Third
Panel:
Peace
Promotion Initiatives for Ukraine, Russia, and Europe
 |
| From left to right: Carlos Branco, Isabelle Casel, José Aranda da Silva, Ian Proud, Robert Skidelsky, Håkan Julander |
The third
and last panel of the conference, in the afternoon, was devoted to the
topic Peace-promoting initiatives
for Ukraine, Russia and Europe. It
brought together a diverse group of speakers from across Europe, each offering
their unique perspectives and experiences. The speeches delivered at this
session will be published on this thread as they are received in written form.
The
speakers were:
●Isabel Casel (Germany)
Artist, Political Adviser, Coordinator of the European Peace Project (Germany)
● Håkan Julander (Sweden)
Actor,
Poet, Podcaster, Founder and Member of the Dissidentklubben [The Club of Dissidents] (Sweden)
●Ian Proud (England, United Kingdom)
Diplomat, Former Economic Adviser at the British Embassy in Moscow
●Robert Skidelsky (England, United Kingdom)
Member of the Chamber of Lords, University Professor, Economist, Historian of Economics
●Carlos Branco (Portugal)
Major General, Conflict Resolution Specialist,
Television Commentator, Columnist
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..................................................................................................
Introductory
notes of the moderator
to the panel on the topic
Peace-promoting initiatives
for Ukraine, Russia and Europe
by
José Aranda da Silva (Portugal)
(colonel, pharmacist)
Dear friends, colleagues and partners in the pursuit of peace in Europe
and globally,
This concluding panel expands upon our
earlier discussion centred on Europe and adopts a more comprehensive approach:
initiatives to advance peace in Ukraine, Russia, and Europe as a whole. The
objectives and topics under consideration are inherently complex, reflecting
the diverse nations and perspectives represented from various continents.
It is important to note that this subject
is not unprecedented. Numerous treaties and agreements concerning global peace
exist, including the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW),
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 4, 2017, and, to
date, signed by 93 countries.
However, it should be emphasised that none
of the 32 NATO member states — nuclear-armed nations among them —nor the 22 EU
countries that are also NATO members, have signed or ratified the treaty. As
such, advocating for peace through the elimination of nuclear weapons — by
prohibiting their design, testing, production, possession, or storage — remains
a vital goal for international security.
I am confident that the expertise of the speakers
assembled here will make valuable contributions to the advancement of this
cause. The precedents cited in the founding document of this Conference, which many participants (and all the speakers in this panel) have endorsed, underscore the complexity of this endeavour and the necessity
for thorough deliberation.
Nonetheless, these efforts are
indispensable to achieving a genuine and enduring peace. This Conference seeks
to play a constructive role in realising that vision.
.......................................................................................................................................................................................
Speech
by
Isabelle Casel
 |
| Isabelle Casel (second from the left) during his speech |
Thank you very much for organizing this so important European and Citizens Conference for peace in Ukraine, Russia and Europe and inviting us to take part in this. I am sending dearest greetings from Prof. Dr. Ulrike Guerot and MEP Michael von der Schulenburg, who are with us in spirit.
We are in a seriously dangerous situation, much too close to a nuclear armageddon which could be sparked for example by a western delivered long ranging weapon system (like Taurus) striking on Russian soil. That is reason to support the current or any peace plan which must not fail.
The technocratic EU is in disarray. Europe, our continent, which goes much beyond the EU, is divided: since the Cold War there is a disintegration into individual human rights/freedom rights, culturally influenced by the USA (wokism) in the West and social human rights and traditionalism in the east.
The attempt to enlarge or unite Europe under a war stance against Russa will be its downfall, because is the complete opposite to Europe’s initial founding principle of peace and because unification can only be achieved with a positive call, not against something, especially not against Russia, which is an immovable part of Europe.
We can confidently let the EU go, but Europe must not die!
The division
exists not only on the map, where Belarus and Russia are to be cut off from
Europe, but also right through the societies of the
EU countries.
We must return to diplomacy, a policy of détente with mutual balancing of interests, confidence-building measures, disarmament instead of rearmament, withdrawal of NATO troops from countries in the eastern enlargement, accession to the nuclear weapons ban treaty, dissolution of NATO in favour of a new system of collective security in Europe including Russia.
But most EU governments refuse to take these vital steps – so we, the people, must take them!
The European Peace Project and the new initiative we are introducing next weekend, the European Transcontinental Initiative, are instruments for this.
With a performative speech act, we, the citizens of Europe, proclaimed our manifesto for peace on May 9th 2025 in almost all European countries, saying:
«We have learned the lesson of the last
century: Europe means “Never again war!”
We are reaching out to the citizens of Ukraine and Russia. You are part of the European family and we are convinced that together we can organize peaceful coexistence on our continent.
