Europe must wake up – Russia is gaining the upper hand in Ukraine

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All the warning lights are flashing red. Ukraine is running out of missiles and so are its suppliers. Russia is ramping up its war economy. The outgunned and exhausted defenders of the city of Avdiivka have retreated in disarray leaving behind their heavy weapons. In the US, the Republicans appear to be sliding towards isolationism and Trump has launched another guided missile into NATO’s mantra of collective security. And the “leader of Europe”, President Macron, is grandstanding while sitting down and doing next to nothing.

Despite all this, our leaders are still failing to articulate why Ukraine matters. Europe, including the UK, has yet to wake up and smell the cordite which will follow if an isolationist America withdraws support for Ukraine and will no longer pay for our defence.

Last summer, Ukraine was firing between 5,000 and 8,000 missiles a day. That has dropped to between 1,000 and 3,000. Russia now has a five to one advantage in missiles fired. After the failure of last year’s counter-offensive, the Ukrainians are now digging in waiting for the Russian advance. In a war of attrition, which is what this has become, the side with the greater manpower, firepower, supply chain, and resolve is the likely victor.

Russia’s population is four times that of Ukraine. Its economy is perhaps ten times as large, 29 per cent of government spending is now on the armed forces and its munitions factories are now pumping out weapons. Ukraine is on the horns of a terrible moral and potentially existential problem. It desperately needs to conscript several hundred thousand men of fighting age for military service to save the country. The average age of Ukrainian servicemen is 43. If huge numbers of men in their 20s are called up it might destroy the economy and the lifeblood of the country’s next generation. But if they not conscripted, there may be no economy, or country, to save.

Resolve? There’s no doubting Ukrainian determination, but even that will falter if they have to fight with their bare hands in the event they are abandoned by America and then in rapid succession by most Europeans.  

Since Feb 2022,  the Americans have led the way in supporting Ukraine but the latest tranche of $60 billion in aid will not be sent unless recalcitrant Republicans, who are tying it to domestic politics, approve it. Most Republicans in Congress agree with Donald Trump that aid to Ukraine should be reduced or even halted. If Trump wins the White House in November, the purse strings may be cut. In that event, many European countries will follow suit while pressuring Ukraine to sue for peace on unfavourable terms. France, Germany, Slovakia, and Hungary would probably lead the charge.

Perhaps the UK, the Baltics, Poland, Sweden and few other countries would attempt to supply Ukraine, but there is no way they could come even close to providing what Ukraine needs just to defend its lines, never mind regain territory. Even at current levels, European officials admit they can only send half of the one million artillery shells they listed as a target to provide this spring.

Some analysts fear that the Ukrainian lines could collapse under the sustained massive artillery advantage Russia has. That is a possibility although the one advantage Ukraine has is that it is easier to defend than attack.

How did we get to a position where the combined economies of those supporting Ukraine are more than 25 times the size of Russia’s and yet have allowed Moscow to see that, if it plays the long game, it can take more territory in what it regards as its “near abroad”?

The reasons are many and complex but begin with the huge drop in defence spending following the end of the Cold War by almost all NATO powers except the US and Greece (and new NATO member Sweden). Arms manufacturers reduced their capacity to make weapons and that is a tap that cannot be turned on again quickly. Western armouries are depleted of weapons and are unable to be replenished. It will take between five and ten years to ramp up production because the defence industries are geared for peace not war even as the warning lights flash that we may be approaching war. 

That potential is why the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, spoke about the possibility of a direct NATO/Russia clash within five to eight years, and his British counterpart Grant Shapps said we are in the “pre-war years”. If so, the question arises: why over the past decade has the UK military been hollowed out to the extent that it would struggle to deploy a war-fighting division overseas?

Macron is playing for the cameras, again. Hence this week’s rhetoric “This is a European war. It’s our soil and our continent”. This adds to previous flourishes such as, “We must be ready to defend and support Ukraine whatever it takes and whatever America decides”.  In which case why has France sent just over 0.5 per cent of the military aid so far given by NATO members? His refusal to rule out NATO troops being sent to Ukraine was simply a vehicle to position himself as the politician ready to lead European “strategic autonomy”.

To date, European strategic autonomy is less likely even than NATO troops fighting in Ukraine – which is to say that without a revolution in thinking and preparation – impossible. It would help if France joined the minority of NATO members who spend the minimum target of two per cent of GDP on defence. It would help if Macron publicly recognized that European security is underwritten by the American taxpayer and, if you don’t want them resenting that, pay more towards it.  

There’s a lot at stake, and not just the future of the Ukrainian people. A Russian win would be a victory for the Kremlin’s messianic worldview that the Slavic soul is superior to that of the effete “woke” Westerners. It would be seen in Moscow as vindication of warmongering and it would deal a massive blow to NATO’s credibility. That in turn would encourage Putin to enlarge what he sees as a buffer zone between him and the West. At that point Moldova and Georgia come back into play and, in the event NATO falls apart, the Baltic states as well. After that? Poland?

As isolationist Americans might still say these are far away countries about which they know little. However, at some point the same realisation that kicked in in 1917, 1941 and 1946 would return – that if a single power dominates Europe, it may end up challenging the US. Then they might come back. It’s easier, and probably cheaper, to stay.

This is what Zelensky means when he says: “We need to win here, unequivocally and unconditionally. If we do not, any one of you could be next on Putin’s list, make no mistake. We’re doing the dying; that’s a given. But we’re also doing your job making sure Putin can’t do to you what he’s doing to us. So, give us the tools to finish it”.

Sure, he needs the Europeans and the Americans, and sure, he’s channelling his inner Churchill, but so was Churchill in his 1941 “Give us the tools” speech: “Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and, under Providence, all will be well. We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”

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