I am writing to you from Russia, from a Moscow I know and which is foreign to me at the same time. Here, in the silence of the enslaved newspapers and the constant violence of propaganda, the word ‘peace’ is but a distant echo. Yet, today, from thousands of miles away, comes news that has the sound of a promise: in Palestine and Israel, the war has fallen silent, at least for a moment. A truce has been announced, and for the first time after years of bloodshed and rubble, the squares are no longer shouting with terror, but with joy.

I repeat: it is fragile, cracked, imperfect. It is a broken vessel that still manages to quench its thirst. But precisely for this reason it is worth twice as much, because it shows that hope can be rekindled even when it seems extinguished forever. He who wept yesterday dances today, he who was a hostage yesterday raises his hands to the sky today. It is not the ultimate peace, we know that. But it is a beginning, and it is our duty to cherish it.

Peace as a universal challenge

As a Russian who believes in Europe, I do not see in this truce only a local fact. It speaks to the entire West. It shows that peace is not an abstract utopia, but a concrete political task, to be assumed and defended. And it warns us: if not defended, peace is devoured by the cynicism of autocracies.

I know what I am talking about. The Putin regime lives by institutionalised lies. It governs according to two rules that Machiavelli would have recognised: force while force is enough, cunning when force is no longer enough. It is an ancient thought that today is dressed up in modern tools: media manipulation, construction of external enemies, colonisation of public discourse through post-truth.

It is no coincidence that the Kremlin benefits from every war that divides the West. It is no coincidence that the massacre of 7 October 2023, which we remember as a day of bloodshed and horror, coincided with Putin’s birthday: the coincidence, of course, is coincidental, but the way Russian propaganda has exploited it is not. On that day, the world’s attention shifted from Ukraine to the Middle East. For the Kremlin it was an unexpected gift.

Italy, a fragile laboratory

In this context, Italy, more than other countries, is vulnerable. Already in the 1970s it was a laboratory of political violence, of red and black terrorism, of external and internal infiltrations that used social unease as a weapon. In 2002, the murder of Marco Biagi reminded us once again how thin the line between social conflict and political destabilisation is.

Today the pattern repeats itself. Italy is polarised: on the one hand a government that refuses to recognise the Palestinian state, on the other an opposition that rides the discontent of the squares. In between, the inability to build a common line. This is exactly what Russian propaganda hopes for: a divided West, incapable of guarding even its own fundamental principles.

Let us not deceive ourselves: statements by marginal but noisy figures, such as those who openly proclaim to be ‘anti-Nato and anti-Meloni’, are not just political folklore. They are signals. They are indications of a strategy that seeks to undermine any space for moderation, reinforcing mirror extremism.

A cautionary tale

Those familiar with Russian history cannot be surprised. From the partition of Poland in the 18th century, to the tsarist wars over the Black Sea, to the Soviet expansion after 1945, Moscow has always tried to push its borders towards Europe. The weapon has changed: yesterday the army, today disinformation. But the goal is the same.

And we in the West often forget that freedom is fragile. We rely on an ideological pacifism that may have noble roots but, bent by propaganda, becomes an instrument of division. We pretend to believe that NATO is the real danger, forgetting that without its existence half of Europe would have remained behind the Wall.

Guarding the dawn

That is why the truce in Palestine concerns us. We cannot just be moved by the children smiling in Gaza or the mothers embracing their liberated children in Israel. We must understand that this truce is also a message to us: if the West does not know how to guard peace when it appears, it will never be able to defend it when it is threatened.

This is where dignity comes in. Dignity means acknowledging our historical faults without using them as an alibi for paralysis. It means understanding that the West, while imperfect, remains today the only space where freedom and rights are not empty words. It means uniting when autocracies try to divide us, and not giving up the task of pacifying.

Conclusion: the duty of the West

Today, from this fragile truce, an appeal begins. We, Westerners, must choose whether to let it sprout or let it die out. It is not a question of sympathy for this or that government, it is not a question of parties. It is a question of civilisation.

I write to you from the shadows, but as part of the West. Not as a spectator, but as a brother. Because we Russians who resist the regime also know that we belong to a common European history.

I know: it is still night. But in Palestine and Israel, a ray of dawn has broken through. It is fragile, distant, but real. And it does not belong to just one people: it belongs to all humanity.

Our task is to guard it, defend it, make it grow. Because if we let it die out, we will have handed victory to the autocracies. If we defend it, we will be able to say that we have given meaning, once again, to the word ‘West’.