Europe is talking itself into war with Russia. The bust up between Ukraine and America in the last days has not only been the most dramatic split between the two since the famous Oval Office fracas in February last year, but is also pushing Europe into more and more extreme positions to protect and help its friend Ukraine.
But with no negotiations between Brussels and Moscow of any sort, the danger of escalating to the point when actual hostilities between Russia and Europe break out are growing alarmingly. The problem is European leaders are getting caught up in their own hyperbole and the chances of a mistake that sparks a major conflict are growing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the US has “betrayed” Ukraine. He is right. And has been for at least two years, when it became too obvious to ignore.
Europe doesn’t want to hear it. “Some things are best not said out loud,” one MEP advised Zelenskiy after he let go in public during an EU summit yesterday.
One take on his outburst is that he has painted himself into a corner and now it’s clear no one is going to come and help Ukraine fend off a Russian winter onslaught that is already under way he has nothing to lose. As I argued yesterday, Trump’s “energy ceasefire” was probably the last chance this year to stop the war before Putin’s total war of destruction rains down on Ukraine.
The tone in Europe has changed remarkably in the last year. Ukraine’s extraordinary reliance and heroism in the first year of swashbuckling teams of three wielding US-made Javelin missiles “popping the tops” of Russian tanks quickly led to the first Ramstein meeting on April 26 that year where the billions of dollars-worth of gear began to flow. But from the very beginning Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made it perfectly clear that the West’s number one priority was to “prevent WWIII” and that helping Ukraine was a distant second.
“Nato is not sending troops to be on the ground. We also have a responsibility to prevent this conflict from escalating beyond Ukraine, and become even more deadly, even more dangerous and destructive,” he said in April 2022.
That has changed now where European countries are actively setting up weapons factories on their own territory to arm Ukraine under the so-called Danish model, which has invited mounting hybrid attacks by Russia inside Europe proper. Ukraine is backed into the corner and the fighting talk has started again. But much of the rhetoric is delusional and Europe is running the danger of unintentionally starting the very third world war it has been trying to avoid for the last four and half years.
No peace talks: For all his faults, Trump did actively try to facilitate a peace deal that culminated in the 27-point peace plan (27PPP) during the Moscow meeting on December 3 carrying through from the Alaska summit on August 15. Admittedly, that deal was very Kremlin-friendly, but it was a workable deal along the lines of the Finlandisation of Ukraine. That initiative led to the Trump administration’s “final offer” offered at a London summit, which was rejected by Bankova thanks to the backing of the coalition of the willing in London in April last year.
No interlocutor: Since then, the White House took itself out of the talks completely following the start of the Iran war in February this year. The EU tried to step into the breach, but the effort to find a suitable interlocutor that could deal with the Kremlin rapidly descended into farce. Instead of coming up with someone that Putin would accept, the discussion descended into hot air statements of “increasing the pressure” on Putin.
There are now no talks with the Kremlin at all. Without a rapporteur there is no prospect of ending the war; in this set up there can only be escalation with Russia into a global conflict or defeat for Ukraine. A Ukrainian victory has been written off as an option by the West from the very beginning.
Schroeder so be it: the one European name Putin did suggest was ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who was in Moscow on October 7 to celebrate Putin’s 74 birthday. That was widely seen as risible and dismissed out of hand. But I would argue that Trump is an even worse choice as intermediator as he is far more “pro-Putin” than Schoeder.
He has pushed the Kremlin’s agenda at every turn, as he clearly wants to go into business with Russia. Since taking office he has imposed only one set of oil sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft. He just signed Lindsey Graham’s ‘hellish sanctions' that in theory could break Russia’s economic back, but within weeks the first thing he actually did was to ease diesel sanctions on Russia.
After the Miami meeting with the Dynamic Envoy Due the so-called Dmitriev package of deals worth an astonishing $12 trillion seems to be back in play and there is talk of more sanctions relief. Just this weekend the US suggested that part of the $300bn frozen in Europe should be handed over to the US to do joint venture investments with Russia as Kyiv faces its Battle of Britain moment of a non-stop missile barrage that is already turning out the lights and heat across Ukraine.
