We are ready to enhance our support for Ukraine. We are committed to its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russiaβs war of aggression.
We share the goal to keep supporting Ukraine until a just, comprehensive and lasting peace is reached. A peace that guarantees the interest of Ukraine and our own.
We are looking forward to discussing the way ahead together with our American allies. Our shared objectives should be to put Ukraine in a position of strength. Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations. Ukraine should be provided with strong security guarantees. A just and lasting peace in Ukraine is a necessary condition for a strong transatlantic security.
We recall that the security of the European continent is our common responsibility. We are therefore working together to strengthen our collective defense capabilities.
Unfortunately, this does look like purely bla bla. They could have easily backed this declaration with some sort of action (providing Taurus missiles, making company exexcutives personally liable for military use products reaching russia).
As the US (Europe's own fault for relying too much on them, I know...) is signalling Russia that it can openly attack Europe while the EU is not able to transform into a military power that can compensate for the whole US Army anytime soon (considering the current US leadership will disregard NATOβs Article 5 in the event Europe militarily engaged with Russia β which leaves lots of room for interpretation to Europe's disadvantage) I personally think Europe is in such a weak position now, that any action they could have done along these lines would just be laughed at anyway...
It's all a matter of leadership, courage and desire. If they really wanted to, they could have gone all in. It's not too late. Europe has much larger economic and industrial capacity than russia.
Sadly our politicans are corrupt cowards to busy quarreling on national and European levels.
I think of you look at Poland especially, they aren't messing around. The UK and France have kept their militaries somewhat up to snuff. Sweden, Finland, the Baltics, lots of other countries are pulling their weight. Germany defence spending is up as well.
Germany's problem is their procurement is so slow. Europe's problem is they've lost a lot of defence production capacity,and don't have a lot of surplus taking up space on the shelves. Europe's even bigger problem is that there are Russian friendly politicians on the inside.
What's inexcusable to me is that Ukraine is still short of artillery shells. It's three years in, it's been long enough to spin up a crash production line, but did I mention procurement is slow? The US has ramped up artillery shell production, but it's still not enough and Trump will probably ramp that back down.
Europe needs to get the lead out. Maybe there needs to be a Visegrad style group of Hawks, countries with decent military capacity that want to coordinate production.
NATO and the EU have been profoundly beneficial, but in times of crisis like this, the need for consensus can really slow things down. A Visegrad style "Hawks" group of EU+NATO countries might allow the more capable countries to cooperate in filling the power vacuum the US is likely to leave on the world stage.
@[email protected]: I 100 % agree: There are way too many internal issues right now.
@[email protected]: That's right. However, even if that would be politically possible right now: To ramp up armament and drafting soldiers on such a scale and such short time would put Europe and its economy basically in a state of (pre-)war. Russia will see that as a sign of certain war (which it can't be blamed for) and be forced to strike preemptively at some point.
I am biased, because I am Ukrainian (living in Ukraine), but from my experience it is impossible to deal with russians unless you can show them that you are able and willing to use violence against them. They do not respect anything else and they see good faith interactions as a sign of weakness.
And playing to the fears manufactured by russia has never worked, ever. You can see similar dynamics with nuclear sabre rattling.
I agree 100 %. This is why they see the EU as weak... Also we are divided... and I sadly don't see any of that changing. (I wrote a lot more and deleted it again, because I was not able to convey more than that depressing view. Just more words...)
All the best to you, @[email protected], your loved ones, and your country!
There are $550 billion in frozen russian assets that could have been used if there was political will.
If needed, more could have been seized from russian oligarchs and citizens (e.g. ones who have openly showed support for genocidal imperialism - extremely common even among those in Europe).
There are also other methods like interment of executives/operatives who have been collaborating with the russians; this would not impact the average European or their lifestyle. If anything this would benefit the average citizen by lowering corruption and crime.
Look, I am not saying any of this is easy. I am just pointing out that it is possible to implement such measures and this is not a matter of "fairy tale thinking". It is possible, viable and has the opportunity to be very effective, the primary issue is the lack of leadership and courage. Everything else is largely an excuse.