Declaration

of

European Citizens’ Conference for Peace in Ukraine, Russia and Europe

The European and Citizens’ Conference for Peace in Ukraine, Russia and Europe was held on November 22, 2025, in Lisbon.

The Conference’s organizing committee, informally referred to as “The Four Musketeers for Peace” assumed responsibility for drafting a formal document entitled the Declaration of the European and Citizens’ Conference for Peace in Ukraine, Russia and Europe.

This Declaration serves a dual function: it clearly outlines the actions originally specified in the Conference’s founding document, with particular emphasis on those identified as most critical and urgent. Additionally, it incorporates a broad range of perspectives and analyses contributed by participants before, during, and after the event, ensuring comprehensive representation of shared insights.

The Declaration, following a period of thorough development [22 December 2025-26 January 2026] is now formally published.

Lisbon, 31 January 2026.

****************

 

The warmongering plan of the US, the European Union, and the United Kingdom

“It is necessary to suffocate Russia economically, isolate it diplomatically and weaken it militarily through Ukraine, in order to feed forces within it that will lead to its dismemberment into a myriad of small impotent or failed states.”

This summary provides an overview of the strategic plan that has served as the rationale for the ongoing war in Ukraine and Russia over the past four years (see the Rand Corporation reports “Extending Russia” and “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”, both published in 2019) — a war that appears to be approaching its conclusion.

We are talking about a war that was avoidable,

— if the US had not instigated and supported the bloody coup d’état that overthrew the freely elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, on 22 February 2014, without any constitutional support;

— if Germany, France and Poland had not immediately recognised (along the head of European Union diplomacy, Baroness Catherine Ashton de Upholland) the illegal government that emerged from that coup d’état, even reneging on spurious commitments (but which were already highly favourable to the coup plotters) their Foreign Ministers had mediated and witnessed in the previous days to avoid further bloodshed; 

— if Ukraine, France and Germany had complied with the Minsk Agreements (2014, 2015)  concluded between Ukraine and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) and that had been mediated and endorsed by France and Germany (on the part of Ukraine) and Russia (on the part of the DPR and LPR; instead, the Minsk Agreements were deliberately and systematically sabotaged, fuelling a fratricidal war in the Donbass that caused more than 14 thousand deaths between 2014 and 2022;

— if NATO and the US had agreed to discuss the proposals for an Agreement and Treaty that Russia presented to them, respectively, on 17 December 2021, in order to (i) halt NATO’s perfidious enlargement towards Russia's borders, (ii) prevent Ukraine’s entry into NATO and (iii) guarantee the mutual security of Russia and NATO member states.

This is a war that could have been halted by a peaceful and very favourable solution for Ukraine on at least three occasions:

— on 28 February 2022 at the negotiations held in Gomel, Belarus, between delegations of the two belligerent countries;

— from 5 March to 20 March 2022 in the negotiations between the two countries mediated by Naftali Bennett, Prime Minister of Israel;

— from 29 March to 5 April 2022, in Istanbul, in the negotiations between delegations of the two countries;

Instead, on all these occasions and since, under pressure and encouragement from the USA, the United Kingdom and the EU, causing many hundreds of thousands of deaths. As a result, the population of Europe remains hostage to its effects — including the risk, always present,  of an escalation to a nuclear conflict.

Good news

The good news is that this warmongering plan and its supporting narratives are now crumbling, unable to withstand the reality of their strategic defeat on all fronts: military, economic, and political.

The final blow was struck publicly, before the eyes of the whole world, on December 4, 2025, with the release of the new US National Security Strategy (NSS for short).

The U.S. retreats

In that 29-page document, the US, the main engine of the war in Ukraine during Joe Biden’s term, now places the restoration of normal relations with Russia and the rapid end of the Ukrainian conflict at the centre of its new strategy.

«It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, » the document states, «in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia».  

It states that the US is ready for a «significant diplomatic engagement» to «help Europe correct its current trajectory», «to reestablish stability across the European landmass and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states».

The document also announces the end of NATO expansion — a demand that Russia has made repeatedly over the past 26 years, identifying it as one of the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict, which Russia regards as a proxy war against Russia waged by the “enlarged West” under U.S. tutelage and leadership.

The document criticizes European rulers and governments for their «unrealistic expectations» about the outcome of the war (which they continue to claim, against all evidence to the contrary, that it could be won by Ukraine), arguing that «a large European majority wants peace, yet that

desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes».

