Christian Castagna leads the advocacy department at the French association “For Ukraine, Its and Our Freedom!”, where he focuses on the looting of Ukraine’s cultural heritage. With experience working across Central and Eastern Europe since the early 1980s, Castagna spoke to The Ukrainian Week about the prospects for a quick end to the war and the West’s troubling shortsightedness when it comes to Russia.
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– You know Ukraine, the Balkans, Poland, and Bulgaria well. Why do you think Western Europe, especially France, took so long to recognise the true nature of the Russian state? The Kremlin’s goals haven’t changed much over the years—subjugation, conquest, and expansion by any means necessary.
– French intellectual circles still tend to view Central and Eastern Europe through a Russian lens. I first visited Ukraine in the early 2000s while working with French companies involved in constructing the sarcophagus to seal the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. At that time, I was living in Poland and working with French clients who collaborated with Polish subcontractors. As a consultant, I worked with several companies looking to expand into Russia or Ukraine, and even then, I could see that the two countries were completely different when it came to business practices.
From 2011 to 2023, I served as an aide to a senator who was well-acquainted with Ukraine and made frequent trips there. We closely followed the events of the Maidan together. I was in Ukraine in February 2022, just before the full-scale invasion began. Back then, the senator told me, “Christian, everything you’re saying about the Russian army preparing to attack—that’s just American propaganda.” I replied, “No, it’s not propaganda. It’s American intelligence based on open-source imagery.” When Russia posts footage of trains transporting tanks to Belarus, the Americans are simply sharing what Russia has already published on social media to support their classified intelligence. At the time, though, we just couldn’t grasp the reality of what was coming.
In January 2022, just before the war broke out, representatives from NGOs contacted me, asking if I was willing to go to the Polish border to assist with receiving Ukrainian refugees. Having previously worked with refugees for international organisations, especially in the Balkans, I requested more details. They told me that, based on their forecasts, between five and eight million people would need accommodation within the next 15 days. In other words, some organisations had already predicted what was about to happen in just a few weeks. But acknowledging the facts is one thing—grasping their full implications is something else entirely.
– But why do even well-informed people fail to see what’s so obvious? Is it a matter of courage?
– I’ve been in conversation with politicians since the late 1980s, and I remember the optimism of the early 1990s when a new political elite emerged in Eastern Europe. We took them seriously, supporting their transition. Today, however, that culture of engagement has all but vanished. We’re living in a different reality, where, day by day, hour by hour, we’re forced to recognise that international law is eroding.
If we look at historical parallels, this is no longer the end of the USSR or the aftermath of World War II, when a new world order was shaped by modern principles of international law. What we’re seeing now is a return to a pre-World War I world—a Europe dominated by empires.
Those focused solely on the latest headlines fail to keep up with these historical shifts. Amid the constant news cycle, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. At some point, you have to force yourself to step back, gain perspective, and truly understand what’s happening.
Take Putin, for instance. If you analyse his 2007 Munich Security Conference speech and his July 2021 article on the Kremlin’s website, a clear, consistent theme emerges: he repeatedly claims, “Russians and Ukrainians are one people.” This isn’t just rhetoric—it’s a clear indication of intent.
— But why did no one take this intent seriously? Not in 2007, before the attack on Georgia, nor in 2021? Western leaders and Russia experts kept repeating the same line: “Russians aren’t like Putin; they’re good people…”
– When I showed people a photo of a Russian armoured vehicle with Ukrainian protesters standing on it during the occupation of Kherson in 2022, and then explained that 400 Ukrainians were arrested just two days later, they fell silent. I would point out, “This is how a repressive police state is built.” But, unsurprisingly, people don’t want to remember things like that.
When Russian troops entered Kherson, they already had a list of trusted individuals. It was all pre-planned, almost as if white crosses had been marked on the right doors. That’s why it’s crucial that we take the time to tell the full story of what happened.
In the late 1980s, I was a student at the Sorbonne, studying centralised planned economies. I would often travel to Poland, meeting with members of Solidarity. When I returned to Paris, I’d tell my professors, “That planned economy in Poland isn’t working.” Their response? “No, Christian, you just don’t understand the scale of socialist planning.”
Sometimes, intellectuals become so sure they understand everything that they fail to see reality as it truly is.
