Let us open our eyes. Tons of euros bought so many votes in Moldova that the country almost fell back into the Russian orbit. In Romania, the Kremlin, with its algorithms and its chequebooks, put an unknown pro-Russian candidate in a position to win the first round of a presidential election that the Constitutional Court had to annul. In Georgia, pro-European demonstrators who continued to denounce the rigging of the recent parliamentary elections were met with an increasingly brutal crackdown.
While he is losing his foothold in the Middle East, Vladimir Putin is working day and night to reconstitute the Soviet bloc, and what is at stake in Ukraine is not just the country’s independence. It is the freedom of the whole of Europe that the Ukrainians are defending, because on a continent like ours, from which the United States is retreating, the balance of power could very quickly tip in favour of the world’s largest country, Russia, backed by China, the world’s second largest economy.
As in Georgia, Moldova and Romania, the fear of war is making many European voters want to come to terms with Moscow. Although Russia has only managed to seize a fifth of Ukraine’s territory in three years, political parties on the far right, far left and elsewhere, a prime minister in Hungary and perhaps others soon, are arguing for appeasing the aggressor by conceding today Ukraine and tomorrow, if need be, other parts of its former empire.
Fanned by Vladimir Putin and his threats to use nuclear weapons, this fear of war is burrowing under our political scenes, and let us make no mistake about it. If Donald Trump were to make a deal with the Russians to partition Ukraine and forbid any alliance with the remainder of an independent Ukraine, if Vladimir Putin were to emerge tomorrow victorious from the war he has started, many European countries would choose to make an arrangement with him. That would be the end of our unity, and we would be so weakened that Russia’s red lines would be imposed all over us, as they were on Finland during the Cold War.
Either we decide to really stand by Ukraine, or we settle for the semi-independence of powerless vassals. Either we prepare to shoulder the military and financial burden of supporting Kiev alone, without the United States, or Russia will become the dominant power in the Old World. Either those Europeans who want to do so join forces to stand in Vladimir Putin’s way, or we will no longer count.
“But you are dreaming! The game is up!”, many will say, explaining that we have neither the forces nor the budgets to make up for Donald Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine. You can hear that already, but Joe Biden is working to ensure that the United States provides the Ukrainians with enough weapons and money to last until the summer. That will give us time to organise a common European front with Poland, France, Britain and Germany, the Germany that will emerge from the polling booths in February.
If these four powers close ranks, other European capitals will follow. Opinions will change. Frozen Russian assets will finance the necessary efforts, and we will find out that Vladimir Putin cannot afford a prolonged war in Ukraine, just as he could not afford to defend his Syrian ally; that European resistance is forcing him to make real compromises; that Donald Trump would have no reason to help a loser; and that a Europe capable of asserting itself would be in a position to negotiate balanced relations with the United States, Africa, China and Russia. We have a choice, provided we make it quickly and without hesitation.
(Photo: Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)