Yes, Schroeder is a very good friend of Putin’s but at least he is a proper politician with presumably some sense of duty to his fellow countrymen. Trump’s “energy ceasefire” tweet showed he is a rank amateur and incompetent to boot. Good relations with Putin is probably an advantage in talks. What is the alternative? Send EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who on paper should be the person to go, but is obviously a total non-starter. The bottom line is someone has to go to Moscow and if Schroeder is the only choice – so be it. If you don’t like his deal, then reject it.
US actively working for Ukraine’s defeat: Trump is now not only not supporting Ukraine, he seems to be actively working to facilitate its defeat. Today it was reported that Ukraine has officially run out of Patriot interceptor missiles completely. But the throttling of Starlink in the last two days took Ukraine’s vaulted drones offline too. That means that the AFU cannot even hit Russian troops inside their own country, let alone targets deep inside Russia.
The skies are wide open. Over the last two days Russian missiles have not only destroyed what was left of Kyiv’s power generation capacity, but are now actively targeting the substations that feed from the remaining nuclear power capacity. Trump has not only withdrawn what little support the US did supply but is also ordering Europe to curtail its Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) weapons supply programme for Ukraine.
Sanctions have failed: the only plan that the EU has is to “increase the pressure” on Russia with more sanctions. It just released the 21st and 22nd sanctions packages, but these are having almost no effect. The 21st sanctions package was supposed to be crushing but they were gutted by calving out Greek tankers which make up a fifth of the shadow fleet and carried a record amount of oil last month. Von der Leyen has just introduced some exemptions into the 22nd package for business reasons. Russia continues to be able to fund its war out of its cashflow, while Europe and Ukraine are racking up ever more debt.
Budget constraints: Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte likes to boast that the economic might of the EU can crush Russia’s war economy like a walnut, but he hasn’t done the math. While the size of Europe’s economy is much larger than Russia’s it has largely become a service economy. China and Russia between them remain global manufacturing powerhouses and in war it is industrial production, not wealth, that counts.
Russia’s economy is under pressure, but it is not under enough pressure to stop the war and won’t be for at least two more years, former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky told IntelliNews this week. Indeed, Russia is already in a full-scale war but its factories are running three shifts 24/7. In contrast the dysfunctional European economy is slipping into crisis. Everyone in Europe is now spending more than the Welsh Nato summit recommended 2% of GDP, but only Poland and the Baltic states are near the 5% recommended at the Nato summit in the Hague. By comparison Russia’s 7.5% of GDP defence spending looks relatively restrained.
Russia’s debt will increase to around 21% of GDP this year whereas almost all of Europe is already well over the Maastricht maximum of 60% of GDP. Servicing that debt is becoming increasingly painful. Typically the government tries to hold debt servicing costs to 4% of government spending and Russia is already at 8%. But half of the rest of Europe is already well over the maximum 3% EU’s Excessive Deficit threshold mandate with France well over 5% and will probably need a Greek-style bail out by the ECB. The UK is at a whopping 10%, dubbed “Ponzi scheme” levels by economics commentator Liam Halligan. Most of Europe has already used up what little fiscal wiggle room it had to fund a war.
Russia also has a growing budget deficit problem, which is on course to end this year at just under 4% of GDP, but when the US entered WWII its deficit immediately jumped to 22% of GDP and remained there for the duration; Russia’s budget deficit is not going to force Putin to stop the war, whereas Ukraine’s might if the EU stops funding it. Kyiv says that it is already short $28bn for this year and next year’s is expected to climb to $75bn – almost all of which is covered by external borrowing.
Legitimate military targets: Since the US stopped supplying weapons Brussels has promised to step into America’s shoes, but as IntelliNews reported, Europe has not been able to offset US arms supplies and European military supplies to Ukraine fell for the first time last year. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s €800bn ReArm programme to modernise Europe’s military has also only just gotten under way.