We have the images of the military cemeteries before our eyes - from Volgograd to Riga to Lorraine. We see the fresh graves left behind by this senseless proxi-war in Ukraine.
We call for a European-Russian Youth Exchange, modelled alike the French-German Youth Office of 1963, which ended the “hereditary enmity” between Germany and France. We demand an end to sanctions and the reconstruction of the Nord Stream II pipeline. We refuse to waste our tax money on armaments and militarization at the expense of social standards and infrastructure. Within the framework of an OSCE peace conference, we call for the creation of a European security architecture with and not against Russia, as laid down in the 1990 Charter of Paris. We call for a neutral Europe, emancipated from the USA, which takes on a mediating role in a multipolar world. Our Europe is post-colonial and post-imperial.
We will not take part in the war games. We will not turn our men and sons into soldiers, our daughters into nurses in military hospitals and our countries into battlefields.
We offer to immediately send a delegation of European citizens to Kiev and Moscow to start a dialog. We will no longer stand by and watch our future being sacrificed on the altar of power politics.»
With
the European Peace Project, we have sparked a flame that has spread
across the entire European continent! We had over 20,000 participants from all
over Europe who proclaimed our manifesto at the same time in order to jointly
oppose the war preparations of the EU technocracy and their national
governments. We did it with a low-threshold and
decentralised, so everyone could take part according to their own
needs and abilities, in their livingroom from their balcony, in organising a
demonstration, in staging a play, or in a parliamentary reading etc.
We
staged our manifesto as an artistic speech act, with artists painting pictures
for us, musicians writing songs and playing music for us, actors speaking for
us, dancers dancing for us – in a fireworks display that spread across the
continent as a wave of peace at 5 p.m. on May 9th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEp_ocBs47Q .
When reason fails and all the lessons of history seem
to have been forgotten, art should save us! We also wanted to reach people on
an emotional level and spread our message of peace free from defamation or
exclusionary mechanisms, which peace activists in many EU countries
unfortunately already have to experience.
In
connection with our European Peace Project, Michael von der Schulenburg
travelled to Moscow on May 9th, together with five other MEPs
[members of the European Parliament] to read the peace declaration at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier. Ulrike Guerot, myself and a delegation of many other Germans
were in Moscow and St Petersburg in June to convey the same message in talks.
We have also networked with peace organisations in
many European countries – the largest being the Europe-wide network “Stop
Rearm Europe” and the global organisations GWUAN and World Beyond
War. Visit our website, europeanpeaceproject.eu,
and take a look at our interactive map – we have participants in every country
in Europe. Sadly, the only blank spot is Ukraine. We are in contact with peace
activists there too, but they are very afraid to speak out in favour of peace
and against more weapons and soldiers for the front, because many of them have
already disappeared. The best-known, Yuri Sheliazenko, has been charged and is
under house arrest. Opposition parties are banned. This proves once more that
it is not our freedom or democracy that is defended in Ukraine – it is only
western power interests and Blackrock assets – most of the country doesn´t
belong to Ukrainians any more anyways.
Next weekend, as part of our ETI initiative, we want
to discuss how we can realise a German-Russian youth organisation.
I am also on the board of the German Peace Council,
which in turn is a member of the World Peace Council. Here, the founding
of a World Youth Council is planned for next year in Yalta.
We are in contact with the World Youth Festival, which took place this year in Nizhny Novgorod, and the World Youth Assembly, in connection with the World Peoples Assembly organised by the Eurasia Assembly. As another component of our ETI, we are planning a European/BRICS conference. We were just invited to the presentation of Xi Jinpings latest book: Governance of China.
Currently, a new concept of order is being developed based on both historical experience and civilizational awareness in China from which we can learn: not domination, but harmony; cooperation instead of mission; equality instead of coercion should form the foundation of the international system. The five principles of peaceful coexistence—sovereignty, non-interference, equality, mutual non-aggression, and peaceful coexistence—form the foundation.
We in Europe should take this as inspiration and, together with China and all countries around the world, explore the question: How can a diverse world work together and live in peace without losing itself in rivalry?
Multipolarity does not require us to submit, but rather to be willing to listen, to understand, and to find new answers to questions that others rightly ask. Strategic neutrality means keeping and preserving room for manoeuvre — politically, economically, technologically, and culturally — and not allowing ourselves to become instruments of power politics.
We
have a monthly newsletter in 4 languages for all of over 15.000 registered
participants in which we publish news, insights and important publications countering
the prevailing war propaganda with information.
The
election of Catherine Connolly for the Irish Presidency, who also took part in
our action on May 9th, gives hope that if we are active, network and
support each other, we can stop the warmongers, end wars, and make our
manifesto for peace a reality. The EU governments do not represent their
populations, but rather deceive them, making policies contrary to the interests
and well-being of most of the population.
