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Even before the Iran war, Ukraine\u2019s position was precarious. The country had just endured its most brutal winter in decades, during which Russia systematically destroyed much of its civilian energy infrastructure. Hampered by a shortage of missile defenses, Ukrainian forces had been unable to halt the Russian army\u2019s slow but grinding progress along the front line. Above all, Kyiv was under intense pressure from Washington to accept a peace deal that would have required surrendering territory in the Donbas that Russia had been unable to take by force.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s war in Iran has made Ukraine\u2019s position look even more precarious. The sharp rise in oil prices has lifted Russian crude well above the $59 a barrel needed to balance Moscow\u2019s budget, offering the Kremlin a timely reprieve from a worsening economic outlook, further helped by the Trump administration lifting some sanctions. At the same time, the Iran campaign is rapidly depleting American weapons stocks that might otherwise have reinforced Ukraine. An estimated 800 Patriot missiles were fired in the first week of fighting in the Middle East \u2013 more than the 600 expended across the entire four years of the Ukraine war.<\/p>\n
Worse still, the Iran war has emboldened Russia while diverting American attention from Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week revealed that Washington is now making its offer of post-conflict security guarantees contingent on giving up territory that Kyiv regards as vital to its own defense.<\/p>\n
Ominously, Moscow has offered to stop sharing intelligence with Iran if Washington stops doing the same for Kyiv \u2013 evidence of how the conflicts are becoming linked. So far, Trump has refused.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president, has warned that the US may walk away from Ukraine if no peace deal is agreed quickly.<\/p>\n
Assuming that Kyiv has no intention of capitulating \u2013 and it is hard to see how it could, given that the fortress cities of the Donbas are essential to defending the rest of the country, while surrender would consign tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens to life under Russia\u2019s repressive dictatorship \u2013 Ukraine\u2019s fate now lies squarely in European hands.<\/p>\n
That is a responsibility that should profoundly concern all Europeans. Had Putin succeeded in seizing Ukraine, turning it into a Belarus-style satellite state, an emboldened Russia would by now be threatening Moldova, destabilizing the western Balkans and testing NATO\u2019s resolve from the Baltic to the Aegean. Should Ukraine be forced into a humiliating surrender, Europe would be exposed as the \u201cpaper tiger\u201d that Trump mocked it for being last week. The EU\u2019s pretensions as a geopolitical actor would lie in tatters.<\/p>\n
Yet Europeans have not responded as if this war is truly existential. Although they now provide almost all of the funding, they have been content to leave the fighting entirely to Ukrainians. They have provided weapons, but stopped well short of the long-range systems that would allow Kyiv to strike deep inside Russia. They have imposed sanctions on Russia\u2019s energy sector and Kremlin-linked oligarchs, but fallen short of a full economic blockade \u2013 and even the sanctions that have been imposed were designed to minimize costs to European firms and have been poorly enforced, as evidenced by the surge in exports to Central Asia.<\/p>\n
This reflects not so much cowardice as an unspoken assumption, particularly among western European governments, that America would ultimately hold the line so that Europe would not have to. But it also reflects a failure of collective will. A \u20ac90 billion loan to Kyiv \u2014 urgently needed to plug holes in Ukraine\u2019s public finances and avert economic collapse \u2014 has been blocked by Hungary and Slovakia, whose governments are closely aligned with Russia. That loan was itself a compromise, reached after EU member-states failed to agree on seizing Russia\u2019s frozen assets to fund a reparations loan for Kyiv.<\/p>\n
With Washington stepping back, that assumption has been exposed as fatally wrong. If Europeans genuinely believe this war is existential, they must urgently recalibrate. They should take heart from the fact that Ukraine\u2019s position, while precarious, is far from hopeless. Kyiv still has cards to play \u2013 including some generated by the Iran war itself.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s expertise in drone warfare and missile interception has become of acute interest to Gulf states now under attack from Iran, opening the prospect of new investment in Ukraine\u2019s defense industries. Kyiv has already sent 200 military experts to the Middle East to assist in its defense. It has also demonstrated the reach of its own long-range weapons, striking Russia\u2019s oil infrastructure and destroying an estimated 40 per cent of export capacity through attacks on Baltic Sea ports. Following the disruption of Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink services to Russian forces, Ukraine recaptured more occupied territory in February than in any month since 2023.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Putin believes he is winning and, with Trump apparently on his side, sees no reason to back down. Only Europeans can change his calculus. That requires clarity, first of all, about what they are fighting for: at a minimum, a peace settlement that delivers a sovereign, independent Ukraine with defensible borders and robust security guarantees. Anything less would reward aggression and guarantee a second round. But it also requires Europeans to demonstrate that they truly regard this war as existential \u2013 and that they are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices, both economic and military, to win it.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n