Henry Kissinger is 99 years old and many in Davos think he's still there.

In fact, it is “only” a video switch.

But the space into which Kissinger's words are translated cannot accommodate the many people who want to listen carefully to what the former United States Secretary of State is saying with his life experience: Kissinger believes the end of the war in Ukraine is possible the moment in where the lines that existed before the war have been reached.

This is the 2014 front line, along Crimea and the occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk.

There you could freeze the front, then agree on a ceasefire and prevent further escalation.

Carsten Knop

Editor.

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"Russia will not win the war by conventional means," Kissinger is convinced.

"But we must also prevent the war from being carried to Russia." Kissinger is full of admiration for Ukraine's military defenses.

But in the further course it is also a question of Russia having to become part of the international system again.

Kissinger thereby clarified sucks from the previous World Economic Forum in May 2022, which had brought him criticism, even from the President of Ukraine himself, who compared Kissinger's proposals at the time to the policy towards Adolf Hitler and the Munich Agreement in 1938.

Kissinger now tried to avoid and counter such criticism – with praise for Ukraine and its president, but above all with the pointing out that Ukraine could no longer be neutral but had to be admitted to NATO.

That is a "reasonable" result.

Kissinger, who was Secretary of State in the days of Richard Nixon and Mao Tse-tung, also recommended de-escalation on another arena of world politics.

From his time back then and the talks with Mao and Nixon, he didn't draw any lessons for the current situation in Taiwan.

However, he recommends that both sides do nothing that could be interpreted in such a way that a conflict is now imminent: "Cool down - and do everything possible not to use language of threat towards the other," is Kissinger's recommendation, which is also published in the old age hopes that a better world is possible.