Roland Duchâtelet is ondernemer en voorzitter van Xtrion, de holding boven de halfgeleiderproducenten Melexis en X-Fab. Hij is als investeerder en ondernemer wereldwijd actief, onder meer ook in Oost-Europa.
Reclaiming lost land
The Ukraine war caught most leading European industry leaders by surprise. We all thought Russian were friendly people just like we are. In fact we still think that. The problem has now been named by US president Biden: not the Russians but their leader Putin is the problem. However, to avoid ever increasing cost in human lives and loss of accumulated wealth demonstrated in previous wars, our political leaders have wisely decided to avoid escalation of the war unless Putin would. It is wise for European countries not to get involved in this war unless the aggressor takes on European territory. There are certainly historical situations which explain why Russia did “take back” Crimea and now wants Donbas as well, since they were part of Russia some time ago.