Europe is at last adjusting to the new reality in Ukraine

The writer is editorial director and a columnist at Le Monde

To some experts, the moment we have reached in the war in Ukraine is reminiscent of 1916. This was a pivotal year in the first world war when the battles of the Somme and Verdun, having caused the loss of more than a million men, led to a stalemate, turning the conflict into a war of attrition. Industrial production of armaments, meanwhile, was desperately slow. 

“Stalemate” was the word used in an interview with the Economist by General Valery Zaluzhny, then commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, to characterise the situation on the front last November. In hindsight, this admission opened a crucial phase for the country’s western allies — one in which they have had to adjust to a brutal new reality.

This was going to be a long war that Russia would do everything to win, and the west was not ready. This reality has now been sinking in, exposing new tensions among western leaders about how to confront it. 

A perfect storm had begun gathering over the winter. In Kyiv, the failure of a counteroffensive that had raised so many expectations and the challenge of finding new recruits for the front were causing divisions between Gen Zaluzhny and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Hampered by an excruciating shortage of ammunition and artillery that its allies were too slow to provide, Ukraine’s troops were in a precarious position. It had to face the possibility that it could actually lose the war.

A $60bn aid package was stuck in the US Congress, blocked by diehard Republicans. Russia’s economy was bouncing back, helped by Chinese and Indian imports of oil and widespread circumvention of sanctions. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was pushing a triumphalist narrative. France registered increased activity in disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks from Russia. On the diplomatic front, the Gaza disaster had buried any hope of courting the so-called global south to help counter Russia.

As the second anniversary of the invasion drew near, the EU managed to pass its own €50bn aid package. Britain, France and Germany rushed to sign bilateral security agreements with Ukraine. But when leaders met in Munich in mid-February for the annual security conference, the mood was grim.

Donald Trump’s warning that if he won a second term as president he would encourage Russia to attack those allies of the US who did not spend enough on their security, had already raised alarming questions about America’s commitment and Nato’s future. The news of Alexei Navalny’s death in prison, announced in Moscow just as the participants gathered in Munich, added Putin’s sinister imprint to the conference.

This conjunction of events has finally led to a shift in most European capitals about the direction in which this war is going and what it means for the future of the continent. To be fair, this has been clear for some time to eastern and northern European leaders. Poland, the Baltic states, Denmark, the Czech Republic to name a few have been active and vocal in adjusting to the new reality. But France and Germany still needed to take a leap forward.

The French discourse on Ukraine has notably evolved since the beginning of the year. The goal now is not only to support Ukraine, but also to protect Europe from Russia.

President Emmanuel Macron who, when inviting Putin to his summer residence on the French Riviera in 2019, spoke of Russia as “deeply European, a great power part of the Enlightenment”, now warns that an aggressive Russia will not stop with Ukraine if its offensive is not repelled. Gone is the time when he warned against “humiliating Russia”. For the first time last week, Macron said that Russia’s “defeat” was indispensable to the stability and security of Europe. Until then, preventing Russia from winning the war was as far as he would go. 

To make a show of European unity and determination, France hastily summoned an international conference in support of Ukraine in Paris on February 26. Characteristically, Macron could not resist stealing the show by raising the possibility of western boots on the ground, drawing a string of denials from his counterparts that inevitably pointed at differences rather than unity.

Yet the fact that the issue has been under discussion among allies, as well as the heated debate in Germany about the delivery of powerful Taurus missiles to Kyiv, shows that a new dynamic has emerged. Europe is belatedly but inexorably moving towards deeper involvement in the war. We do not yet know how it will be involved, but there is no other choice.