By Denko Maleski
Our NATO and EU allies are not having the best of times. America has announced plans to withdraw part of its troops from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and the Baltic states. With no sign of minimal agreement between the warring sides, the proxy war in Ukraine cannot end through a peace deal—it appears it will instead be decided on the battlefield. Russian troops are advancing.
European politicians, lacking public support for a war with Russia, are panicking at the possibility of losing America, their “peacekeeper,” from the continent. To keep the United States engaged, they are deliberately escalating the conflict in Ukraine. Just recently, Ursula von der Leyen announced yet another—perhaps the twentieth—package of sanctions against Russia, none of which have had a decisive effect on the war.
Russia, meanwhile, after testing its “Oreshnik” missile, unveiled the “Burevestnik,” a nuclear-powered missile with unlimited range. Donald Trump has announced nuclear tests, and Vladimir Putin responded that Russia would act in kind. In such circumstances, world peace hangs by a thread. No one would deliberately start a nuclear war, but the chances that something somewhere could go wrong—and send the world sliding uncontrollably toward Armageddon—are enormous.
All sides feel threatened. Russia calls NATO expansion into Ukraine an “existential threat.” Ukraine, in turn, considers Russia an “existential threat.” The European Union now also labels Russia as such. While the Russian and Ukrainian fears are understandable, the third claim is more problematic.
The European narrative used to mobilize public opinion is based on the idea of an expansionist Russian march through Eastern and eventually Western Europe. “If they are not stopped in Ukraine,” the story goes, “Russian soldiers will soon be in Paris.” Of course, this is nonsense. Even if it wanted to, Russia simply lacks the power. Moscow is holding back from taking full control of Western Ukraine due to expected resistance there, let alone Eastern or Western Europe.
Russia’s goal has been clear since before the war began: to prevent a rival great power from installing military forces in Ukraine. Hence its strategy of seizing regions with Russian populations and linking them to Crimea. Putin achieved that goal early in the war, amending the constitution and, in a Moscow ceremony, formally annexing the four Donbas regions. What followed has been a three-year “war of attrition.”
Despite EU leaders’ wishes, there is no turning back. Every opportunity for a peaceful settlement between the two powers was deliberately missed in pursuit of the war’s primary aim—to weaken Russia, dismantle its autocracy, and unseat Putin. That plan has failed. With so much blood spilled, the chances of withdrawing occupying forces and returning to the Minsk agreements are zero. Moscow refuses a ceasefire or a “frozen conflict” and demands a permanent solution that addresses the roots of the war. Ukraine, it seems, will be divided—how, remains to be seen.
Polls show support for division is highest in the east, populated by ethnic Russians, and in the west, home to ethnic Ukrainians. The first are Orthodox Christians waving Russian flags; the second, Catholics waving Ukrainian ones. Between them live Orthodox Ukrainians who also wave Ukraine’s flag.
While Trump sends mixed signals—sometimes for, sometimes against Russia’s demands (recognition of territorial gains, Ukrainian neutrality, disarmament)—Moscow’s terms remain unacceptable to both Kyiv and Brussels. The EU insists on continuing the war until “victory” and the withdrawal of Russian troops. This, it argues, defends the principle of the inviolability of European borders. Sadly, what is possible in the ideal world of international law (in which, incidentally, Macedonia’s political leadership still seems to live) is not possible in the real world of power politics.
The story is more complex. The EU truly faces an “existential threat” from Russia—but not from an invasion of France or Germany. That will not happen. The real threat comes from losing the war in Ukraine, which could mark the end of NATO and the EU as we know them. A lost war would accelerate America’s withdrawal from Europe and unleash centrifugal forces of competing national interests within the Union, undermining any common foreign and security policy toward Russia.
As if all this were not enough, under the pretext of drug smuggling into the United States, Donald Trump’s administration is preparing for a new war—this time in Venezuela. Statistics show that 95 percent of America’s drugs come from Colombia, and that smuggling boats rarely reach beyond Trinidad and Tobago’s waters, far from U.S. shores. Still, U.S. forces are destroying them with missiles.
The real reason? The same as always: control. Trump’s wealthy circle is determined to seize Venezuela—home to the world’s largest oil reserves and vast mineral wealth—a country the size of France and Germany combined. In Washington’s corridors, a new slogan is whispered: “China out of Latin America.” Tomorrow, that whisper could turn into a call to arms.
A military intervention is being demanded by Venezuelan opposition leader María Machado—dubbed by some “the Pinochet of Venezuela”—who, ironically, just received this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. In such shameful circumstances, we can understand why Jean-Paul Sartre once refused his million-dollar Nobel Prize, saying he did not want his name forever linked to the phrase “Nobel laureate.”
(The article is originally published in Macedonian)