Pinned
An injured elderly woman looks out of her broken window after a Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit: Efrem Lukatsky/AP
As yet another self-imposed Trump deadline to end the war drifts by, he appears more interested in the fairways of Florida and sketching notional warships to be named after him than in confronting the bitter reality of war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine fights on, isolated, under-resourced, and increasingly abandoned by those who once claimed they would stand firm against tyranny from the East – even as they shelter from Vladimir Putin’s war machine behind the bulwark of Ukrainian sacrifice.
In a grotesque parody of Christian values, Putin has chosen Christmas to intensify attacks on civilians. Russian missiles and drones are deliberately targeting Ukraine’s power grid, plunging homes into darkness and cold as Siberian winds sweep across the country. This is not collateral damage; it is strategy. I have seen this playbook myself in Syria, where civilian suffering was weaponised to keep a dictator in power well beyond his expiry date. Putin learned that lesson well.
The reality is now starkly clear: Europe is the last hope that Putin’s campaign of conquest can be stopped where it is now. If Ukraine is to survive as a sovereign nation, it will be because Europeans chose to act.
Some still cling to the illusion that Putin will be contented with Ukraine and stop on the Nato line. That belief is wilful ignorance. It ignores the Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s security in 1994. It ignores Putin’s outright lies in January 2022, when he claimed troop movements in Belarus were merely exercises, weeks before launching a full-scale invasion. To believe the dictator now is to ignore every lesson of recent history.
So, what must be done? At the very least, Europe must help Ukraine defend its civilians. Civilian infrastructure is protected under the Geneva Conventions, yet Russia attacks it relentlessly. Air defence is not escalation; it is protection. Europe has the capability, the aircraft, the weapons and the crews to defend critical Ukrainian infrastructure if it so chooses.
Ukrainian rescuers work to extinguish a fire in a damaged residential building following an air attack in Zaporizhzhia. Credit: Darya Nazarova/Getty
Why, then, is there no serious effort by Prime Minister Starmer and the “coalition of willing” European states to impose protected airspace over key civilian targets, at least over the winter? Putin understands strength and we know he exploits weakness. He knows our F-35 stealth fighters need not fear his long-range anti-air missiles: less sophisticated planes in US and Israeli service had no problems with Iran’s Russian-supplied defences.
We have seen Putin’s reaction before when faced with the credible threat of really advanced Western weapons, most especially US Tomahawk cruise missiles. He blustered, protested, and Trump backed down. Had a thousand or so Tomahawks been supplied to President Zelensky, I doubt Ukraine’s collective back would be so hard pressed against the wall.
As broadcasters relay the voices of exhausted Ukrainian soldiers and terrified civilians sheltering from nightly bombardments, European leaders appear content to look away from the war for Christmas. But war does not observe holidays. If Putin possessed even a trace of decency he would declare a ceasefire, if only for 24 hours. He does not and he will not.
That leaves us with a choice. Either Europe finds its moral courage and acts, or it sinks further into moral decay. Protecting civilians, keeping the heating on in the snowy winter, and denying Russia the ability to terrorise a population from the air – this is not warmongering, it is leadership.
If Ukraine falls, Europe will be next. We will have failed, and history will record that once again, tyranny advanced because democracies hesitated.
