At the end of 2021, Westerners did not want to see the war in Ukraine coming, even though Russia was clearly preparing for it. Four years later, they are still lagging behind reality.
Since September 2021, we have been constantly astonished by the attitude of Europeans and NATO toward Russia. It is difficult to find the words to describe it: blindness, incompetence, naivety, presumption… While we hesitate to say irresponsibility, because we give their leaders the benefit of the doubt in wanting to spare their populations the risk of a fatal escalation, we may nevertheless wonder whether their approach is not illusory. As for many political actors, particularly in France, where ego and power struggles are incessant, in defiance of the seriousness of international issues, they are acting as agents of national and European division at a time when we should be coming together to counter Russia’s pernicious and brutal actions. It is as if they are turning a blind eye to what is happening in Ukraine…
Between September 10 and 15, 2021, Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian satrap, Alexander Lukashenko, gathered some 200,000 men for a large-scale joint military exercise called Zapad (West). Four years earlier, Zapad 2017 involved fewer than 13,000 troops. The difference in scale was significant. You have to go back to Zapad 1981 for a deployment of such impressive magnitude, and even then, the exercise involved only 100,000 to 150,000 troops. The impressive military force assembled in September 2021, which did not subsequently disband but was deployed along Ukraine’s northern and western borders, was not enough to convince Western leaders of the urgent need to prepare to give Ukraine the means to defend itself.
The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Miley, had nevertheless informed Joe Biden of the seriousness of the threat, explaining that U.S. intelligence believed a Russian offensive on Ukraine was imminent. Since the invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and since the so-called “uprising” in Donbass, which was remotely controlled, equipped, and supported by the Kremlin, Russia’s aggressive stance was no longer a secret. Alexander Dugin was not the only one to publicly call for the Russian army to march on Kyiv and restore Catherine II’s Novorossiya to Russian ownership. Including Odesa and Kharkiv. A few weeks before Zapad 2021, Vladimir Putin himself improvised as a historian to explain that Ukraine was a country that did not exist, and that only a mistake by Lenin had led to the existence of this artificial Soviet republic…
“No boots on the ground”
In the weeks leading up to the invasion, Western leaders were convinced that they would be able to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis through talks with Vladimir Putin, and that the threat of “swift and severe” sanctions would suffice to dissuade the Kremlin from launching the offensive that was clearly in the works. This was not the case. After the start of the so-called “special military operation” – a name intended not only to make people believe that this was not a war, but also to signify that, for Moscow, independent Ukraine was little more than a Russian province that needed to be subdued – on February 24, 2022, the U.S. president hastened to announce that there would be no boots on the ground, in other words that U.S. soldiers would remain on the sidelines. Nothing could have been more reassuring for Putin. At the same time, Joe Biden made Volodymyr Zelensky a miserable offer of exfiltration, which would have meant, in the eyes of the Russians, that he was nothing more than a Yanukovych of the West, a puppet in the hands of his master. Ukrainian President Yanukovych, elected in 2010, ended up fleeing to Moscow in February 2014, unable to extinguish the popular uprising he had sparked by renouncing, under pressure from the Kremlin in late November 2023, the association agreement that was to be concluded very soon with the European Union.
In Western capitals, almost no political leader at the time gave Volodymyr Zelensky much of a chance. The capture of Kyiv seemed inevitable, and the installation of a pro-Russian puppet regime a matter of days away. After Budapest and Hungary in 1956, Prague and Czechoslovakia in 1968, it was Ukraine’s turn. European countries offered to send helmets, bulletproof vests, survival kits, first aid kits, and, at best, light weapons. But above all, they wanted to stick to a policy of economic and administrative sanctions. There was no question of establishing the no-fly zone requested by Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28. They feared that this would be seen by Moscow as a casus belli, especially since Putin and his acolytes were quick to mention the threat of a devastating nuclear response. This was a way of saying that, for the Kremlin, Ukraine was part of Russia’s vital interests… To complete the picture, from the French point of view, it should be added that a large part of the political class, on the right in the “sovereignist” ranks and on the left, mainly in La France Insoumise, then took up part of Putin’s argument to justify the Russian aggression.