In 1985, I lived in a small town on the outskirts of Paris, where the mayor was the personal secretary to Georges Marchais, the leader of the French Communist Party. He was always urging me to join the party. One day, we took a trip to Bulgaria as part of a twinning programme between our town and a Bulgarian one. Along the way, we passed bridges with roads that just ended mid-air. When we stopped for a break, we saw public restrooms lined with metres of copper piping—when a single straight pipe would have sufficed. The local political commissar, who was travelling with us, explained: “The roads off the bridges? They’re planned for the next five-year programme. And as for the pipes? The plan requires a certain number of kilograms of piping to be delivered.” And that’s how it all worked.
On the way back, the mayor realised I wasn’t about to become a communist. He pulled me aside and said, “Listen, Christian, don’t tell the comrades what you saw. They’ll lose their faith.”
— Macron’s comments about the Russian threat to France have sparked a fierce debate. People are divided over whether to invest more in the military industry or focus on providing greater support to Ukraine. Do you think the French have evolved in their thinking?
– At the end of 2022, I had a debate with a member of parliament about the possibility of a conflict between France and Russia. He dismissed the idea, arguing that because we don’t share a border with Russia, there was nothing to worry about. As if Russian missiles could only be launched from a border! In reality, it takes them less than 10 minutes to reach France. And cyberattacks? They don’t recognise borders at all—cyber-warfare is already underway.
Currently, the French army has just over 200,000 troops. But how many could we realistically deploy in Ukraine to secure the border and a front line stretching hundreds of kilometres—while also managing rotations every three months and maintaining a presence in neighbouring countries like Romania or the Baltics?
The truth is, if France were attacked today, we’d be able to defend ourselves for no more than 15 days. Our strategy is built around nuclear deterrence, but would we actually use nuclear weapons against Russia? And how long would it take us to agree to extend our nuclear umbrella to protect other European states?
The real issue today is that political thinking no longer comes from engagement with civil society or an understanding of people’s lives. Instead, it largely stems from think tanks, which have little interest in events on the ground. These organisations tend to cater to the demands of those shaping public opinion, and their view of reality is often distorted. Diplomats, too, are no longer listened to as much as they once were.
— What needs to be done immediately, and how can we tackle the challenges of our time?
— The good news is that the EU must become stronger. The bad news is that it’s tough for 27 member states to reach a consensus. Could the EU form a core group of five or six leaders, with others following their lead? Will the UK cooperate with us on security? And can we strengthen military ties between the French, British, Germans, Italians, and Poles? We’ll see.
— Let’s assume this core group is formed and European security starts to function. But what happens if, in two years, the French elect Marine Le Pen, and she starts acting like Trump did in the U.S.?
— Right now, we can’t afford to treat any scenario as taboo, no matter how unlikely. We need to analyse all possibilities—even the most extreme ones.
— Could such a scenario involve the potential collapse of Russia?
— Hélène Carrère d’Encausse predicted the collapse of the USSR, but she got the direction wrong: she expected it to start in Central Asia, not the Baltic states. Just because someone is recognised as an expert doesn’t necessarily make them trustworthy.
Right now, since Putin hasn’t enforced conscription in major cities, the urban elites aren’t actively opposed to him. At the same time, even a small show of opposition from intellectuals reassures the Western public, as we want to believe civil society is alive and well. But Putin doesn’t face a real, structured opposition—one that might have developed in the late 2000s. His conscripts are mostly from rural areas. The balance of power in Russian society is such that there’s no immediate threat to the Kremlin’s authority.
— Do you hope that the war crimes committed by the Russian army will ever be addressed in international courts?
— Back in 2015, I studied the work of “Memorial” on war crimes in Chechnya. At the same time, they began documenting Russian war crimes in Ukraine, identifying specific battalions and individual perpetrators. It turned out that many of the same military units were involved on both fronts. Later, when I looked into Russia’s role in Syria, I realised that the same forces often operated there as well, having previously been active in Chechnya, Donbas, Luhansk, and Crimea. What we’re seeing now—the bombing of a maternity hospital or the Mariupol theatre—is essentially a repetition of the tactics we witnessed in Syria. If we find the courage to issue arrest warrants for these soldiers, their files won’t just be limited to crimes in Ukraine. We will be able to prosecute them for crimes committed elsewhere too.
Every morning, we hear about the latest bombings in Ukraine. But what’s important to note is that these missiles are launched from the same four or five Russian airbases, which have been in operation non-stop for the past three years.
