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When Donald Trump sits down with Vladimir Putin in Alaska this week, the ghost of 1938 will be in the room. Not because Trump is Chamberlain, but because Greater Europe faces the same fundamental choice: assert agency by punishing aggression, or live with the consequences.
The Kremlin’s objectives have not shifted: wipe Ukraine from the map, break NATO, and erode American power. To grant legitimacy to such an agenda in talks with a wanted war criminal is to betray peace – not bring it closer.
European leaders understand this, but it merits relentless repetition: there is no conflict in Ukraine, no tension between two sides with competing claims. There is a war of choice that Moscow wages – a criminal act under the UN Charter. It will end, not when Ukraine stops defending, but when Russia stops attacking.
In March, Ukraine accepted an unconditional ceasefire proposed by Washington. Moscow didn’t just reject it, but escalated its wanton violence. April. May. June. July. Schools, hospitals, kindergartens, apartment blocks, even a sleeper train – bombed. The latest attack on Kyiv took 31 innocent lives, twelve children among the injured.
But let’s be frank: if you live in Western Europe, you may support Ukraine and scorn Russia, but this is not your war. It is their war. And if they – the Russians, the Ukrainians, whoever they are – could just abandon their savage ways, we, the dignified and enlightened, could go back to our normal, peaceful lives.
It’s a natural reflex to disassociate from horror, to avoid the burden of reckoning with genocide in plain sight. Russians are killing Ukrainians for daring to exist, and Europe – fully capable of stopping it – has chosen not to for over eleven years now. Layered on top is the ever-present orientalism, dividing the world into the civilised and the uncivilised.
But this latent othering of Ukrainians – the first to die beneath an EU banner that still counted Britain among its own back in 2014 – is a moral failure, a historic regret in the making, and a one-way ticket to a much bigger war. One that has been at Europe’s door for years, knocking louder with each passing season.
The moment we realise that Ukrainians are not them but us, the imperative becomes clear: mobilise every resource to drive the aggressor out of Europe, out of Ukraine that is.
Here’s how: seize Russia’s frozen assets and put them to work defending Ukraine. Arm Ukraine not in dribs and drabs, but fully – with the long-range missiles and precision tools needed to expel the invaders. Extend Europe’s protective shield over Ukrainian skies. And finally, stop talking about resolve and show it – raise defence spending not because America is losing its patience, but because European security demands it. Not because Europe is spoiling for a fight with Russia, but so it won’t have to fight.
None of this is charity. In fact, Kyiv is a deeply underappreciated security provider for Europe, if not the ultimate guarantor. The uncomfortable truth is this: if Ukraine falls, Europe won’t be debating whether to confront Russia, but when.
Until this realisation takes hold among the public, European politicians will struggle to act decisively in the face of criminal aggression. Wars of conquest don’t end until a winning coalition emerges to hold the revanchist belligerent to account. A capitulation dressed up as diplomacy – while Russia still occupies Ukrainian land – will not bring peace. Half-measures will invite more war. That’s not conjecture; it’s how we got here.
In 1938, Neville Chamberlain dismissed Czechoslovakia as “a faraway country of which we know nothing.” That fiasco emboldened the Nazis and paved the way for catastrophe. Europe’s failure to confront Russia’s aggression against Georgia – in 2008, and Ukraine in 2014, and again in 2022 – is the same mistake, repeated.
The mental divide between us and them is no accident. For centuries, Moscow controlled the narrative about Ukraine, portraying it as a territory, not a nation. Meanwhile, Ukrainians have had to fight not only for sovereignty but for agency as a people among European peers to this day.
The medieval Kyivan kingdom was no frontier outpost, but a centre of European civilisation – its legal codes written and democratic traditions taking root while much of the West remained provincial backwaters. Kyivan Rus’ thrived for more than 600 years before Moscow even appeared on the map. Yet later, Moscovia – an imperial upstart – claimed that legacy as its own, distorting perceptions and casting Ukraine as peripheral.
How can we not see Ukraine’s courage as a profound gift? While Europe argues over how much to give, they stand and fight. And how do we know Europe hasn’t done enough? Because Russia’s marauding army remains, dug in on European land – in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea. Still there. Still killing, raping and torturing.
We can and must change course. It starts by setting aside poisonous arrogance and allowing ourselves to be inspired by how much Ukrainians have sacrificed for Europe. Now it’s our turn. Ukraine will deliver peace to Europe – but only if Europe finally declares: We are in this together. Not just with Ukraine for as long as it takes, but united, ready to punish the aggressor – because there is no other way this war truly ends.