Ukrainian resistance and Western procrastination
How surprised the West was to see that Kyiv did not fall, that Zelensky did not flee, that he and his compatriots showed determination, imagination, creativity, and agility to the point of thwarting part of Russia’s plan, exploiting the obvious organizational weaknesses of an enemy army riddled with corruption, filthy routine, and alcohol! Better still, the Ukrainian counteroffensive not only pushed the enemy back from the outskirts of Kyiv, but a large part of the territory lost in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions was recaptured before the end of 2022! But while it would have been necessary to provide immediate and substantial military support to Ukraine to enable it to consolidate its advantage at a time when the Russians were retreating, the West continued to procrastinate and waste precious time. The result of this strategic mistake is a war of attrition that is very costly for everyone, both on the ground and in terms of its geopolitical effects. The extent of this was evident at the gathering held in Beijing to mark China’s celebration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Many heads of state and government from the Global South attended alongside Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Just over 40% of the world’s population was thus “represented.” This certainly does not mean that everyone is united behind Putin, but it does indicate the strength of Beijing’s appeal today, which is in itself a significant political fact.
Since the spring of 2024, Moscow’s troops have partially recovered and adapted to an enemy they had greatly underestimated. This “upgrade” of the Russian army has come at a considerable cost: since February 24, 2022, 130,000 Russian soldiers have been listed by name as dead by Mediazona (an independent Russian website) and the Russian service of the BBC. This figure leads to an estimated total of around 220,000 dead, as many of those killed are not counted or identified. The total losses of the Russian army (dead and soldiers unable to fight) could already exceed one million men! A disastrous toll for a mediocre result: since the end of the first Ukrainian counteroffensive in November 2022, the territory conquered by the Russian army has increased by just over 1%, while the war is now consuming just over 40% of Russia’s budget, whose economy is faltering after two years of spectacular growth due to the forced development of the military industry—at the cost of inflation that continues to soar.
Hands tied behind their backs
One could chronicle the delay in Western military aid to Ukraine. Tanks, long-range missiles, aircraft… The red lines set by Moscow have certainly been crossed one after the other – but not to the point of closing Ukrainian airspace to Russian drones and missiles – however, each time it took too long to get there. There was a considerable gap between the announcements of equipment grants and the actual deliveries. Added to this was the issue of authorizations and restrictions on use: for months on end, there was no question of allowing Ukrainians to strike Russia on its own territory with American or European equipment. Ukraine had the right to defend itself with its hands tied behind its back.
However, we can now see that the damage inflicted on Russia by the Ukrainians is considerable, as they strike deep into the country with increasingly sophisticated drones of their own design and now with their own missiles, targeting energy facilities and railway hubs and sporadically blocking airport facilities. One can only wish the West had given them the opportunity to do so sooner.
Strategic blindness
Were they even capable of imagining it? Obsessed with closely monitoring the fighting on the front line on a daily basis, trapped by the false debates launched by Russian disinformation operations, Western military leaders and their political leaders have failed to demonstrate their strategic intelligence. Once again, like the police officers in Offenbach’s opera1, they are lagging behind reality, even though it is right before their eyes.
Washington had announced its objective clearly: there was no question of inflicting defeat on Moscow; the resources given to Ukraine would essentially be aimed at weakening Russia, which would allow the United States to focus on Asia in order to be able to counter the rise of China whose nationalism now claims not only regional but global hegemony. In particular, there was no question of allowing Beijing to take control of Taiwan, which Xi Jinping has made a geopolitical imperative, and therefore no question of allowing the war in Ukraine to distract from this “issue.”
Donald Trump’s arrival in power did not change the U.S. position, quite the contrary, since the 47th U.S. president’s goal is to do business with Russia as soon as possible—hence his desire to see the war end at almost any cost, including the permanent abandonment of Crimea and a freeze on the conflict that would leave Moscow with the entire Donbas region and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts—in order to detach it from its partnership with China. Trump, like his predecessor, is nevertheless forced to acknowledge that he cannot completely disengage from this war, which he insists is not his own. That would be an admission of considerable weakness, contrary to the “Make America Great Again” slogan he champions.
Europeans also hope to contain Russia and dare not think that the end of the war will come through the defeat of Putin’s regime. So they are giving Ukraine the means to continue its resistance to the Russian advance, but not to significantly reverse the momentum of the fighting. They have finally understood, though not immediately, that Ukrainians are fighting not only for their freedom on their own territory, but for that of all Europe and for the future of democracy. For that is what is at stake. With each passing day, the collusion of authoritarian and illiberal regimes against democracies, which they accuse of all evils in order to better conceal their own predatory practices, becomes increasingly apparent. But Europeans do not yet seem to have learned their lesson, even though they are subjected every day to a hybrid war, notably through multiple channels of disinformation, aimed at amplifying and aggravating the socio-political tensions that are manifesting themselves in their own countries.
