Ukraine and the EU's position in the world
Europe is suffering a protracted and purposeful aggression from Russia. The disproportion between the triviality of the war's justifications and the magnitude of the harm inflicted makes the situation difficult for Russia itself to resolve. It has resulted in 280,000 deaths, 800,000 injuries, and 6 million displaced persons, as well as material damage exceeding €175 billion, according to the World Bank. The arbitrary nature of the aggression makes its recurrence likely if the conflict ends without reparations.
The Russian aggression has caused significant harm to the civilian population and has been met with Ukrainian attacks on industrial facilities in Russian territory, adding to the economic damage caused by the war and sanctions. The growth of the Russian economy has suffered as a result of the conflict.
On December 5, 1994, the Budapest Memorandum was signed, by which Ukraine returned its nuclear arsenal to Russia, a third of the arsenal the USSR had possessed. The treaty, signed by the US, UK, France, China, and Russia, guaranteed the inviolability of the signatories' borders, and therefore, of Ukraine's. President Clinton stated: "Our commitment to the independence and sovereignty of the signatory states is firm and absolute."
In Ukraine, not everyone approved of the agreement. Within the military, some considered the decision "romantic and premature," but the situation was different from today. Russia, under President Boris Yeltsin, did not pose a threat to the West, and international pressure to keep nuclear weapons under control was significant. There were fears that they would fall into the hands of countries likely to sell them to third parties, such as radical Islamist states. It was still the era when Islamic terrorism was active. The attack on the Twin Towers in New York would occur a few years later, in 2001.
In 1996, Kyiv returned all of Ukraine's nuclear weapons to Russia. In 2014, Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum by invading Crimea. In 2022, it did so a second time when it invaded northern Ukraine. The initiative failed; Russian military tactics were flawed. Russian army vehicles became trapped on the access road to Kyiv.
As the Warsaw Pact countries transitioned to democracy, their integration into the Common Market, the EU, and NATO became unstoppable. This fueled citizens' desire for closer ties with Europe. The EU was a political structure that offered citizens greater freedoms and, of course, a higher standard of living. Through neglect and disdain for Russia, then struggling with the resounding collapse of communism, NATO expanded eastward. This fostered a sense of threat in Russia, which, while more imagined than real, helped cultivate the sentiment Putin needed to refocus the country on a nationalistic agenda that had been superseded.
These days the US has been negotiating with Russia to end the war with a peace agreement based on territory. At least initially, the EU and Ukraine were not consulted. Confidence in the 28 points of Trump's peace plan is low. There has been a similar ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and every week Israel causes dozens of deaths among Gazans.
The EU's situation is precarious. The US has openly disregarded it. China is aware of Europe's trade dependence, and by doing nothing, it strengthens its own position.
The only European military force with nuclear weapons independent of the US is the French. This is not the case for the United Kingdom, which depends on US technology and, therefore, on its approval for deployment. The French force was created by De Gaulle, the "force de frappe", and has remained operational ever since. Only France can negotiate with Russia in a truly independent and credible way from the US, and it can do so thanks to its significant and autonomous military power.
The EU now has two alternatives. The first is to accept a territorial peace in Ukraine under the US umbrella. This would mean ceding territories to Russia that it has not yet fully conquered, and waiting, without guarantees, for it not to attack Ukraine or any other European state again, contrary to what it has done in the last 30 years, during which it has been responsible for cyberattacks and election interference (France, the US, Romania), and has financed foreign political parties in Azerbaijan. In short, it would be trusting someone who cannot be trusted.
The second is France, which, financed and with the political and economic support of the EU, could provide weapons to Ukraine, long-range missiles, military aircraft, drones. Russian funds deposited in EU banks, 275 billion euros, seized by European institutions for this purpose, could be used. While it can be argued that France is weak and President Macron even weaker, this action would give him prestige, improve the confidence of the French people, and make it easier for him to win the next presidential elections rather than the far right. There are drawbacks related to the legal certainty of the EU's economic environment, but these are not insurmountable due to the war. It constitutes a force majeure event.
The European Union's GDP is €18 trillion; Russia's is €2 trillion. Their defense budgets amount to €343 billion and €111 billion, respectively. Russia has 1.2 million troops deployed on various fronts, while Ukraine has 900,000. To win a war, you need funds, troops, equipment... and the will to do so. The EU has everything. But it's not sure it has the will.
If this attitude were to take hold, the EU's political and economic position in the world would change: from weakness to strength, from fear to determination, from dependence to independence. It can do it. Is it lacking the will to change the course of its history? Is it inevitable to make the same mistake again? Have we learned nothing from Munich in 1938, from Hungary in 1956, from the Balkans in 1992, from Sudan in 2025?