The U.S. recognizes its decline as a superpower

Overall, this new US strategy marks a turning point. It renounces the type of global interventionism — or at least places limits on it — that characterized US foreign policy from the end of World War II until the end of President Joe Biden’s term, opting for a more transactional and more geopolitically selective US foreign policy in order to ensure its hegemony in the Western Hemisphere (which includes America,  North, Central and South, huge parts of the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, as well as parts of Europe and Africa).

 

Outside this broad area, the document argues, the US should only intervene abroad when its “vital, core national interests” are directly at stake.

By revamping the Monroe doctrine in an explicitly and blatantly imperialist sense of domination of the Western Hemisphere, which they erected as their first priority (and of which the declared intention to annex Greenland was the first announcement and the economic blockade of Venezuela, followed by the armed attack and kidnapping of its president, are the first confirmation), the US recognizes tacitly, for the first time, that it is no longer the hegemonic power on a world scale; and that the time when it acted as the supreme policeman of the planet and claimed the right to commit,  with impunity, all kinds of misdeeds and irregularities in the name of “freedom” and “security”, now belongs to the past.

At the same time the US also maintains, for domestic consumption and that of its allies/vassals in Europe, Asia and Oceania, the sweet illusion that it will continue to be «the world’s strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for decades to come».  But the reality points in a different direction: as document states «The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over».

We all know what this means: the rise of China to the position of the world’s leading economic power (19.4% of global GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP), compared to 14.52% for the US) and the economic resurgence of Russia (the fourth largest economy, in PPP, after China, the US and India) and the growing influence of both on the international stage (BRICS+). The NSS itself acknowledges that «the Indo-Pacific region is already responsible for almost half of the world's GDP based on purchasing power parity /.../ This share will certainly increase throughout the 21st century».

Donald Trump’s Geopolitical Thinking

Under Trump, the US can no longer conceal, and lately (Iran, Venezuela) hasn’t even tried to disguise, its contempt for international law.

The most recent example concerns the misappropriation of a UN Security Council Resolution (Resolution 2803 adopted by the UN Security Council on 17 November 2025) that was meant to structure some form of lasting armistice in post-genocide Gaza. Trump used it to form his very own extraterritorial international company, the so-called ‘Board of Peace’, a UN mockery of which he has proclaimed himself president for life and arrogating to himself all the powers of decision, with which he will likely conduct business around the world, labelling it as peacebuilding and peacekeeping efforts. 

Another recent example is the speech in Davos (Switzerland) in which Trump informed a stunned audience that the US will seize a “big, beautiful piece of ice” [Greenland] that does not belong to them in exchange for the services they have provided to Denmark and other EU countries through NATO, of which they were and are the main funders.

«All we want from Denmark, for national and international security, and to keep our very energetic and dangerous potential enemies at bay, is this land on which we’re going to build the greatest golden dome [that is, missile shield] ever built.».

We need Greenland, Trump added, «for strategic national security and international security. This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America, on the northern frontier of the Western Hemisphere. That’s our territory. It is therefore a core national security interest of the United States of America, and in fact, it’s been our policy for hundreds of years to prevent outside threats from entering our hemisphere, and we’ve done it very successfully. We’ve never been stronger than we are now.»  /…/ «It’s the United States alone that can protect this giant mass of land, this giant piece of ice, develop it and improve it, and make it so that it’s good for Europe, and safe for Europe, and good for us».

Even in the case of Russia, which the US respects as a superior nuclear power and with which it is now trying to establish a modus vivendi, it does not miss any opportunity to launch attacks aimed at weakening it economically and politically. The abuse of force and brazenness have been, and will continue to be, a permanent presence in US foreign policy, and there is no shortage of examples, even in what has been happening in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

On June 6, 2025, Ukraine carried out attacks against infrastructure linked to the Russian nuclear triad, specifically through Operation Spider Web, targeting air bases and early warning systems. These were attacks that could never have been carried out without American support.

On October 22, 2025, President Trump imposed heavy direct sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoi, as well as 34 of their subsidiaries.

It was also from October 2025 that the Trump administration authorized the expansion of the supply of military intelligence intended to help Ukraine attack Russia. This assistance includes: (A) specific data (such as coordinates and flight path calculations for precision-guided weapons) on targets for attacks inside Russia, particularly targeting critical energy infrastructure such as oil refineries, pipelines, and power plants; (B) high-resolution radar satellite imagery, from both military-grade and commercial satellites, which are essential for monitoring movements in adverse weather conditions or at night; (C) interception of Russian military communications and electronic signatures, helping Ukraine track force movements, disrupt covert operations, and counter missile barrages; (D) real-time situational awareness systems and early warnings about Russian launches of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones; (E) technical data on Russian cyber warfare to help Ukraine defend its critical networks and infrastructure.

