Europe’s original assumption about the war in Ukraine was clear – help arm it Eastern European neighbor, weaken Russia and ensure the conflict did not spread beyond Ukraine’s borders. But European leaders are increasingly worried that may no longer be possible.
With heightened NATO activity in the Baltic states, European Union leaders condemning Russian threats against Latvia and Estonia, and an emergency UN Security Council meeting over the latest Russian actions in Ukraine, a growing number of officials now appear to believe the Kremlin’s ambitions could extend beyond Ukraine.
Even discussions once considered premature – involving European military readiness and a permanent NATO deterrent in member states that border Russia – have moved into the political mainstream.
The result: a deep psychological shift across Europe and a war that began on the EU’s periphery is being seen as a direct challenge to the continent’s future security order.
“A threat against one member state is a threat against our entire Union,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this week.
A new poll in Ukraine finds that more than a third of the country’s residents – the highest figure on record – believe Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to expand the war to the European Union itself.
A fear in Europe is not necessarily that Russia is preparing an imminent attack outside Ukraine, but that a standoff with the West, not just Ukraine, could be an emerging objective for Putin.
Earlier in May, Putin said that his country’s war with Ukraine could be nearing its end. But since then, few of Russia’s moves have matched those remarks. Russia’s war with Ukraine began in 2014 when Russian forces, under Putin, invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The conflict escalated – or resumed – when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
In Putin’s latest move, just several days ago, he urged foreign residents and diplomats in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv to flee the city ahead of what he promised would be new rounds of “intense attacks” on the capital’s “decision-making centers.”
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky wrote a rare personal plea to President Donald Trump asking for U.S. air defenses – in increasingly short supply since the start of the Israel- and U.S.-led war against that started Feb. 28.
Last week, the Kremlin said Putin was open to “preliminary negotiations” with Europe over the future of the conflict. But few European officials appeared to take the overtures seriously. And Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, warned the remarks were a ploy.
“It’s a trap that Russia wants us to walk into, that we discuss who talks to them, and they are already picking who is suitable, who is not,” Kallas said. “Let’s not walk into that trap.”
Ministers in several European Union states have summoned Russia’s ambassadors to express anger over the newest round of attacks on Kyiv, which reports say are aimed at civilian infrastructure.
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