Germany, Putin's scourge

Vladimir Putin is intensifying both his full-scale war against Ukraine and his shadow war against the rest of Europe. His main goal against Europe is to end the support that the continent gives to Ukraine, in order to be able to subjugate the country, a milestone he considers existential both for the future of Russia and for his own future. While in Europe we must prepare as well as we can to defend ourselves against all kinds of hybrid attacks, the central axis of our response should be to redouble support for Ukraine. Ukraine is his main target. It is there – and only there, not in a struggle of a thousand small hybrid attacks – where Putin's Russia can be defeated and effectively deterred.

In a shocking new book titled Why Russia will not stop [Why Russia will not stop], German historian Martin Schulze Wessel demonstrates how Putin's policy is framed within a very old Russian tradition of territorial expansionism and desires for hegemony, combined with an imperialist ideology steeped in religion. Schulze Wessel reminds us that, in 2016, Putin stated that "Russia's border does not end" and, in 2025, that "wherever a Russian soldier's boot steps, it is ours". Western Europeans, who mistakenly believe that this kind of brutal territorial imperialism is in the dustbin of history, tend to think that there must be some other explanation for the Kremlin's attitude (for example, something we did "wrong", such as the eastward expansion of NATO). Finns, Estonians, and Poles know this is not the case. Despite Russia's weaknesses, the author concludes, this is "the most dangerous country in the world". Perhaps some in Asia would question this strong assertion, but, undoubtedly, Russia is the most dangerous country for Europe.

Schulze Wessel poses another simple yet very pertinent question: Russia's expansion has always been facilitated by cooperation with other great powers and hindered when it has had to face equivalent and opposing powers. Since Donald Trump's return to the White House last year, the United States has ceased to be what it was and, often, resembles what it did not want to be. Thus, it is Europe that has had to assume the responsibility of being the equivalent and opposing power. Europe (including the United Kingdom) has allocated more aid to Ukraine than the USA. Their combined economies are ten times larger than Russia's; the German economy, on its own, is twice as large.

And it is Germany that now occupies a central role in this European effort. In cumulative terms, since the start of the full-scale war in 2022, Germany has been the leading individual donor country of aid to Ukraine, with the exception of the USA. According to the tracking done by the Kiel Institute, it has provided twice as much aid as Great Britain or France. While the population of Kyiv and Odesa suffers daily from attacks by ballistic missiles and Putin's jet drones, it is worth examining the Kiel Institute's figures on air defense systems. So far, Germany has donated nineteen, including five Patriot air defense batteries –of American manufacture–; that is two more than the United States itself has donated.

During the first year of the war, I argued in these pages that Germany had "a unique historical responsibility to help defend a free and sovereign Ukraine." Back then, I was firmly convinced that Germany was not yet doing what was required of it. Now, in the fifth year of a war that has already lasted longer than the First World War and shows no signs of ending, I can state without hesitation that it is indeed doing so. It is not just about the numerical magnitude of its support for Ukraine and the increase in its own defense spending. There is also a question of political will. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has demonstrated this will and courage by traveling by train from Germany to Ukraine on the evening of October 3rd – on the 36th anniversary of German reunification – with a significant delegation that included leaders of the defense industry. In those days, Russian bombings against civilian targets in the center of Kyiv did not stop, even though Moscow knew that the German leader was present (or perhaps, precisely, for that reason).

For a historian, all of this feels very familiar. Oh, no: Germany and Russia once again! However, each situation is different. Historically, Germany is one of the powers that has contributed most to facilitating Russian expansion (let us recall the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939), but also one of those that has threatened it the most. During the First World War, and even tangentially during the Second, some Ukrainian nationalists saw in the conflict between Germany and Russia an opportunity to achieve independence. Instead, what they obtained was the colonialism of Imperial Germany (and, subsequently, the German defeat) in the first case, and Hitler's genocidal fascism (and, subsequently, the German defeat) in the second.

Now, at last, Germany has truly committed itself—assuming certain costs and risks—to the sovereignty of Ukraine. For anyone who knows the complex history behind it, this commitment is not only redeeming, but frankly inspiring: to see a democratic Germany exercising a leadership role in supporting the historical aspiration of an independent Ukraine to occupy the place that corresponds to it in a broader European community of free countries.

But for how long? And with what support from the rest of Europe? Precisely because Putin is aware of Germany's central role, the country is one of the main targets of his hybrid war: from explosive-laden drones at Leipzig airport and assassination threats against defense industry executives to covert political interference and disinformation. Now, as Ukraine faces its toughest winter yet, three closely linked questions will be put to the test: Germany's willingness to maintain its commitment to the right side of history; the ability of democracies to sustain the fight against a dictatorship, and Europe's ability to remain united in this cause.

Skeptics can point to many reasons for pessimism. Merz is unpopular in his country. The AfD, the party that currently sets the pace for German politics, would abandon Ukraine to the hands of Russia. In France, the presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, claims that they cannot afford to continue giving so much to Ukraine. Solidarity with Ukraine is also cracking on the Polish right, with two minority parties that are openly anti-Ukrainian. In an opinion poll conducted in Italy last month, more than half of the respondents were against continuing to send weapons to Kyiv.

Recently, in Brussels, I found a broad audience that was apparently firm in its support for Ukraine. That is until, at the very end of the debate in which I was participating, the use of Russian assets frozen in Belgium was discussed. Ah, that is a different story... However, given the serious damage suffered by the Ukrainian economy –including grain exports through the Black Sea–, experts calculate that by 2027 alone, up to 100 billion euros of additional support for Kyiv could be needed (funds currently not foreseen), and European taxpayers, already under great pressure, are not willing to assume this expense.

Putin believes that the decadent European democracies will collapse in the face of the iron determination of an imperialist and authoritarian leader. Our task is to prove him wrong.