On December 18, 2025, President Trump signed the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which provides $400 million per year in military aid to Ukraine for 2026 and 2027 through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).

And on December 28-29, 2025, there was an attack with 91 drones on targets located in the Novgorod region (Russia).

On January 1, 2026, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, head of Russian Military Intelligence (GRU), [pictured left] handed over physical and digital evidence of the Novgorod attack target to the US Embassy’s military attaché in Moscow [pictured right].

The evidence provided included the physical flight controller (navigation system unit) of a downed drone and decoded route data from a “flight mission file” supposedly recovered from his memory. Kostyukov stated that the decoded data “unequivocally” confirmed that the ultimate target of the December 29, 2025, attack was Vladimir Putin’s presidential residence (!) in Valdai, Novgorod region.

The CIA immediately said there had been no attack on Putin’s official residence, and Trump, after a moment of hesitation in which he declared he was “very angry” about what had happened, backtracked and ended up agreeing with and covering for the CIA.

The Trump administration’s most recent military feat against Russia dates to January 8, 2026. It consisted of the unlawful seizure of a Russian-flagged oil tanker somewhere between Iceland and the United Kingdom. Two revealing details: 1) the said tanker was traveling with empty tanks to Venezuela where, presumably, it was going to refill them; 2) the tanker was captured by the US Coast Guard (!) which at the time was operating about 5,500 km off the US coast (!!) which, supposedly, it should be “protecting”…

And all this has been happening, note, while Trump meets with Putin in Alaska with all the pomp and circumstance, maintains permanent negotiations with Russia through “special envoys” to end the war in Ukraine and Russia, sometimes accuses Putin and other times Zelensky of being an obstacle to peace, and keeps repeating that he regrets the carnage caused by this war in the Ukrainian and Russian ranks!

The psychological and psychiatric explanations that many analysts have been putting forward for Trump’s behaviour (malignant narcissism, total lack of empathy, mythomania, egolatry, etc.) are not adequate to explain the facts described above. Everything becomes clearer, however, if we broaden our research horizons and accept another point of view on this behavior.

In fact, recent events in various parts of the globe – Israel/Palestine, Israel/Iran, Azerbaijan/Armenia, Malaysia/Thailand, China/ Philippines, China/Taiwan, Syria, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc., and even the threats of intervention in Greenland – objectively indicate that the US, under Trump, is not relinquishing its position as a hegemonic power and is and will continue to try to remain in that position, despite its industrial, technological, scientific, cultural, and even military decline on the world stage.

Although Trump is the president of a country where two major parties confront each other with distinct visions regarding US domestic policy, we perceive that the interests and visions of the American political-military-industrial-media complex do not diverge as to what it considers to be the place of the US in the world.

Thus, to maintain its hegemony, the US has decided to assume unapologetically and ruthlessly the role of owners and marshals of the entire Western Hemisphere — its first strategic priority. It is from the fortification of this position in the Western Hemisphere, whose territory they intend to treat as if it were their own personal fiefdom, that the US believes it is in a position to continue defining its external alignment and to intervene, whenever necessary, in other regions of the planet, to avoid the loss of its influence and the fruits of its exploitation and, consequently, to mitigate its relative decline on the world stage.

This is the current sense of Donald Trump’s geopolitical thinking, embodied in the National Security Strategy document that we have already cited.

The European Union and the United Kingdom go into a frenzy

This strategic repositioning of the US has provoked feelings of spite and resentment on this side of the Atlantic. Chancellor Merz of Germany declared at the congress of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (14-12-2025):

«The decades of Pax Americana for Europe and Germany are largely over for us. It no longer exists as we knew it. Nostalgia will not help us, and I would be the last person to give in to this nostalgia. This is a reality! The Americans are now very fiercely defending their interests. And that is why we must now defend our interests».

The Pax Americana refers to a period and order established after World War II, characterized by the global military, economic, and diplomatic dominance of the United States, which, in addition, assumed the bulk of the expenses and responsibilities with NATO.

Disregarded by their patron, the European Union and the United Kingdom went into a frenzy. The void left by the US retreat and strategic repositioning was filled by a swarm of provocative statements and unrestrained actions by European rulers and bureaucrats and their military coryphaeus.