It is true that since the beginning of the conflict, they have convinced themselves that they are protected by the world’s most powerful military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is clear that NATO has become the new Maginot Line of European democracies. This is a way of failing to take stock of changes in the world and in the art of warfare, believing themselves to be immune to their consequences.
The drone war
Admittedly, Donald Trump’s return to the White House has exacerbated the situation, making it even more obvious that the United States has become an unreliable ally. On February 24, 2025, they even voted with Russia, China, and North Korea against a UN General Assembly resolution reaffirming support for Ukraine and its territorial integrity, and then on the same day they got the Security Council to adopt a text they had proposed in favor of a rapid end to the conflict without any mention of preserving Ukraine’s territorial integrity! It was only under the explicit threat of a withdrawal of U.S. protection that European countries resolved to significantly increase their respective defense budgets—while remaining dependent on the Americans for equipment purchases, when they should have rushed to develop a European defense industrial base at least since the beginning of the war in 2022. Progress has certainly been made, but Russia has moved much faster in comparison. Above all, it has received decisive support from China, North Korea, and Iran!
While France prides itself on being an exception in Europe with an “independent” defense policy based on nuclear weapons, we must not forget that from the 1990s until 2017, it too preferred to reap the “dividends of peace” and reorganize its armed forces to equip itself mainly with rapid deployment tools, for operations that were in principle limited in scope and duration. Not only has this choice not been successful, as demonstrated by France’s retreat from sub-Saharan and West Africa, but it now appears that our country is unprepared for a war such as the one currently being waged in Ukraine, lacking the manpower, equipment, and ammunition for a long confrontation.
Today, we are discovering that Queen Europe and King NATO, while not entirely naked, are poorly equipped militarily and psychologically to face the push from Russia and its Asian allies. The recent intrusion of some 20 Russian drones into Poland has suddenly made us realize that our intellectual software for thinking about modern warfare is out of date, even though we have been watching it transform in Ukraine for three and a half years. Even the report signed and made public in early February 2024 by Ukrainian Chief of Staff Valeriy Zaloujny did not lead us to reconsider our approach and quickly prepare for the new drone war. Yet this report announced—after the failure of a Ukrainian counteroffensive using “conventional” methods, which had been widely anticipated for late spring and summer 2023 but came too late to defeat the Russians, who, under the leadership of General Surovikin, had prepared very solid lines of defense—that drones would be one of the essential keys to the military equation that would decide the victory of one side or the other. Already, the transformation of small commercial drones into explosive devices had made it possible to stop the Russian columns advancing in northern Ukraine in March 2022. Subsequently, the Russian navy, unable to counter Ukrainian naval drones, lost control of the Black Sea. This aroused admiration, but apart from a few specialists, few people realized the magnitude of the major change that was taking place. However, as early as 2020, Turkish Bayraktar drones had given Azerbaijan a decisive advantage over Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh. They had been used successfully in Syria and Libya… The first to learn the lesson were undoubtedly the Iranians, who presented their first version of the Shahed in the same year, which they then supplied to Moscow in large numbers from September 2022 onward. The arrival of these drones on the Russian-Ukrainian war theater was observed by Westerners as one might watch trains go by, but without realizing what it meant.
Weak response to a successful Russian operation
The intrusion of some 20 Russian Gerbera drones (derived from the same Shahed) into Poland on the night of September 9-10, of which only three were shot down, showed that neither tEuropeans on their own nor NATO were able to protect themselves effectively and at reasonable cost from a massive and opportunistic drone attack. Such an operation against one of the Baltic countries could cause considerable damage. Significant military and, above all, economic damage in the targeted country or countries, but also major political damage in European public opinion, whose capacity for resistance is nowhere near that of Ukrainians.
The intrusion of Russian drones is therefore, from the Kremlin’s point of view, a well-calculated and successful operation. Indeed, although Poland was chosen for this spectacular demonstration, everyone knows that there is little chance of it being the target of a frontal attack in the future. This could only encourage the West to moderate its reaction. In fact, Donald Trump limited himself to a tweet (“Here we go!”) without condemning the Russian operation in any way, and the European response, while not non-existent, remains weak: sending additional aircraft to monitor the skies of Alliance member countries costs Russia nothing! Extending their area of intervention over part of Ukraine would have been more significant.
