Europe appears fatally distracted

Despite the hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties, and the vast loss of tanks, artillery pieces, and other military equipment, Vladimir Putin gave a bullish assessment of his chances in the Ukraine war at a press conference on Thursday. He said that 617,000 Russian soldiers are currently fighting in Ukraine, almost twice the number the army had at the start of the invasion. The Russian president has also been buoyed by the events unfolding in Western capitals. “Freeloading” Kyiv would eventually run out of Western aid, he claimed, while his own troops are now on the front foot. 

The willingness of the Western allies to continue giving the Ukrainians the support they need to withstand Russia’s onslaught is clearly being tested. Washington has been locked in an interminable row over whether to release billions more in aid. In Brussels, EU leaders agreed to open negotiations for Ukraine’s accession to the bloc, but it was a struggle. The West has never truly been united in its determination to help the Ukrainians win. But as the war has dragged on, resolve has steadily been weakening.

Putin, by contrast, has not wavered from his ambition to wipe Ukraine from the map. That is the problem with those calling for some sort of accommodation. Even if the Russians were to agree to a cessation in hostilities in return for keeping the land they currently occupy, there would be no guarantee that they would stick to the deal for long. Given the lamentable failure of European countries to rearm since the invasion began in February 2022, the Kremlin would surely be right to calculate that it could come back for another try in a few years’ time. 

Indeed, it would have been better if EU leaders had been debating how to rebuild the hollowed out European defence industry than contemplating the distant matter of Ukraine’s future accession. While Kyiv’s ambition to signal that it is a European nation, not a mere tributary of the Russian empire, is obviously laudable, the country is hardly likely to join the bloc while still fighting a war for its own survival.

The EU also has to confront the possibility that the United States will no longer be able or willing to carry the bulk of the burden of supporting Ukraine – or indeed of defending Europe itself. Obsessed with its own petty disputes and pointless factionalism, there is no sign that it has even begun to do that.