On 1 November 2025, General Fabien Mandon, Chief of Defence Staff of France, addressed the Congress of the Association of French Mayors.

«Moscow is convinced that the Europeans are weak. And yet, we are fundamentally stronger than Russia. If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept losing its children (because it is necessary to say things as they are) or to suffer economically (because priorities will be assigned to defence production), then we are at risk. We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to dissuade the Moscow regime from trying its luck further. What we don’t have /.../ is the courage to accept suffering to protect what we are.»

On 25 November 2025, the German Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul. declared on platform X that Russia is preparing to attack NATO. It was the third time this month that German leaders spoke out about a potential confrontation with Russia in the next four years.

«Putin eyes the EU and NATO. Our intelligence services are issuing urgent warnings: at the very least, Russia is creating the option for itself to wage war against NATO by 2029. We have to deter further Russian aggression, together with our partners and allies. /…/ Russia's threat to our country is no longer a distant concern; It’s already a reality, » Wadephul said.

On 1 December 2025, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, told the Financial Times: «Being more aggressive or being proactive instead of reactive is something that we are thinking about. » The admiral added that a «pre-emptive strike» against Russia could be considered a «defensive action. »

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to him in an interview the following day:

«We are not planning to go to war against Europe. I have said that hundreds of times. But if Europe wants to wage a war against us and suddenly starts a war with us, we are ready. There should be no doubt about that.»

And he added an obvious truth for who know (as all military leaders of NATO member states are presumed to know), that Russia is the leading nuclear power on the planet and that it possesses a panoply of hypersonic and medium- and long-range missiles (Avangard, Zircon, Kinzhal, Oreshnik), as well as other superweapons  (the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, the Burevestnik intercontinental cruise missile, with a nuclear engine, and the Poseidon intercontinental underwater drone (or torpedo), with a nuclear engine, that no other nuclear power possesses:

«The only question is if Europe suddenly starts a war against us, I think [it will end] very quickly… Europe is not Ukraine. In Ukraine, we are acting with surgical precision. You see my point, don’t you? It is not a war in the direct, modern sense of the word. If Europe suddenly decides to go to war against us and follows through with it, then a situation may arise very quickly where we will be left with no one to negotiate with».

On 11 December 2025, Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, decided to interpret Putin’s unequivocal warning to NATO not to play with (atomic) fire as if it were a pre-warning of a Russian attack in preparation.

« We are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way /…/ Conflict is at our door. Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured. Imagine it, a conflict reaching every home, every workplace, destruction, mass mobilisation, millions displaced, widespread suffering and extreme losses».

On 15 December 2025, the Chief Marshal of the British Air Force and Chief of the Defence Staff, Richard Nayton, followed in Rutte’s footsteps, declaring that the entire population of the United Kingdom must prepare to go to war against Russia.

«Sons and daughters. Colleagues. Veterans. /.../ will all have a role to play. To build. To serve. And, if necessary, to fight. And more families will know sacrifice for our nation means ».

The objectives of the EU and the UK and their consequences

Such statements by these high-ranking civilian and military figures from the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) are not as absurd as they seem at first glance. «There is method in his madness», as Polonius said in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Its first immediate objective is to intimidate the population of European Union and NATO member countries by conjuring the bogeyman of Russian aggression.

Its second immediate objective is to justify the colossal expenditures aimed at satisfying the interests of the American military-industrial complex (AMIC) and the European military-industrial complex (EMIC) — the annual increase of 5% of GDP by 2035 in the military expenditure of NATO member states and the expenditure of 800 billion euros by 2030 in military expenditure by EU member states.

Further,  its proponents hope that the arms race in the EU and the UK will have the advantage of getting the EU’s largest economies (Germany, France, Italy) and the UK out of the economic quagmire in which they find themselves as a result of the boomerang effects  of the economic sanctions they have imposed against Russia and the drastic tariffs imposed on them by Donald Trump and which the EU has accepted obsequiously.                                        

The frustration experienced by Merz, Macron, Starmer, and the senior officials of the European Union — including Ursula von der Leyen, António Costa, and Kaja Kallas — in response to (i) the United States’ withdrawal from the conflict in Ukraine, (ii) the anticipated conclusion of the war, and (iii) the expected implosion or, at least, (iv) the complete discrediting of NATO (if the announced annexation of Greenland by the US ‒ the creator, patron, mentor, supreme commander and main financier of NATO ‒ materializes), has led them to countenance the most desperate measures in order to postpone the arrival of the moment of truth.