In Moscow, it was well understood that Europeans and NATO were procrastinating, that they did not spontaneously agree on the attitude to adopt, and that the procedures for both military response and political adjustment were cumbersome and slow. So much so that the “Polish” operation was completed. First by the violation of Estonian airspace on September 19 for twelve minutes by three Russian MIG-31s—aircraft capable of carrying Kinjal hypersonic missiles with a range of 2,000 km, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads. Then, starting on September 24, by a series of intrusions by unidentified drones into Swedish, Danish, and most recently German airspace. Moscow categorically denies responsibility for these intrusions, but we cannot forget that in 2014, the Kremlin swore it knew nothing about the “little green men” who took control of Crimea wearing military uniforms without any identifying insignia. This is something Putin would boast about a few months later! Once again, Europeans are sticking to more or less martial verbal statements, while Donald Trump, while saying that planes and drones should of course be shot down, is careful not to follow through on his words, remaining in his usual ambiguity toward Ukraine. At the same time, in his speech to the UN General Assembly, he launched an unprecedented attack on Europeans.
While there is now talk of building an “anti-drone wall” (how long will it take to become operational?), the stance remains defensive, with no prospect of retaliation that would make Russia pay the price for its aggression. Eleven years on, we have not learned the lessons of 2014! The threat of nuclear weapons, repeatedly brandished by the Russians, continues to deter Western countries from responding in a manner commensurate with Moscow’s provocations. Just as the Kremlin was able, through delaying tactics, to defuse Donald Trump’s ultimatum demanding a meeting between Putin and Zelensky. The massive sanctions that were announced have been forgotten. Worse still, Trump now explains that if he is slow to act, it is because of Europeans who are still buying Russian oil (in particular his great friend Viktor Orbán of Hungary) and who are not imposing on the Chinese the penalties that he himself has refused to impose on them.
To put it another way, neither the Americans nor the Europeans have a real deterrence strategy against Moscow. The United States, France, and Great Britain, powerful nations that they are, have failed to grasp the extent of Russia’s reversal of its nuclear doctrine, which is no longer content with protecting its territory, but also uses nuclear weapons as an umbrella under which it now shelters its aggression against Ukraine, as well as the hybrid war it wages every day against the West, and primarily against Europe. The same will obviously be true for any new Russian aggression against another country. Faced with this, Westerners fear triggering a “third world war,” while authoritative voices in the Kremlin keep repeating that it has already begun, blaming NATO and the European Union.
Pusillanimity, perseverance in the fact (the refusal?) not to see the obvious… The result is clear: while the nature of the war has changed, while Ukraine, under a barrage of bombs and drones (more than 3,500 drones and 190 missiles in the first 15 days of September, according to Volodymyr Zelensky), already produces nearly 40% of its military equipment, and is expected to reach 50% by the beginning of next year, Europeans have once again been slow to prepare and adapt. Defense budgets are increasing, certainly, under American pressure, but with the exception of countries close to the front line, most Europeans continue to want to live as if the war and its consequences only affect them indirectly. The Kremlin sees this and is quick to take advantage of it. It also reacts indignantly to the slightest serious preventive measure, as it did recently in response to Denmark’s announcement that it would acquire long-range precision weapons to strengthen its conventional deterrence capability against the Russian threat.
In this context, one can only be astonished by the French political debate, which seems to ignore everything we have just mentioned. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has shamelessly called for the resignation of Volodymyr Zelensky, whose legitimacy he contests with arguments provided by the Kremlin. For LFI, some socialists, and a section of the ecologists, nothing seems more urgent than calling for the dismissal of the President of the Republic, while the National Rally and the small group of elected officials surrounding Éric Ciotti make no secret of their desire for his resignation. They all seem to forget that Emmanuel Macron is currently playing a major role, alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in mobilizing the Coalition of the Willing and establishing a genuine European defense. By calling for his departure from the Élysée Palace, they are already weakening the camp of Ukraine’s supporters. All this undoubtedly augurs for a disappointing future. And undoubtedly, the price we will have to pay to return to peaceful and fair international relations will be all the higher the longer we delay in giving ourselves the means to guarantee them.
Jean-François Bouthors is a journalist and essayist, contributing to the magazine Esprit and serving as an editorialist for Ouest-France. He is the author of several books, including Comment Poutine change le monde published by Editions Nouvelles François Bourin in 2016.