The work around has been to set up defence joint production on EU territory and dozens of projects have been launched. However, this is very risky as the Kremlin is arguing that this changes Europe from being a mere “supporter” of Ukraine to an “active participant” in the war with Russia. The issue came up with British-made Nyan drones that Ukraine is using to target the sensitive parts of Russian oil refineries that are manufactured in Wiltshire. The Kremlin has said that these factories are now “legitimate military targets.”
The assumption is that these EU-based factories are immune from Russian attack thanks to Nato’s Article 5 clause, but that is only true for as long as it is true. No one is expecting Russian missiles to start coming down in Wiltshire, but it is already clearing a rise in sabotage, arson and hybrid attacks on EU territory. That is a mistake waiting to happen.
Asymmetric war deficit: Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski boasted a week ago that EU forces would defeat Russia in “six weeks” thanks to its superior airpower, but that ignores Russia’s overwhelming advantage in drones and the new style of asymmetrical war that is now the norm. Russia is on course to produce about 1.5mn drones this year, whereas Europe’s entire production is estimated to be around 300,000. And the Kremlin has poured money into development and now operates one of the most technologically advanced fleets of drones in the world – currently it is ahead of even Ukraine. And it is streets ahead of Europe in both missile production and innovations.
Russia’s economic assets were all hard-topped already during the Cold War and since then it has deployed extensive air defences across the country, whereas Europe is largely unprotected. And Russia has deployed intermediate range missiles like the Oreshnik and the Iskander in Kaliningrad, The Crimea and Belarus that can hit most cities in Europe. Neither Ukraine nor America have any hypersonic missiles at all and are unable to stop them. What few Patriot systems Europe did have, have already been mostly donated to Ukraine.
More generally, simple things like supplying itself with diesel will be a major problem for Europe and no problem at all for Russia. The Polish drone incursion last September, underscored how thorough unprepared Europe is to fend off a thousand-strong Russian drone swarm attack. Plans for a “Drone wall” remain just that – a plan.
Nato in collapse: In the meantime Trump is also actively undermining the Nato guarantee. The new National Security Strategy (NSS) released last December was almost scathing about the EU and says that Europe is now responsible for its own protection. Russia is now a European, not American, problem. Moreover, US military leaders have told Europe that the US will pull out of many of its European functions in 2027. In particular, Nato European logistics is entirely under the command of one US general, but he will be withdrawn next year, and control of logistics will be given to a committee made up of all 27 members. In addition, this will require massive investment as the battle plan goes from a US force arriving on Europe’s coast two weeks after a Russian attack and moving east, to moving European material from southern Europe to northern Europe and much of the necessary infrastructure to do that is missing. Whether the US will come to Europe’s aid at all if Russia attacks remains an open question. For his part, Putin has repeatedly said that Russia has no intention of attacking Europe, for whatever that is worth.
EU Political chaos: Marianne Le Penn is on the way to take over from French President Emmanuel Macron next year and said yesterday if she wins the election she will cut off Ukraine’s funding. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has already opted out of the €90bn EU loan and said yesterday that Slovakia would not contribute to any future funding plans either. The AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) just took control of its first region ever, is now the most popular party in Germany, and has opened talks with Moscow to turn Russia’s gas supplies back on.
Right-wing populist parties are on the rise across the EU and already also control Italy, Finland, Czechia and Austria. At the same time the incumbent liberal-conservatives are in retreat. Macron is already almost a lame duck. With only a 10% approval rating, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is close to collapse and he will be replaced in 2029. And even Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar, who replaced Putin’s biggest ally in Europe, Viktor Orban, is better described as a national popularist than a European team player; he has refused to cut off Russian supplies of gas.
An even bigger question would be if a war broke out would Europe’s citizens be willing to go to war and fight and die in the wheat fields of Ukraine? That remains an open question, but the rise of the right across the Continent suggests very strongly that they would not be. Milbloggers have dismissed the recent talk of an “imminent Russian attack on Nato” as nonsense as the bulk of the Russian equipment and men are bogged down in the Donbas, but Putin has yet to call for a general mobilisation and could up to another half a million men into the field very quickly. And as the Russian public have largely swallowed the Kremlin’s rhetoric that Russia is already fighting a proxy war with Nato, they probably would be willing to fight Europe.
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