Thus, in an apparently bold move, the European Union decided, on 11 December 2025, to trigger Article 122 (“economic emergency”) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to freeze indefinitely the assets of the Central Bank of Russia, worth 210 billion euros, throughout the territory of the EU. «This is a powerful message to Ukraine: we want to make sure that our brave neighbour becomes even stronger on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, » said Ursula von der Leyen. 

There is another, diametrically opposite, way of qualifying this decision. Russia has not declared war and is not at war with any EU member State. Therefore, the freezing sine die (which is, in practice, a confiscation) of the sovereign assets of the Central Bank of Russia is a very serious and unprecedented violation of public international law, specifically the principle of sovereign immunity (Article 5 of the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities, 2004).

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever (who cannot be accused of sympathies for Russia, but who did not want to see his country pay alone for the consequences of an unwise decision by most of his colleagues) contested the legality and rationality of this decision and the existence of an economic emergency that legitimizes it. He said accurately and without restraint:

«This is money from a country with which we are not at war. It would be like walking into the embassy [of Russia], taking out all the furniture and selling it».

What, then, does the EU seek to gain by blatantly trampling on such a basic principle of public international law? Two things: one obvious, the other less so.

The obvious one: to use the sovereign assets of the Central Bank of Russia as a guarantee, for the time being, of a loan of EUR 90 billion to be contracted by the EU from the financial institutions where these assets are deposited. This loan would then be granted without interest to the Ukrainian State, to «make it even stronger on the battlefield» — that is, so that it can continue its war effort in 2026 and 2027, until it is fully exhausted. The loan to Ukraine went ahead at the European Council meeting on 18 December 2025, but the guarantee based on the assets of the Central Bank of Russia fell by the wayside, at least temporarily, due to opposition from Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia. The borrowing to be undertaken on the financial markets, via a new joint debt issuance utilizing the EU budget, will be financed by the other EU member states, including Belgium, through taxpayer funds.

The less obvious objective is to ensure that the litigation that Russia initiated simultaneously in 14 jurisdictions and will maintain for a long time against the EU to recover its funds makes the normalization of relations between Russia and the EU unlikely in the short or medium term. 

The side effect of these two objectives, however, runs contrary to both. The EU, which likes to present itself as a normative power, a beacon of globalized capitalism and “rules-based-international-order”, sends a crystal-clear message to the rest of the world:

«Your money is welcome in the banks of the countries of the European Union, if the depositor thinks and acts like us...»

Financial neutrality, formerly a cornerstone of the system, is now subject to conditions. This development will be noted by central banks in both BRICS and non-BRICS countries, who are likely to assess its implications carefully and maintain appropriate measures to safeguard their interests.

The visceral hatred of freedom of thought, expression and movement

Yet the frenzy and exasperation of the EU and the UK at the prospect of the complete defeat of their line of conduct on the war in Ukraine – with their mentor (the US) now washing their hands like Pilate – manifested themselves even more clearly and outrageously in their vicious attack on fundamental freedoms.

In 2022, the European Council banned (without having the legal power to do so) all Russian media outlets and severely restricted the freedom of action of Russian journalists within the EU, a characteristic of repressive and tyrannical regimes.

The most recent example of such an attack was the decisions of the European Union (Foreign Affairs) Council, meeting on 15 December 2025 in Brussels, with the presence of the foreign ministers of all EU Member States. In the purest style of US Senator Joseph McCarthy's “witch hunt” campaign during the height of the Cold War this Council of the European Union has decided to launch, without any legal basis, a campaign of intimidation, persecution and repression of voices critical of endemic Russophobia and the warmongering policy of the EU and the “Coalition of the Willing”,  drawing up for this purpose a “blacklist” of enemies to be punished with sanctions of various kinds — freezing bank accounts, canceling credit and debit cards, prohibiting entry into or exit from the EU, or moving from one country to another within it, or flying over its airspace to reach another country.

Most of the individuals and organizations on this blacklist are Russians, residing in Russia, accused of being propagandists of the theses and Russian views on the war in Ukraine.

To assess the significance of this, imagine that the Council of the Russian Federation were to draw up a blacklist of citizens of EU member States, accusing them of being propagandists of the European Union’s theses and views. An indignant chorus of insults would immediately rise against “Russian totalitarianism” and “Russian autocracy,” which “want to stifle and control everything”. But if the Council of the European Union does the same with Russia, as it has done now, then everything is perfectly normal and in line with “European values”.

