Rym Momtaz
Three years into the unprovoked Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and despite the regular empathic statements of solidarity and support from his European partners, he still has to constantly argue and advocate for real military capabilities.
He attends summits, puts on a brave face even when he goes halfway across the world to the G7 in Canada only to realize that U.S. President Donald Trump has left before meeting with him. He punctuates every statement, tweet, and answer with several thank-yous, to avoid drawing more accusations of ingratitude which he has received from both the Biden and Trump administrations as well as the UK.
European countries have stepped up in some respects. They started ramping up their military support in the last year of the Biden administration, and since Trump’s inauguration in January, the EU has slightly surpassed the United States in military assistance. But even these efforts have not kept up with the pace or scale of Russia’s escalating offensive against Ukraine. And more strategically, nothing the Europeans or Americans have done has forced Russian President Vladimir Putin to rethink his calculus and engage seriously in negotiations to end the war.
Instead of issuing empty ultimatums about ceasefires, the Europeans should have already done three things. First, they should have deployed a beefed-up, multi-layered, properly supplied, integrated air defense system inside Ukraine. Second, they should have paralyzed the Russian defense industry’s production and regeneration capabilities. And third, they should have enabled Ukrainian deep strikes against Russian military installations, central to Moscow’s ability to continue waging this war.
These actions would also force Trump to stop excluding Europeans from his discussions with Putin and see them as worthy security and defense players.
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