PARIS, August 24. /TASS/. Europe is demonstrating helplessness in the conflict in Ukraine, refusing to recognize the West's retreat into the background in the new world order, former French ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud told Le Point magazine.
"We are witnessing the end of the era of Western domination," the diplomat said. "This is due both to the gradual change in the global balance of power not in favor of the West, and to the fact that the American ‘gendarme’, who was its leader and defender, no longer wants to play this role."
According to Araud, "nothing demonstrates the current situation more clearly than the conflict in Ukraine, which grotesquely reflects the misunderstanding and rejection of the coming world by European leaders and analysts." The diplomat said that the heads of European states repeatedly insist on being adamant with Russia, "but they do not offer practical means to achieve victory, which is impossible in the current conditions.
"We are becoming defenders of the principles for which we are not ready to fight, thereby condemning ourselves to helpless moralizing, which is not even virtuous, because it is permeated with double standards," the ex-ambassador concluded.