The EU, however, seems determined to go further. Now, on its blacklist ‒where German journalists Hüseyin Doğrum [since May 20, 2024], Alina Lipp and Thomas Röper [since May 20, 2025], and Swiss communications consultant Nathalie Yamb [since June 25, 2025] were already listed – there are also citizens of other nationalities (American, Ukrainian, Swiss, French), accused of committing the crime of lèse-majesté of expressing opinions contrary to those of the EU governing bodies on Gaza (Doğrum), on Africa (Yamb), on Ukraine (Lipp, Röper), etc. Among them is, for example, the Swiss citizen Jacques Baud, author of four books indispensable for understanding the wars in Ukraine — which, clearly, the EU leaders would like to burn in an auto-da-fé or make disappear in a “memory hole” of the “Ministry of Truth” imagined by George Orwell in his prescient novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Hüseyin Doğrum, Alina Lipp, Thomas Röpe, Jacques Baud, Nathalie Yamb, Xavier Moreau (French) and others were punished extrajudicially with “sanctions” that, in the EU, amount to a «socioeconomic death penalty and civil erasure,» as Nathalie Yamb aptly described them.

From a different perspective, however, we can deduct from these actions that Mrs Kallas and the EU Foreign Ministers have never heard of the Streisand effect that could end up submerging them.

The Path to Peace

Given the preceding discussion, implementing the actions detailed in the founding document of the European and Citizens’ Conference for Peace in Ukraine, Russia, and Europe, convened in Lisbon on November 22, 2025, is of growing relevance to advancing peace.

●Priority and most urgent actions

The following actions are currently the top priorities and require immediate attention:  

● Ukraine’s permanent military neutrality enshrined in its constitution. Ukraine’s renunciation of the objective of NATO entry, with a repeal of the articles of the Ukrainian Constitution that express this objective (arts. 85[5], 102, 116 [1]).

● Recognition of the right to self-determination (enshrined in Article 1(2), article 55 and article 73 of the UN Charter and Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), in its various forms (regional autonomy, federalism, secession, voluntary integration into another country), of the people of Crimea and the populations of the oblasti from the East and South of Ukraine who feel more Russian than Ukrainian and who have freely expressed (or express) their will through referendums.

● Legal guarantees for the protection of the Russian language as a co-official language of Ukraine and the cultural rights (including religious freedom) of Russian-speaking Ukrainians (52% of the Ukrainian population), as well as the cultural rights of Ukrainians speaking minority languages (e.g. Hungarian and Romanian).

● Legal guarantees of mutual security for Ukraine and Russia that include 

― Ukraine's obligation not to allow the manufacture, reception, transit and positioning of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction on its territory.

― the obligation of Ukraine and Russia not to allow the installation of military bases and the presence of foreign military contingents on their respective territories.

● An end to all sanctions enacted against Russia, including:

— a ban on the broadcasting of media outlets (RT, Sputnik, etc.) within the EU;

― the ban on visas and travel in the EU, the Schengen area, the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland;

― the prohibition of the participation of Russian citizens in sporting and cultural events;

(ii) restrictions on economic imports and exports;

(i) the sine die freeze of the sovereign assets of the Central Bank of Russia,

in a total of more than 26,665 sanctions (!) \u2012 2,695 sanctions between 17 March 2014 and 22 February 2022, plus 23,960 from 22 February 2022 to 15 August 2025 \u2012 that were imposed on Russia by Switzerland (4,029), EU (2,782), France (2,711), UK (2,333), within Europe, and by the US (7,392), Canada (4,176),  Australia (1,791) and Japan (1,441) outside Europe.

● Formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission similar to those convened in post-apartheid South Africa and post-independence Timor-Leste.

This independent commission could start doing its work immediately after the signing of the Peace Agreement – listening to complaints (from all sides) of human rights violations since 2014 – regardless of the forensic investigation processes leading to war crimes trials, which will necessarily be very lengthy.

● Trials for war crimes should be organised by the respective States, as suggested by the eminent jurist Alfred de Zayas.

This means that trials of war crimes allegedly committed by Russians should be organised by Russian courts and trials of war crimes allegedly committed by Ukrainians should be organised by Ukrainian courts.   

These seven actions represent the highest priorities and most urgent steps required to establish a sustainable peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.

