Aliide Naylor
The leaders who oversaw the bloc’s timid response to Vladimir Putin’s seizure of his neighbor’s territory in 2014 have been speaking about their reasons for standing back. It provides a clear warning to EU capitals not to repeat the same mistakes.
When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, “little green men,” unbadged Russian soldiers, entered the East of the country to foment a faux-organic uprising against the government in Kyiv. In February and March of that same year, Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula.
By August, Russian soldiers’ mothers were asking where their sons had disappeared to, amid reports that troops had been buried in unmarked graves to hide their role in the conflict.
The message from the European Union (EU) was “not to use arms” in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the former Latvian ambassador to Ukraine Argita Daudze recalled at a symposium hosted by the Cambridge University Centre for Geopolitics in April. Ukraine was discouraged from fully defending itself against an aggressive Russia in 2014, she said.
Meanwhile, in the eyes of Ukrainians, the world’s reaction was woefully inadequate. “The response internationally was pretty muted, Kyiv felt alone,” said Catherine Ashton, the EU high representative for foreign affairs between 2009 and 2014.
One of the major issues in terms of the bloc’s response was the fact that the EU isn’t a military power. It has no army and relies on the protection of NATO and its constituent nations’ nuclear capabilities.
There were several aligning factors that held back the EU after the first invasion. “Europe could not prevent a Russian military invasion of Ukraine because of the EU’s security idiosyncrasies, nuclear policy choices, divergent political interests, energy dependency, and ineffective sanctions policy on Russia,” according to researcher Adérito Vicente.
But a further, and vital, factor that prevented Europe from taking a stronger stance was its concern about the way it might be perceived during the Maidan revolution in February 2014.
“I knew Moscow, they would be watching this, and I knew they would take any opportunity to say this was EU-inspired, CIA-inspired, American-inspired, and so on,” Ashton recalled. “It was really important to me that what they saw was people on the streets, people on the square, and me talking to them — not showing any level of leadership.”
Maidan was a grassroots, community-driven movement, angry at the corruption of the Russia-aligned government of Viktor Yanukovych. At the time, European delegates visited Ukraine merely to support Ukrainians who had clearly made a choice — they were listening to them but not influencing them.
Europe was eager to signal the West’s understanding that Ukraine — at that time — had a strong relationship with Moscow. “This was not about a failure on our part to see that in terms of the geography and the geopolitics,” Ashton said. “Russia was an important country to Ukraine, and Ukraine was an important country to Russia. This was about recognizing that too.”
We now know that Europe’s attempt to ensure it didn’t lure Ukraine actually smoothed the path to the full-scale invasion of February 2022, by showing too much deference to Russian feelings and not enough to Ukrainian sentiment. And, of course, the Kremlin still managed to find ways to blame the West.
In addition, confronting Russia would have “pushed the West too far out of its comfort zone,” said Jakob Hauter, author of Russia’s Overlooked Invasion, an account of the 2014 war in the Donbas.
Too many people also bought into the idea that the issues at stake in Ukraine were internal, Hauter added. This allowed Europe to ignore the prospect of a major war on the continent, exacerbating later events.
Another reason was self-interest on the part of the West. Germany, especially, had significant business ties with Russia and, because of its own history, was especially reluctant to respond forcefully.
At the time, sanctions were seen as something that could impact the economies of every single constituent nation — and everyone had to agree on them if they were to be effective. “All 28 countries had to be prepared to take a hit,” Ashton said.
Even with hindsight, Europe cannot be held responsible for Moscow’s aggression. Blame must continue to be laid in the right place – squarely with Russia.
Aggression borne of revenge, sadism, and a quest for imperial domination on land and in the Black Sea is undeniably the root cause of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, combined with a refusal to acknowledge Ukraine’s right to opt out of Russian-style “governance.”
The consensus at the symposium was that the EU needs to realize its collective strength in the face of Russian aggression, and in dealing with the threat needs to take stronger practical steps. The West’s united response in shooting down Iranian drones aimed at Israel on April 13 has deepened Ukrainian indignation — it is repeatedly left alone to deal with constant barrages of Russian drones and missiles.
And Europe still lacks the necessary defense production capabilities. After missing a previous ammunition delivery target, the European Commission allocated some €500m ($535m) for manufacturing in March, with the continent reportedly on track to reach ammunition production of 2 million shells annually by the end of 2025.
Yet at the same time, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Germany still haven’t met NATO’s target of 2% of GDP on defense spending. There are also nearly $300bn of frozen Russian assets that could be used to help Ukraine fight back.
There is a need for a stronger and more inventive collective strategy, one which is proactive, as opposed to reactive.
As murdered Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s widow has said, in order to defeat President Vladimir Putin, you have to “become an innovator . . . You have to stop being boring.” Europe should take note.
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