We are also working on the question how we could shift so much away from our roots, own traditions and origins, adopting the rather flat and facade like black and white ones of a relatively young country – the USA, which does not hold any pre-capitalist values? We want to find creative ways, cross border discussions to rediscover and revive our core European values and interests, because when we do, we will find what connects us as Europeans (including Russians).
We must emancipate Europe from NATO, GAFA and the Dollar/US financial system so that we are free economically, information wise and autonomous + non-aligned in our international politics and develop our own culture.
Peace in Europe begins in one’s own consciousness. The European Peace Project is the place where this consciousness is being reborn.
 |
| Isabelle Casel (Germany) with general Carlos Branco (Portugal) on the left and colonel José Aranda da Silva (Portugal) on the right. |
The future of international cooperation must bring with it the ability to achieve understanding in diversity rather than division (no “us” against “them”). Ultimately, it is about trust – the bond between states, cultures, and people that determines between war and peace. It is about finding this trust even in the face of all the conflicts, reestablishing the bond with the help of new concepts.
For Europe to live, peace must again be our guiding
principle.
For Europe to live, NATO must dissolve.
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Speech
by
Håkan Julander
 |
| Håkan Julander during his speech |
Here we are in cave society
Watching motion pictured vanity
A shadow play with shit ideas
Where lies are truth and war is peace
We sit here blue pilled soma drunk
and let our minds fly high on junk
appreciating apathy
We call this cave democracy.
Well. That was the beginning of my poem “The Cave”. Based on Plato’s idea about not seeing things as they really
are. I find that a big problem today. And ten years ago I was pretty much
myself stuck in that cave. Sure I’d read Noam Chomsky and seen the Michael Moore films,
and I knew how we westerners have colonized and pillaged the world and still
kept on doing that but that felt in a way how it was supposed to be. I hadn’t REALLY grasped the reality of it. But after Maidan 2014 and Russiagate 2016 it
slowly dawned upon me — I live in a world I see but is told is not what I see.
This reality only made sense in Platos cave. With Euro/American shadow theatre
players writing the history and peddling the news.
To work for peace, you must understand the
propaganda. To work for peace is to make your fellow man understand she is
propagandized. I believe most cave people are aware of the hypocrisy of the
elite. The cost is just too high to leave and it’s worth it to endure the cognitive dissonances and believe
that people in power actually work for us. ’Cause today they have to deal with global companies and
finance institutions and get payed by trans-Atlantic think tanks to make things
better for us. That is the system. Yeah. And the system is Plato’s cave
supervised by the Chaos Demon, fueled by fear and hate.
In 1709 Sweden finally gave up their grand
plans to make The Baltic Sea their own lake when Charles the Twelveth’s army was beaten by the Russians in Poltava,
in today’s Ukraine.
Is that why we hate the Russians? Of course
not. It is more cynical than that. It is the racism and fear dug up from within
every person. Our most basic instincts of tribal belonging enforced by the
magic of manipulation of public opinion that Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays introduced to the world. He who sold
women smoking cigarettes as a part of the feminist movement. These public
relations magicians say that we westerners are the righteous. We are the good.
We are the chosen people. We write the narrative, and the narrative is TRUTH.
Even when it’s not. And we don’t hate people. Just Russians.
If we want peace we have to change the
propaganda.
But how do one escape from the cave? You don’t start by listen to the Duran, Grayzone and
Judge Napolitano even if I love them as much as you do. I guess you must be
already on your way out before you are receptive for all amazing geopolitical
podcasts that exist.
Personally, I guess I had enough time to think and I could afford to leave. I had no remarkable career to be dependent upon. But most importantly I started to interpret the surreal propaganda around me and turn it into art. And even if you’re not see yourself as an artist, it’s a good way to filter the world through. To see the lies and manipulation as that shadow theatre on a cave screen it actually is. I write poetry. But it’s enough to just lagh insanity in its face. When Ursula von der Leyen in a blue and yellow dress says “Russia’s economy is in tatters” and “they make their computer chips from dishwashers and refrigerators.” Or when Joseph Borell said “Europe is the garden and most of the other world is a jungle. And the jungle can invade the garden.” You have to transform this into something. We can call it art. Propaganda for peace.
I write poetry to make sense of the world. That´s why I last year in February stood in pouring rain outside London’s high court and shouted out that poem about the cave I started this talk within a megaphone. I was at the last trial in the Julian Assange case. I think it was about him getting the right to appeal for the right not to be expelled to a country he never been to for spreading news about that country’s war crimes that have killed millions of innocent people. Something like that. And western journalists didn’t care about it. As the American author Upton Sinclair so eloquently said: “ It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it”. Because they are trapped. And you know where.
