Defense Ministers of Russia and France admit existence of a common enemy

Yesterday, according to agreements which were achieved by the presidents of Russia and France in Moscow on November 26th, Defense Ministers Sergey Shoigu and Jean-Yves Le Drian spent an hour and a half in the Russian capital talking about the prospects of coordination of the efforts of the military departments in the struggle against international terrorism. They admitted the existence of a common enemy represented by Daesh and confirmed their readiness to resist it together. Now Moscow is expecting the head of the Headquarters of the French Armed Forces, General de Villiers.

Nikolay Topornin, Associate Professor of the European Law Department of MGIMO, explains the need to unite efforts in the struggle against international terrorism: “Now we really see that there is no unified fist that could inflict irresistible blows, such knockout blows, to Islamic terrorism. We know that US Secretary of State John Kerry was in Moscow recently. He met with Foreign Minister Lavrov, and also had a very thorough meeting with President Putin, and in general they agreed that it is necessary to develop common approaches to the fight against this terrorism which exists today in Syria. Moreover, speaking at the press conference, President Putin said that Russia mostly agrees with the proposal made by the US administration, and is ready to support the American version of the resolution on the fight against terrorism at the level of the UN Security Council.”

Speaking about the importance of the event, the expert points out that “the United States and the Russian Federation are two powers that are able, based on their strategic and military capabilities, they are able to really and effectively counter terrorism and simply defeat it. This is very important.”

Another important moment, according to Topornin, is that the Security Council has already adopted, and unanimously approved, a resolution on combating the financing of terrorism: “When we are at war with terrorism, we must understand where they get money. The task for today is to limit the opportunities of ISIS in different areas, including financial ones. It seems to me that here, perhaps, Germany could actively join. The government of Germany today lags far behind in the fight against international terrorism, even from its EU partners. We know that a huge amount, Germany takes most refugees in Europe. We share and fully support this approach, but we also understand the danger that with the influx of refugees those people, who may in the future, I'm not saying that they are terrorists, this is debatable, but at least those are people who are influenced by the ideology of Islamic terrorists, who have probably already headed to Germany and are already on its territory.”

The expert thinks that they could lead to a terrorist attack. He says that the alliance of Moscow and Berlin and Paris is triangle, based on which the fight by Europe against terrorism should be based.