●Medium-term actions

To achieve lasting peace in Europe, it is necessary to delineate, debate, and approve a new architecture of European Cooperation and Security that encompasses all the countries of Europe (including Russia) and that scrupulously respects the principle of the indivisibility of international security: the notion that international security is interdependent — that is, there is no security of some countries without security of others.

That architecture should include the following confidence-building actions:

● Elimination of all US and Russian nuclear weapons (and all existing infrastructure for their use) outside their respective national territories — as is the case of NATO air bases in Europe that host US nuclear warheads: Incirlik (Turkey); Aviano and Ghedi-Torre (Italy); Kleine Brogel (Belgium); Büchel (Germany), Volkel (Netherlands), as well as the air bases that house the nuclear warheads that Russia has deployed in Belarus within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

● Eradication of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe – by denunciation/withdrawal from its Treaty (provided for in Article 13) by its European member countries – either (i) by simultaneous denunciation of all of them, or (ii) by successive individual denunciation/withdrawal of its European member countries, or (iii) by concerted denunciation/withdrawal of successive groups from their European member countries or (iv) by a combination of (ii) and (iii), and Eradication (concomitant with the eradication of NATO from the European continent) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Europe by denunciation/withdrawal of its Treaty (provided for in its Article 11) by its European member countries — Russia, Belarus, Armenia (+ Serbia as observer member).

● Long-term actions

These medium-term actions pave the way, in turn, for the end of nuclear weapons (a necessary condition for preventing a nuclear apocalypse), which requires:

● the prohibition of designing, testing, producing, manufacturing, acquiring, possessing or stockpiling nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, as provided for in Article 1 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), adopted by the UN General Assembly on 4 December 2017.

       Number of nuclear warheads of the 9 nuclear powers in 2025. Source: SIPRI, 2025,

            via Federation of American Scientists.

          

 

Estimated inventory of the status of existing nuclear weapons. Source: Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, & Mackenzie Knight-Boyle, Federation of American Scientists, 2025. [n.a.= not available]

 

It is noteworthy that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has been signed by 93 countries to date, with 70 of these having completed ratification. Most ratifying States are in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and none possess nuclear capabilities. Among the 32 NATO member States — including the nuclear-armed United States, France, and the United Kingdom — as well as the 22 European Union countries within NATO, none have signed or ratified the treaty. This shows that this organization is a nuclear alliance This shows that this organization is a nuclear alliance which jealously guards its monopoly on destructive power.

● The simultaneous and mutually controlled dismantling (by inspectors of all parties involved) of the nuclear arsenal of Russia, the USA, France, the United Kingdom and the other nuclear powers: China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea.

The guiding principle for this task is straightforward and has demonstrated its effectiveness: “Trust but verify.”

Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and scientists from the University of Chicago who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock in 1947, using the biblical imagery of the Apocalypse (midnight) and the language of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey the threats to humanity. The Doomsday Clock is set annually by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Council, in consultation with its Board of Patrons, which includes eight Nobel laureates. On January 27, 2026, the clock was set to 85 seconds to midnight— 4 seconds closer to the Apocalypse than in 2025 and the worst result since its creation. Source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

 

While the undertaking is extensive, it remains attainable, as exemplified by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed between the Soviet Union (and subsequently Russia) and the United States in 1987. Also referred to as the INF Treaty, it was in effect until 2019, when the United States withdrew from the agreement.

Source: Professor Ivana Hughes (Columbia University, USA) & Professor Steven Starr (University of Missouri, USA) via Neutrality Studies, January 17, 2026

 

The INF Treaty stipulated the removal of nuclear missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres within a three-year time, a target that was met successfully. By 1991, a total of 2,692 missiles had been dismantled, accounting for nearly all intermediate-range nuclear missiles and slightly more than 4% of the combined nuclear arsenals of both nations measured in 1987.

First image: destructive effects of the fireball created by the explosion of an 800-kiloton nuclear bomb. Second image: the aides who accompany the presidents of Russia and the USA everywhere, carrying the black briefcases that allow them to communicate with and authorize a nuclear attack. Source: Professor Ivana Hughes (Columbia University,USA) & Professor Steven Starr (University of Missouri, USA), via Neutrality Studies, 17 de Janeiro 2026.

Importantly, the treaty established reciprocal verification protocols, permitting inspectors from each signatory country to monitor and confirm the destruction of nuclear armaments.

