Oleh Cheslavskyi: Ukraine as the Fulcrum of Europe’s Security
The First Phase Has Already Begun
The first phase of World War III is already underway. The second will be decided by who secures Ukraine. The struggle is not about “protecting Russians,” as the Kremlin claims, but about reshaping the strategic balance of the 2030s. Energy shocks, migration crises, fear, and political fragmentation are the instruments through which Europe can be broken. Russia, in this equation, is merely a tool.
Why Ukraine Is the Key
Ukraine is not just territory. It is tens of millions of people with combat experience, the highest motivation in Europe, a rapidly expanding defense industry, and a logistics hub connecting East and West.
If captured, Ukraine becomes a ready-made mobilization core — capable of being deployed against the European Union just as easily as against Russia.
The Kremlin’s Scenario
Should the Kremlin succeed, Ukraine’s population will be transformed into a resource for someone else’s war with Europe. The EU’s failure to grasp this logic is not a mark of neutrality but of blindness. Those who dismiss this warning are either useful idiots or active agents of the Kremlin.
What the EU Should Have Done “Yesterday”
Europe had the chance — and still has the necessity — to act decisively:
Provide Ukraine with air and missile defense systems, long-range strike capabilities, and ammunition at industrial scale, without artificial restrictions.
Accelerate European military production not on decades-long horizons but within years.
Freeze and confiscate Russian assets to finance Ukraine’s survival and reconstruction.
Undertake a sweeping counterintelligence purge, targeting Kremlin-linked networks and sanctioning gray re-exports.
End the purchase of Russian oil and gas through Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Greek, Indian, or Chinese intermediaries.
This is not about symbolic solidarity. It is about Europe’s survival.
Conclusion: Tomorrow’s War, Today’s Choice
If the EU does not want a major war on its own territory tomorrow, it must help Ukraine today. To delay is to ensure that the “grenade” will eventually detonate under Europe’s feet.