I think art of whatever kind is a great escape
route. Just see things for what they really are. See people for who they really
are. Really think if what you here make sense. If you can’t express it in public, filter it through art. Assemble
friends and talk, laugh and cry. Life is much more interesting outside the
cave. Make new friends if you can’t bring your old ones.
Two and a half years ago me and a small group
from the No to NATO-group and the Free Julian Assange committee started
a conversation group. We had dinners and named ourselves Dissidentklubben, the club of Dissidents. It grew and we
arranged meetings and debates where an audience could meet Glenn Diesen, Clare
Daly and Patric Baab among many others. We started a podcast in both Swedish
and English on Substack where we produce a few videos and articles every
week. I read my poetry. It is a guerilla media movement, and I love every
second of it. It is art. It is a way to peace.
But one must be humble and admit how hard it is
to escape. I remember how I struggled mentally to allow myself to get a
realistic view on Russia. Since I have Ukrainian friends and visited Ukraine
when Sweden played three games in Kiev in the 2012 Euro Football championships
and the city was a blue-yellow love fest for ten days I recall how hard it was
not to swallow the Euro Maidan News as a good vs evil fight against Russia. And
oh my god! News on RT are the only ones making sense, am I going mad?! It’s all about emotions and sense of belonging. It’s not more complicated than that. It took me a
few years to overcome the war propaganda and leave the tribe. Leave the
mainstream. Step ashore. Make poetry. Make noise. Make jokes. Make peace. When
you’re outside the cave you can’t get in again. You are out in the sun having
connections with real people, like we have, today. The Chaos Demon must not
destroy that.
I will therefore finish this speech with a poem
called The Chaos
Demon. It’s from a book called
Kaosdemonen — political poetry and prose from the
overwhelming years of 2022-2025.
This was written five months before Sweden
joined NATO without a referendum and without any serious debate. We were all
hoping for a miracle that Türkiye or Hungary would mess it up. But that didn’t happen. The demon was too strong. Then.
Swedish people, listen!
The chaos demon is here
A bald eagled vision
Of liberty by fear
It calls itself
Defense alliance
It has western values
And it trusts the science
It wants to rule United Nations
Calling for a rules-based order
Keep control by spreading Chaos
Crossing borders in disorder
The chaos demon is here
It silences what matters
Our lives and human nature.
Brings us missiles, cluster bombs
Agreed upon in legislature
It’s on us in us everywhere
In every mind on every screen
It rewrites our history
The memories and what they mean
The chaos demon is here
Its heads and hearts have many shapes
have lived in many phases
In the orders of crusaders
Al-Qaida, Nazi-crazies
Conquistadores of infamy
and French and British colonizers
CIA while opium trading
German atom bomb advisors.
The chaos demon is here
It fights with economic sanctions
Conquers and divides to rule
It cannot be against a war
while drunk on hegemonic fule
It lets black magic media power
sprawl across the Swedish land
It calibrates our national psyche
Deconstruct the human brand
The State runs megaphonic news
Where uptight generals lay on
Whatever fairy tale of hope
The people should rely upon.
The chaos demon has come.
The demon feared all over earth
The self-deluded beast of west
Who calls itself a force eternal
Conquer all to make us blessed
This terror demon blows up pipelines
Mowing cites down to ash
Disturbing internet connections
Burn our books and call us trash
Its thought control has mighty power
Makes us too afraid to fight
The fear we have for thinking wrong
Is bigger than to do whats right
It’s such a shame what we’ve become
We who live in northern land
Were once the ones to go and talk to
Push for peace with open hand
Now we bow for crooks and clowns
The silly elitistic fools
In Stockholm, Brussels and DC
We let them use our souls as tools
Those technocrats they have no clue
They’re insecure, banal and fake
And we are many they are few
What agreement can’t we break?
We dare you chaos demon
Resistance now has come to grow
We fight you demon, ’round the clock
We poison all our underwear
With diplomatic Novichok
We say “hey beast we don’t obey”
Say no to war and yes to peace
We will not send beloved kids
To die in battles overseas
We call you chaos demon
We know your name is NATO
Your weakness is to hate the other,
Suicidal narcissism,
Never trust your sister brother
We have to kill you dirty demon
Sweden has no goddamn choice
But first we have to disconnect
From every mainstream media voice
Cut off your demon think tank spells
And see what difference it makes
To fight for NATO-free society
Is our jihad as long as it takes
This white bald eagled lunacy
Will die the day we set us free
From NATO fake democracy
To live and love in liberty
Where truth and dignity have won
Shhhhh
I think the Chaos demon is gone
