By: Francis Dearnley / The Telegraph
Translation: Telegrafi.com
In the last week of the working week before Christmas, EU leaders gathered for what was billed as a historic summit. As expected, the clichés were repeated. “Only Ukraine can determine the terms of peace,” they insisted, signaling progress toward Kiev’s EU membership. But after this rhetoric, some of them—some openly aligned with Moscow, others paralyzed by fear—rejected. The result was not resolve but exposure: a Europe divided over how to deal with the war that is reshaping its future. Indeed, nothing changed.
If this reminds you of last week’s EU summit — where Brussels failed to unfreeze frozen Russian state assets, missed a rare opportunity to deal a serious blow to Moscow, and instead forced taxpayers to guarantee a $90 billion loan to Ukraine — then you’re wrong. I’m describing a summit from a year ago, in December 2024, when I was last asked to write a reflection on the year ahead.
I warned then that, despite more than a year of clear signals that a Trump presidency was a real possibility, Europe – including Britain – had failed to develop a serious and independent strategy for its security. There was no rapid rearmament, no hardening of the stance on Ukraine, no red lines to prevent the worst outcomes. Europe’s fate – and that of Ukraine – remained tied to the goodwill of an ally who, as I argued, “may soon prove unreliable”.
Twelve months later, the consequences of that failure have been more severe than many imagined. An emboldened Russia, emboldened by the red carpet that Trump rolled out for Putin at the disastrous Alaska summit, is now openly provoking Europe. Hybrid attacks have intensified, culminating in a drone incursion into Polish airspace, which forced NATO to engage in a direct confrontation with Russia for the first time in the alliance’s history. Meanwhile, the White House, sensing weakness, has repeatedly humiliated its former European allies while clearly signaling a desire for rapprochement with Moscow.
Last year I wrote that Europe had “left itself no choice but to seek a celebratory miracle across the Atlantic,” pinning its hopes on a negotiated peace with Putin. That hope rested on a single, fragile assumption: that Russia would negotiate — in good faith. “What no one seems to be asking,” I wrote then, “is what happens if it doesn’t.”
This question remains dangerously understated. Despite overwhelming evidence that Putin has no intention of ending the war unless his demands are met — demands that would shred Ukraine’s sovereignty and permanently undermine European security — a stubborn illusion persists in many capitals. That the war will end soon. That a bad deal forced on Kiev can be dealt with. Or that maintaining aid at current levels will eventually wear Russia down into a ceasefire.
Yes, Russia’s economy is under pressure. And, yes, it is possible that Putin will at some point decide to suspend his war. But history offers little comfort. Regimes that successfully transition to a war economy rarely withdraw voluntarily. In fact, the Kremlin’s military spending has increased significantly, its industry has been recalibrated, and while this model is not indefinitely sustainable, it creates powerful incentives to continue. War promises not only strategic gain but also financial salvation — debts deferred or paid off through conquest.
That is why the warnings issued by intelligence chiefs across Europe demand urgent attention. There is no sign that Moscow intends to back down, either in Ukraine or in its campaign of intimidation of Europe. Some assessments go even further, suggesting that Russia is already provoking beyond Ukraine – particularly in the Baltic states – testing NATO’s resolve, eroding confidence in Article 5 and calculating that Europe will hesitate if Russia manufactures a crisis there – deploying “little green men” and then troops, as it has done before, while the United States looks elsewhere.
Now that American credibility is no longer secure, the world that generations of Europeans took for granted is over. Thus, 2025 may be remembered as the year when “the West” ceased to function as a meaningful political concept. Woodrow Wilson’s vision of a “democratic community of power” has been replaced by the vocabulary of “spheres of influence”—language that cedes moral ground to authoritarian regimes and legitimizes invasions where they should never have been allowed.
Because here lies the crux of the matter. To deny people the right to choose their future — as the current peace talks seem to be doing — is to abandon democracy itself. Ukrainians made their choice through the vote. Putin has no right to overturn it by force, unless we are willing to return to the rules of the 19th century. And that is the deeper danger: not a war with Russia in isolation, but a future war — perhaps with China — born of the deliberate erosion of the principles that have kept the peace for decades.
At the end of my article last year, I warned that, by 2025, Russia could either reject negotiations altogether, or pretend to negotiate in good faith while dragging them out. In the end, Putin did both — counting on American impatience to do the rest. The best-case scenario was that Moscow’s bad faith would finally come out in the open, prompting Washington to increase support for Ukraine. Today, that seems almost impossible. The ideological shift in the United States is profound. Trump praises his “good relationship” with Putin almost daily, while never missing an opportunity to attack President Zelensky. It is, indeed, a new world.
I closed last year's article with a warning about the cost of inaction: if you give up principles, you then give up territory - "and innocent people die."
Since then, many more innocent people have died. And, more will die next year if nothing changes. And, one day, it may not be innocent people in a “faraway land,” but our own sons and daughters who will pay the price for our failure to act when there was still time. /Telegraph/
