The Russian army is launching assaults in old Zhigulis, alongside donkeys and Soviet-era "Bukhanka" vans. And when the Kremlin accumulates a battalion-sized set of equipment in a certain area, it becomes an event.
In fact, Ukraine is stable and has fulfilled the West's recommendations on active defence.
And then the new US administration comes in and voices all the strange rhetoric that they poured out on the electorate before the election.
Trump talks about World War III, about Kyiv playing with it, about ‘the best salesman in history’. Rubio, who draws crosses on his forehead with ash, tears off the cover of the proxy war between the US and Russia. Kellogg says they need good relations with Moscow.
And Putin, of course, did not want a war, he just moved the Baltic Sea Fleet and the Northern Fleet, accumulated millions of shells and thousands of missiles, brought the National Security Fund to its peak, and created the ‘Peace’ cards to bypass the blockade - it was all an accident, it just happened.
A logical question arises: if China, which has the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, wants to attack Taiwan, with which Washington has a joint defence treaty, won't it be playing with World War III?
And what will happen if Switzerland's F-35s turn into an immovable pile of metal if the next US administration decides to do something?
How did they decide to tell Canada about duties, how much Japan should spend on defence and from which companies to buy weapons?
The first signs have already been seen: Denmark is refusing to buy American Harpoons and wants to replace them with Norwegian anti-ship missiles.
Either that or cutting back on the European Command, paying penalties to arms and ammunition manufacturers for Ukraine, and withdrawing from the EU and the Middle East as much as possible in favour of the Asian direction.
This is the new policy. And then you can wear a suit or apologise, but it won't help.
The choice is very simple: we need to reorient ourselves towards the EU and pull ourselves along. Of course, we will not be able to stand alone against the alliance of Iran, Russia and North Korea, even if we put every Ukrainian to work.
You can have an entire country assembling mortar shells and soldering drones from Chinese DIY kits, but when it comes to kinetics versus ballistics, thousands of missiles against Shaheds, all these stopgap air defence programs, thousands of Humvees, and 3 million shells — that’s serious.
We have actually fired most of the Javelins produced in the world, a huge number (well over half) of high-precision missiles for MLRS - high-tech that cannot be replaced quickly.
This is exactly what will happen if the frontline falls, only on a huge scale: filtration, executions, deportations, the MGB and basements with teeth pulled out.
Surrendering means evacuating Kherson and Zaporizhzhya, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, getting several million more internally displaced persons and several million more who will leave the country, and limiting the army to 90,000 people.
So far, these are the Kremlin's demands, and no other ones have been made.
This is a delayed suicide for the state - any foothold on the Right Bank, a reduction in the army, a commitment to neutrality. All of these are invitations to the third and subsequent rounds, which are likely to turn us into a piece of wood beyond the Dnipro.
Simply because the enemy is outnumbered in aircraft, shells, and men, and is supplying our factories with half-tonne warheads, sooner or later they will again bite off several regions and sit in a house of eternal peace, ‘guarantees’ from a thirty-thousand-strong contingent on thousands of kilometres of border and other fairy-tale illusions.
Moscow stubbornly insists on the boundaries of the four regions, while Trump says that the Kremlin is ready to negotiate (Trump is fine with him), that Ukraine should not gain an advantage. Not much room is left for us in the negotiations. And this is the first time I've seen the Americans deliberately weaken their position by announcing concessions to Russia on Ukraine's NATO membership before they even begin.
Or, for example, they said that Washington and Putin were fine, that the plan was to leave us an army of 90,000 bayonets and a dozen brigades with a rear, when now over a hundred brigades are slowly withdrawing under the pressure of precision-guided bombs, the North Korean Expeditionary Corps and Iranian shells.
Therefore, we have no global choice. We need to continue the fight. Any concessions to Putin mean the people of Melitopol and Tokmak in the trenches under the Dnipro.
The EU has not really failed in rearmament. In 2022, the Union spent 58 billion euros for this purpose, and last year it spent 102 billion euros. Next year, Rheinmetall will produce 700,000 shells, which is as much as the US.
All five major ammunition companies in the EU are overwhelmed with orders for years to come, even the Czechs are building a second line, discussing investments in a third line in parliament, and reporting readiness to produce 300,000 ‘piglets’.
In total, the EU defence industry has added just over 70,000 jobs over the past two years, employing more than half a million people. This is in addition to Germany's ReArm Europe plan, which has already set out 150 billion euros in a memorandum and plans to spend up to 800 billion euros on defence.
The ground forces there are at least parity with the Russian Federation on the main directions, with a much stronger navy and air force, which means that strategically it means a blockade and the impossibility of large operations for the attacker.
Perhaps the missile defence in the EU isn’t as advanced as in the US in terms of the number of SAM systems, but they do have more than forty Patriot and SAMP/T batteries against ballistic threats. Yes, Germany gave a quarter of its fire units and 360 missiles to us, but they’ve ordered more. Additionally, the Germans are buying technology for the "Heavenly Shield" from the Israelis, and the world’s leading economies will handle the localisation. There’s also a secondary missile market in the Gulf countries, so it’s not just the US involved.
In addition, the Danish model is being scaled up in Ukraine, with EU money for the production of self-propelled artillery systems, long-range drones, Neptunes, and cruise missiles. We have more than a division of Neptunes today, and sooner or later we will master several divisions of ballistics, and one and a half hundred long-range drones overnight is not a ceiling either.
So yes, the French Thales Group produces electronic warfare, the drone coalition is 80% EU, Norwegian and German medium-range SAMs are on active duty in Ukraine, and in principle, the EU has given us more air defence than the US.
Europe is not doing well with missile defence, with airborne early warning and control (AEW&C), but this issue can be resolved. Unlike abandoning large agglomerations and cutting the army to listen to Putin and achieve ‘eternal peace’ for five years.
Two of the most disgusting despots on the planet are attacking Ukraine, grinding our cities to rubble, and the third is supplying them with long-range drones and shells, while Trump says that he and Putin are fine, but Ukraine just doesn't want to make peace. This is not how we all imagined the 21st century, is it?
Globally, the European Union is capable of deterring Russia, and it needs our ground forces and air defence until additional divisions are deployed, as well as our defence industry afterwards. Therefore, our partners will continue and strengthen their support.