Instead of focusing on target objectives, we should focus on the starting point. If these bombers have been taking off from the same bases for three years, we’re no longer just talking about a war crime. We’re talking about a crime against humanity—because it’s intentional, and it’s been happening repeatedly.
I was alarmed by the trial in the MH17 case. In the Dutch court, the accused were individuals from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, but there was no direct evidence linking Moscow to the tragedy. For various reasons, the investigators seemed reluctant to accuse Moscow of downing the plane.
Another example is Chersonesus in Crimea, a UNESCO World Heritage site. In 2015, satellite images surfaced showing the arrival of Russian troops at this archaeological site. Since then, we’ve gathered satellite images documenting its destruction, which culminated last year with the opening of a museum dedicated to the “glory of Novorossiya.” We can prove the dismantling of a UNESCO-listed archaeological site, a process that took place from 2015 to 2024. This is a crime against humanity. We have all the evidence, but who is currently handling this case in court? How many people in France even know about the transformation of this UNESCO site?
Just two or three months ago, we saw a post on social media from a company partnered with Gazprom. The company’s entire board of directors was pictured holding icons allegedly brought back from Kherson, with Russian Ministry of Culture officials standing nearby. This was proof of the desecration of cultural works. Below the photo was the Russian narrative: “In the face of the war threat provoked by the Ukrainians, we provided refuge for these works of art.”
When I first became interested in the destruction of art, I reached out to UNESCO for guidance. The response was striking: “There’s a major issue. Since Russia is a member of the organisation, we can only work on procedures for art restitution between Russia and Ukraine if the Ukrainian side has legal documentation for the pieces. But before 1991, acquiring such documents was either impossible or extremely difficult. And since 2022, when Russia began stealing artwork, they’ve been systematically destroying inventories and catalogs. This means Ukrainians now have to document their claims to each individual piece of art.” This was the first key observation.
The second came from Florence Hartmann, who, as part of our working group “For Ukraine, Its and Our Freedom!”, meticulously reviewed the laws passed by the Duma that justify the appropriation of artwork. It’s essentially a revival of Soviet-era planning at its worst. When we started discussing the situation with our Ukrainian partners, we realized that, more often than not, they were investigating crimes already committed on their territory. They were looking for the perpetrators of thefts or for missile fragments that had struck a specific museum. Their investigations typically began with the theft or destruction of the artwork. However, they didn’t always focus on the intent behind the crime—despite seeing the FSB or civilian administrators come in to inventory the museums. Our approach was complementary: while they investigated the crimes themselves, we focused on uncovering the intentionality behind those crimes.
Although “cultural genocide” is not a recognised term in international law, there are elements that suggest the crime of genocide is being compounded by the systematic destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage.
If the Council of Europe moves forward with establishing a tribunal for the crime of aggression, it would represent a significant step forward. We are witnessing crimes committed on European soil, and if the International Criminal Court were to cease its operations in the future, European courts must be empowered to prosecute crimes committed by Europeans. This would create a stronger argument for the necessity of international law, as we would have first applied it to ourselves. Europe already has conventions in place. Now, we simply need to uphold them.
— Do we have the resources to defeat the Russians, especially with Trump’s support for them?
— It’s tempting to think a peace deal with Putin could halt the war for two or three years, but that’s not realistic. There’s a simple reason for that: Russia is running a war economy. Half of Russia’s economy is dedicated to the war effort. Putin can’t just throw all these people out and tell them to stop working.
It’s becoming hard to trust what the Americans say. Elon Musk is undermining security mechanisms. What guarantees can we rely on? It feels like irreversible changes are taking place in the occupied regions. I hesitate to say this, but can we peacefully reclaim territories that have been fully russified, with populations now devoid of any Ukrainian culture, in 5, 10, or 15 years? It will be an uphill battle.
Appeasing the aggressor is a strategy from 1938. The French have forgotten what it’s like to live through a war. And the more information we have, the harder it becomes to process it and recognise that we’re losing perspective. When I mention that there are 350,000 people in Ukraine with disabilities from the war—those who have lost limbs—it’s hard for people to grasp the scale of the social issue this will create for generations.
I have deep admiration for the Ukrainians! Here, people can’t fathom that children are doing their homework in bunkers. But when I watch documentaries being made, even amid the war, and witness the resilience of the Ukrainian people facing daily bombardments, I think to myself: I’ve never seen anything like it.
