russian imperialism is victorious in the Ukraine, it will follow up with the Baltic States, Finland and Moldavia.... - and we enter the NATO discourse: Europe is in danger, so we must rearm!

True, the appeal does not explicitly contain the typical NATO communiqué terms of "unprovoked aggression" or "Russian imperialism". But they are, whether we like it or not, in the watermark of an out-of-context condemnation of Russia, coming literally from nowhere: unprovoked; and what reason is there for this folly, if not imperialism?

It''s also certain that the peace organizations that signed this communiqué don''t subscribe to NATO''s arguments, and think they''re acting tactically. But with such silence on the causes of the conflict, a call for a halt to the flow of arms to Ukraine and for negotiations cannot be understood or even heard.

This is why it is essential to remain clear about the real causes of this war: its primary reason is the expansion of NATO, and in particular the Alliance''s progressive investment in Ukraine, which has posed an insoluble challenge to Russia. The end of the war, under these conditions, means first and foremost the rout of NATO''s ambitions, a halt to its aggressive expansion towards the imposed ''Russian enemy'', and a real prospect of peace in Europe. The neutrality of Ukraine that would inevitably result would be a milestone on the road to the indispensable "indivisibility of security" across the continent: an important step on the road to global peace.

And Boris Johnson himself confirms: "If Ukraine falls, it will be a catastrophe for the West, it will put an end to Western hegemony" he told in the Daily Mail on April 12⁴. The Peace Movement must be aware of the hypocrisy of humanitarian rhetoric.

This war should never have taken place, we are aware of its horror and the suffering inflicted; but to conceal, or not want to see the root causes of this war because of this suffering, is an error that should not be committed by those who militate for peace, because this blindness leads precisely to more war.

1. CNAPD, Levense VredesBeweging, Vredesactie, Vrede and Intal
2. https://www.cnapd.be/event/2-ans-de-guerre-en-ukraine-stop/
3. https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/official-johnson-forced
4. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13301849/BORIS-JOHNSON-waiting-Ukraine-weapons-needs.html