A lasting system of global peace and security can only be achieved when all nuclear-weapon States have signed and ratified comprehensive nuclear disarmament treaties, and nuclear weapons are fully eliminated

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The following individuals endorse this Declaration (in alphabetical order of surname):

●Jorge Aires (Portugal): Major-General of the Air Force (retd.)

●José Manuel Baptista Alves (Portugal): Colonel of the Air Force (retd.), engineer, April military officer [*]

●João Sousa Andrade (Portugal): Economist, university professor, researcher

● Ana Laura M. V. Araújo (Portugal): Germanist, polytechnic professor

● António Miguel Avelãs (Portugal): Secondary school teacher, former president of the Greater Lisbon Teachers’ Union (SPGL)

● Patrik Baab (Germany): Journalist, university professor

●Francisco Balsinha (Portugal): Journalist, activist for Human Rights and the Palestinian people.

●Manuel Begonha (Portugal): Captain of Sea and War (retd.), April military officer [*]

● Carlos Branco (Portugal): Major-General, specialist in conflict resolution.

● Jean Bricmont (Belgium): Theoretical physicist, philosopher, university professor

● Isabelle Casel (Germany): Independent artist, peace activist, advisor

●Luís Alfaro Cardoso (Portugal): Veterinarian, researcher, university professor

● José Roberto Tinoco Cavalheiro (Portugal): Materials engineer, university professor, researcher

● Pedro Júlio de Pezarat Correia (Portugal): Major-General of the Army (retd.), university professor (emeritus), April military officer [*] (active duty).

● Alain Corvez (France): Colonel of the Army (retd.), international strategy advisor

● Raul Luís Cunha (Portugal): Major-General of the Army (retd.), historian

●Hugo Dionísio (Portugal): Lawyer, independent researcher

●Jean-Christophe Emmeneger (Switzerland): Former journalist, researcher specializing in the history of secret intelligence services, traveling writer

● Paulo Aníbal de Oliveira Fidalgo (Portugal): physician, gastroenterologist

●Júlio Manuel Dias Gomes (Portugal): Economist, university professor

●Ulrike Guérot (Germany): Political philosopher, peace activist, university professor

●Manuel Martins Guerreiro (Portugal): Rear Admiral (ret.) of the Navy, April military officer [*]

●Jacques Hogard (France): Colonel of the Army (retd.), historian, geopolitical consultant

● Cipriano Justo (Portugal): Physician, university professor

●Augusto Küttner (Portugal): Human resources manager

● Manuel Soares Leitão (Portugal): Cultural producer

● Luís M. Loureiro (Portugal): Journalist, university professor

● Albino Matos (Portugal): Jurist

● Guy Mettan (Switzerland): Journalist, columnist, member of Parliament, historiem

● José Manuel Costa Neves (Portugal): Major-General of the Air Force (retd.), April military officer [*]

●Fernando Oliveira (Portugal): Chemical engineer, conference translator-interpreter

● Rui Pereira (Portugal): Former journalist, university professor

●Rui Manuel Vaz Pinto (Portugal): Economist, bookseller, publisher

●João Luís B. Pena dos Reis (Portugal): Deputy Attorney General (retd.) of the Public Prosecutor's Office

●Fabrice Saint-Pol (France): Reserve Captain (Commandant) (National Navy), Civil Engineer.

●Richard Sakwa (United Kingdom): Political scientist, historian, university professor

● José Aranda da Silva (Portugal): Colonel of the Army (retd.), pharmacist, university professor, April military officer [*]

●José Catarino Soares (Portugal): Linguist, polytechnic professor.

● Luís Souta (Portugal): Anthropologist, polytechnic professor

●Harald Walach (Germany): Psychologist, philosopher, university professor

● Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (Switzerland): Jurist, university professor [**]

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[*] The designation “April military officer” refers, in a sober and objective way, to the military personnel responsible for the overthrow of the Salazar-Caetano fascist regime on April 25, 1974. It is interchangeable with the designation “April Captain”, because the vast majority of these military personnel at the time were captains.

[**] Alfred-Maurice de Zayas identified himself as follows when he signed the Declaration. 

«I am a former UN Independent Expert for International Order (2012-18), former senior lawyer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, visiting professor at numerous universities in the US, Canada, Ireland, German, Spain and Switzerland, currently professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy.  Pax optima rerum was the motto of the Peace of Westphalia — the US, NATO, EU States should acknowledge their responsibility in having provoked this war. A modus vivendi must be found that ensures the national security of all countries and the self-determination of all peoples».   

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