"When Europe preaches democracy yet hesitates to defend it with real force, it sends a clear message: our values are negotiable," Pekka Kallioniemi writes in his op-ed.

In September 1939, Europe watched Hitler invade Poland. Britain and France declared war, but let’s be honest: they weren’t ready for one. They’d spent years pretending that if they just gave the Austrian painter turned dictator with the funny mustache what he wanted, he’d eventually be satisfied and go home. He didn’t. He wanted more. Because bullies don’t stop when you hand them your lunch, they come back for your shoes, your jacket, and eventually your house.

Now, it’s 2025, and Russia has been trying the same game. Different dictator, same delusion. Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, committed war crimes in full HD, and what did many European leaders do? They tweeted “strong concern,” drew new red lines (as if the last 20 were erased with a magic marker), and then went to dinner with Schröder or Orbán to discuss “diplomatic solutions.”

All this would have been laughable, until you realize Ukrainians are dying while Europe debates whether helmets or tanks are too “provocative.”

The problem is this: Europe wants peace, but without paying for it. It wants moral high ground, but doesn’t want muddy boots. It wants to be a geopolitical player, but flinches at the first sign of hard power. In other words, Europe doesn’t want any skin in the game.

Look at the defense budgets. Germany, the economic giant of Europe, only recently remembered it had an army. For decades, Berlin bet its entire security on being really nice to Russia and buying its gas. That strategy, Ostpolitik, was basically the geopolitical version of “if we keep hugging the bear, maybe it won’t bite us.”

And then it did.

But it’s not just Germany. France talks a lot about “strategic autonomy” and “a European pillar in NATO” but isn’t exactly rushing to arm Ukraine with the kind of equipment that would actually make a difference. Italy? Often more interested in selling luxury items to elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg than defending eastern borders. Hungary? Let’s not even start.

Europe as a whole strives to live in a delusional world where conflict is solved with trade agreements and sternly worded resolutions. But the Kremlin plays by different rules. Putin doesn’t fear resolutions. He uses them as toilet paper.

This isn’t particularly new. We’ve been here before. Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Donbas, Syria. Each time, Europe’s response was weak. Each time, it sent humanitarian aid and hoped the Kremlin would come to its senses, as if it were just having a tantrum and not executing a long-term imperialist project. Even when Putin turned Belarus into a vassal state and built military bases along NATO’s border, too many in Brussels and Berlin whispered, “Let’s not escalate.”

But here’s the twist: not acting is also a choice. It signals weakness. It emboldens the aggressor. It tells smaller countries who put their faith in the EU that they’re on their own if things get ugly. Europe’s refusal to fully commit militarily, economically, and psychologically, to the defense of Ukraine (and, by extension, of its own security) is not masterful diplomacy, but more akin to cowardice dressed as caution.

The term “escalation” deserves a separate mention. The favorite European excuse: “We don’t want to escalate.”

Spoiler: Putin already did. In fact, he escalated before anyone even realized what game he was playing. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Escalation. Bombed and gassed Syrian civilians with Assad. Escalation. Poisoned dissidents on European soil. Escalation. Invaded a sovereign country in 2022 with tanks and missiles. You guessed it—escalation.

So when a Baltic state suggests sending jets to Ukraine or increasing NATO troops on the eastern flank, and someone in Brussels says, “Let’s not provoke Moscow,” the only appropriate response is: Provoke? The bear is already chewing through your pantry. The time for tiptoeing is over.

Europe is very good at moral outrage. Speeches in the EU Parliament? Powerful and will probably make a round on Twitter. Sanctions on Kremlin officials? Well, mostly symbolic. Lights on buildings in blue and yellow? Absolutely beautiful! But none of this stops Russian tanks or drones. Europe’s soft power is valuable, but it’s not enough when your opponent only understands hard power.

This war is about a system of values. Putin hates the EU not because it’s strong, but because it’s free. Because it lets people live, speak, and love how they choose. That threatens the very core of his regime.

So when Europe preaches democracy but hesitates to defend it with real force, it sends a clear message: our values are negotiable.

Let’s be very clear about what we’re up against. Russia is no longer a standard authoritarian state. It has become a full-blown militarized society with fascist traits. Not in the abstract, not metaphorically, but in practice. Putin has turned his country into a machine built to produce only three things: fear, weapons, and corpses. Everything in Russian society has been militarized. Education, religion, culture, the economy, each sector now serves the war effort. There are no more independent institutions, no space for protest or doubt. People have been trained to either cheer the bombs or stay silent. Russia prepares for a much larger, much more destructive war. And it’s not alone. In short, Russia is not preparing for peace, but for more war.

Despite years of sanctions and international condemnation, Russia’s war machine is humming along nicely, thanks in large part to a grim alliance of fellow authoritarians. Iran supplies drones that have turned Ukrainian cities into graveyards. North Korea also sends missiles and shells. Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang are three regimes not bound by shared ideology, just a mutual hatred of the free world.

It’s a terrifying picture. And yet, across the EU, it still feels like many leaders are attending a peace conference from 2012. There’s talk of “de-escalation” and “dialogue” and “avoiding provocation and World War 3,” as if we were all guests at a slightly awkward cocktail party, not the brink of a continental conflict.

