Ukraine must be strengthened and protected, for all our sakes

Only we Europeans can do it. And the need is urgent. English original of article published this morning in Italian by La Stampa

With our eyes and ears grabbed by prime ministerial visits to the White House, trade tariffs, illegal deportations, presidential violations of court orders, attempts to control universities, threats against the Federal Reserve and promises to send US citizens to a gulag in El Salvador, we risk forgetting that two brutal wars are still going on, wars which Donald Trump claimed he wanted to end: the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Perhaps it was salutary that his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, warned us in Paris yesterday that if peace talks in Ukraine don’t make progress “in a matter of days”, the US will walk away, as it has “other priorities”.

We Europeans cannot do anything about the constitutional crisis under way in America, shameful though it feels when our leaders such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni talk and act as if everything happening in Washington is normal and even moral, which will also apply to Vice President J.D. Vance’s visit to Rome and the Vatican over Easter. But she is just doing her job, a job which sometimes fits the cynical definition of diplomacy: going abroad to lie for her country.

We also cannot do much about the war in the Middle East, where the ceasefire in Gaza for which Trump claimed credit even before his inauguration is now a distant memory and dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people are dying everyday thanks to Israeli attacks on its opponent, Hamas, and the Palestinians under Hamas’s misrule. The only good news is that, if reports are to be believed, the Trump administration has prevented Israel from launching attacks on nuclear research sites in Iran, preferring to open its own talks with Iran about its nuclear ambitions.

The war in Ukraine is completely different, however. In this European war, where Russia has talked with America about ceasefires but has meanwhile resumed missile attacks on civilian targets, the only way in which peace is likely to achieved and Ukraine’s sovereignty maintained is through the actions of European countries.

Russian attacks killed or injured more than 1,000 Ukrainian civilians during March, according to the United Nations, and at least 50 more were killed in missile attacks over the past two weeks. Despite this, President Trump has chosen again to accuse Ukraine of having caused the invasion three years ago. His philosophy is clear: the weak must surrender to the strong. He thinks Ukraine should have surrendered in 2022, that it will have to capitulate to Russian demands now, and that if it won’t capitulate now the US should just leave it to its fate and resume normal business with Russia.

Yet these propositions are wrong and short-sighted. Meloni flattered Trump by saying she agreed with his desire to end the war. But as she talks with other European leaders in the aftermath of her visit one thing will need to be clear in her mind, as well as theirs: that if the war is to be ended in a way that keeps Ukraine and Europe safe from further Russian aggression, Ukraine must be made and kept strong. The only countries able to make Ukraine strong, apart from Ukraine itself, are its European neighbours.

That is why the best, and arguably most important, news this month has come from Berlin, where the expected new coalition between Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats and his weaker partners, the Social Democrats, published their agreement about what they will do. If you were expecting radical plans to revive the German economy, you will have been disappointed. But if you care about Ukraine and European security, you will have been reassured.

The most notable signal coming from the Merz team is his declared willingness to send Ukraine the long-range Taurus missiles that his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, refused, and which can help fill the gap left by the end to US military aid. He will not formally become Germany’s chancellor until confirmed by the Bundestag on May 6^th, but the fact that he is already saying not just that Germany must spend more on defence and rebuild its defence industry but also that clear and impactful support needs to be offered to Ukraine now is an encouraging sign of realism and determination.

A few more missiles will not transform the war, although if the Taurus enables the Ukrainian military at last to destroy the Kerch bridge connecting the occupied province of Crimea to Russia they would gravely wound the Russian cause. What can be done, however, is to prove to Vladimir Putin that time is not on his side. Putin’s goal seems to be to rely on war fatigue in Kyiv, in European capitals and above all in Washington to force a peace deal to be struck on his terms, terms which include severe restrictions on Ukraine’s sovereignty and ability to defend itself in the future.

The one favour that Trump is doing for Ukraine, although it is accidental, is by making a global slowdown or recession likelier through his wild trade tariff policy. This has driven down the prices of oil and other commodities on which Russia depends. Russia’s government budget is believed to fall into deficit when the oil price is below US$80, and in recent days the price has fallen to about $65. This will make continuation of the war an even heavier burden for Russia’s economy to bear.

European promises to spend more on defence in future are necessary but are of no immediate value or significance for our continent’s security, as they can make no difference to the urgent and immediate threat we face from Russia. Much more valuable would be for European governments to send more missile-defence equipment, more ammunition and more long-range missiles to Ukraine right away, even if it opens gaps in their own countries’ defences.

It is right to want to “make the West great again”, as Meloni said in the White House. However, the battle to do that must start in Europe, with Ukraine, a battle which Rubio and Trump have made clear that they are happy to walk away from. Ukraine, as the frontline against Russian imperialism, and as now a democratic country with one of Europe’s strongest defence industries, producing four million military drones every year, is the most crucial and valuable element of Western greatness that we now have. All of us must now fight to protect it.