„Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil.“ These are the words of the encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti of Pope Francis which resonate while the third year of conflict in Ukraine comes to an end. We do not know how many victims this long war has claimed: the official authorities of both sides are silent, while some media estimates them to be at around a million. The arrival of Donald Trump at the White House has overturned the war narrative and, today, with a vocabulary that overturns ideas or positions that seemed to have been acquired, there is talk about peace. It is good news, however: we should start - hopefully soon - with a ceasefire and this means that the Ukrainians will stop dying in the war. The Pope had repeatedly asked for it: stop the war even at the cost of sacrifices because peace is a superior good. Some observers lament that there is a risk of making peace to the disadvantage of the Ukrainians, but first we should ask ourselves why so much war has been waged upon them. The great powers - the US and Russia - study each other, challenge each other and seek a new international order based on their interests. It is the logic of empires: always start from strength and do not consider those who have less. Europe believed in the battle of "democracies versus authoritarian regimes": the Ukrainian conflict was part of this vision with the support of the American Democrats. But now in Washington the pragmatism of Trump's Republicans rules, according to whom the old vision did not work because it pushed Russia into the arms of China. As a result, Trump and Putin will soon meet to stop the war. They will do so from their point of view, which is certainly not the one adopted until now. Europe appears excluded: the illusion of victory by which Ukraine had been pushed to fight an unequal battle vanishes. This upheaval was clearly predictable, even if it does not lessen the severeness of Russian aggression. As the Pope had predicted, the war was a failure. It was inevitable: war is always a mechanism that suffocates all lucidity, unleashes emotions and drags people into an endless swirl of hatred, revenge and death. Three years of suffering paid for severely by the Ukrainians; three years of belligerent cries that now leave everyone speechless and empty. Today, even if in a way far from international conventions, we are starting to talk about peace again and in any case, we can see a glimpse of hope for the future that the war had erased, chasing Ukraine under a hateful lead-loaded sky of destruction and suffering. The Jubilee of Hope asks us to hope for a day of peace even during a conflict: it is "the true peace" that Francis speaks of. The resistance of many, in these three years, has been to help the Ukrainians during a dark period, not letting humanity be taken away. A resistance made of humanitarian aid, of welcome and of concrete human closeness. A silent resistance, but effective and concrete, that has given strength to millions of Ukrainians at home and abroad. Now that the time for ceasefire and dialogue is approaching, this proximity must become even closer. Europe is emerging from three years of war rumours and must find another way, other than the deployment of weapons, to stay close to Ukraine, which has suffered and is facing a particularly delicate moment in its future. Geography and history show us a common destiny that must be transformed into politics: reconstructing, guaranteeing security in the future, of course, but without calculating like cold accountants what has been given or how much there is to gain. Instead, what is needed is solidarity that heals the wounds of the soul of an entire nation. The first thing the European Union can do is to refuse to enter into the "winners-losers" logic: the negotiations will be long and difficult. If the great powers begin today, we hope that the time of Europe will come soon, too. Because in this war there are no winners but only rubble and mourning. The only effective medicine is solidarity and friendship which we owe to the Ukrainians, without ever leaving them alone.