And yet, Europe is not helpless: beneath the surface of slow-moving diplomacy, something has begun to shift. Germany, long reluctant to shed its post-war pacifism, is finally stepping into a new era. The Zeitenwende, once dismissed as empty rhetoric, is now backed by real policy: massive increases in defense spending, new procurement plans, and a genuine attempt to rebuild a military worthy of Europe’s largest economy.

In France, defense technology is gaining momentum. The country’s aerospace and arms industries are ramping up production and exploring next-generation systems, from drones to anti-aircraft defenses. The Macron government, for all its hedging, seems to understand that European sovereignty starts with hard power.

Meanwhile, on the continent’s eastern flank, Poland, Finland and the Baltic states are already living in the post-illusion world. They’ve doubled down on defense spending, built tight regional cooperation, and pushed NATO to adapt. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania know better than anyone what’s at stake, and they’re treating it accordingly. Poland, in particular, is rapidly becoming a serious military power in numbers, readiness, logistics, and mindset.

The defense industry across Europe, too, is starting to wake up. Companies are expanding production lines, governments are placing long-term orders, and for the first time in decades, the idea of a European defense is a serious conversation.

The clock is ticking. But the gears are turning. And that, finally, is a source of hope.

The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk region could shape the way NATO thinks about deterring Russia in the Baltics.

Describing a general in the midst of war is like trying to photograph a shadow in a storm: as the commander navigates the chaos of battle, his true nature, strengths, and weaknesses are often obscured by the surrounding turmoil, visible only to those closest to him. The ongoing debates over World War II battles suggest that historians and analysts will continue to discuss the military and political significance of the Kursk invasion, as well as Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi's role in it, for decades to come.

Syrskyi was born in Russia to a Russian family; his parents and brother, who works as a security guard, still live in Vladimir, just 200 km from Moscow. His Russian background may explain why he isn't intimidated by Russia’s partial occupation. He understands how Russians think, and there’s a natural sense of security that comes from being in familiar territory.

Despite being born in Russia, Syrskyi's achievements in fighting against Russia are remarkable. He led the successful defense of Kyiv, followed by a surprise offensive in Kharkiv in the fall of 2022. The Kursk operation bears similarities to the Kharkiv offensive, with its element of surprise, extreme secrecy, flawless execution, and impact on the ongoing war's core strategic narratives.

Ukrainian analyst Mykola Bielieskov told us in a recent interview, that Syrskyi inherited a highly complex situation when he took over from Valery Zaluzhnyi, the world’s most popular general. However, under Syrskyi's command, the Ukrainian army is equipped with more and better weapons systems than his predecessor had. His relationships with the Americans also seem stronger than Zaluzhnyi's were.

"Unlike Zaluzhnyi, Syrskyi frequently visits the front lines. This has sparked debate about whether he’s overstepping, but that's just his style," says a Ukrainian analyst. For instance, in early May, Syrskyi mentioned to the media that due to the complex situation in eastern Ukraine, he spent two days with units defending the Pokrovske and Kurakhove directions.

Another Ukrainian source describes Syrskyi as a classic representative of the Soviet military school, noting that while he knows the Russians well, he operates in a similar manner—only more effectively. He has been criticized for his perceived insensitivity to losses, especially during the Battle of Bakhmut. Reports have surfaced of tensions between field commanders and the Ukrainian General Staff, with some unit leaders allegedly dismissed for refusing to send their men into near-certain death.

It's in Ukraine’s best interest that the rest of the West focuses less on its prominent figures and more on the structural challenges Ukraine continues to face. The West’s ongoing constraints have a structural impact on the course of this war. Illustrating this was one significant outcome, and perhaps one of the goals, of the Kursk operation. The West is pushing Ukraine to fight by Moscow’s rules—a path Kyiv neither wanted nor could continue on, as the overall course of the war has become too grim.

After the failed counteroffensive of 2023, Ukraine was criticized for its inability to fight like NATO. The Kursk operation seems straight out of NATO’s military bible, Allied Joint Doctrine AJP-01. Its fourth chapter emphasizes the narrative-led execution of military operations: “Every action creates an informational effect, and via the information environment, that effect will influence multiple audiences, be they global, national, or within a theater of operations.”

NATO and the broader West should treat Ukraine's Kursk incursion as a reminder of the crucial value of narrative warfare, which at least on paper seems to be at the very heart of NATO’s military value system.

The victory in the Kursk operation lies in the battlefield of strategic narratives. There are no significant military targets in the Kursk region, which makes the risk-reward ratio of the operation, in purely military terms, seem insane. The prevailing narrative prior to the incursion was that Ukraine was quietly moving towards unfavorable negotiations and that extending the war onto Russian territory would trigger nuclear war.

There are also implications for deterring Russia in the Baltics. Who knows, maybe thanks to Colonel General Syrskyi and his colleagues' decisiveness, we might be discussing collective deterrence in the Baltics in new terms. At the Vilnius Summit in 2023, NATO shifted its military strategy from “deterrence by punishment” (which basically assumed that the Baltics would be defended post-aggression) to “deterrence by denial.”

Based on Kursk, we might see another shift in NATO’s thinking on how to deter Russia in the Baltics - the shift towards "deterrence by reciprocity". The realistic possibility that Russia could lose control over parts of its territory should it engage in territorial grabs in the Baltics would serve as a serious deterrent. Given the structural challenges of defending the Baltics (lack of depth and vulnerable supply lines), declaring "deterrence by reciprocity" would be a significant and reassuring step toward keeping Russia from even contemplating such strategic follies.