Every week, Moritz Koch, head of the Handelsblatt office in Brussels, analyzes trends and conflicts, regulatory projects and strategic concepts from the inner workings of the EU. Because anyone interested in business needs to know what’s going on in Brussels. You can reach him at: [email protected]
Brussels Only the dead man’s hand can be seen – and next to her a bunch of keys, decorated with the logo of the European Union. Yellow stars on a blue background in a debris field. The photo, taken in a suburb of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv devastated by Russian troops, is a symbol of the cruelty of the Russian war of aggression. Ukrainians dreamed of a better future, a future in Europe. Therefore, they became targets of the Russian army.
“After the war, nothing will be the same again,” says EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. She is right: the EU saw itself as an island of peace and prosperity, the Europeans believed that they were not only experiencing the end of history, but that they were actually embodying it. This EU no longer exists.
The Brussels institutions, otherwise sluggish consensus machines, have been operating in emergency mode for a month and a half. The Europeans have put together four packages of sanctions, and the fifth is to follow in the next few days. The EU’s External Action Service acts as a de facto clearinghouse for arms shipments to Ukraine.
The continent is arming itself, the first member states are declaring their independence from Russian energy. The EU has made decisions at “supersound speed” and this speed must be maintained, warns EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
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Vladimir Putin’s war, a war apparently supported by large sections of the Russian population, has destroyed the Europeans’ basic confidence in their own security. February 24th, the day of the Russian attack, is Europe’s September 11th. And because the Russian armed forces’ arsenal of terror is far from exhausted, the worst could be yet to come.
The Russian leadership does not shy away from war crimes
The EU must reckon with the fact that the regime in Moscow today poses a greater threat than the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Soviets were primarily interested in maintaining the status quo in Europe. Putin, on the other hand, wants to conquer and subdue. He sees the westernization of Eastern Europe as an existential threat to his autocratic, corrupt empire.
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The military setbacks by his invading army only add to these fears. The Russians lost the Battle of Kyiv ignominiously. But it would be premature to hope that the withdrawal of their tanks from Irpin and Bucha will pave the way for peace talks. It is at least as likely that the failed storming of the Ukrainian capital will herald a further escalation.
The atrocities in the occupied territories show that the Russian leadership does not shy away from war crimes. But she fears defeat. Putin sees himself on a historic mission. He invested his regime’s prestige in the “military operation in Ukraine” – so it must not be lost.
>> Also read here: Ambassador Melnyk: German Russia policy a “disaster”
Before invading the neighboring country, the Russian army enjoyed respect even in the West. In the meantime, they have proven themselves to be a rampaging gang of murderers, unable to defeat a clearly inferior opponent militarily, but willing to rob and massacre civilians.
Putin cannot admit this failure without jeopardizing his rule. With every battle lost, Ukraine’s liberation draws closer – but so does the Kremlin’s incentive to use chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons.
This must not be a reason for the EU to reduce its military aid to Ukraine and relax its economic penalties against Russia. But Europeans need to know who they are dealing with, awful as it is to think about.
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