Putin prefers war – and not just in Ukraine

Last Friday, Steve Witkoff made his third trip to Moscow as Donald Trump’s envoy in search of progress towards an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine, and Trump evinced frustration that there isn’t any.

So what? He shouldn’t be surprised.

• There is little evidence Putin wants to stop fighting and plenty that he wants to carry on.
• Almost as troubling is the evidence that he’s already engaged in a hybrid war on Europe as a whole.

Hot war. At least 34 people were killed in a ballistic missile attack on Sumy in northern Ukraine in the early hours of yesterday, Palm Sunday. The death toll from a separate attack on President Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih on 4 April has risen to 20, among them nine children. Russia has continued to attack Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure despite an explicit agreement with the US not to, and Zelensky says 67,000 Russian troops are poised to open a new front north of Kharkiv.

Hybrid war. Last month, three Bulgarian spies were found guilty of spying for Russia in the UK. Last year, at least 100 out of 500 suspicious incidents in Europe (cable sabotage, arson attacks, vandalism, cyberattacks and other information operations) were attributed to Russia.

The Danish defence intelligence service has warned that if Moscow perceives Nato as weak, Russia could start a large-scale war in Europe within five years. In that event, Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, says: “We are not ready.”

Grey zone. Europe is “not at war, but not at peace either”, Rutte says. As Russia aims to sow chaos and discredit Europe’s elected governments, they are responding piecemeal but with new urgency.

• Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are making joint plans to defend their eastern borders with Belarus and Russia.
• Poland is planning to train 100,000 extra troops by the end of 2026.
• Germany’s top general, Carsten Breuer, says his country also needs 100,000 more soldiers (for a total of 460,000 including reservists) to defend itself and Nato’s eastern flank “adequately”. German local authorities have said three-quarters of their 2,000 Cold War-era bunkers should be brought back into service.
• Norway is reactivating aircraft hangers at its Bardufoss Air Station and its naval base at Olavsvern, whose role is to help the “resilience and survivability” of Norway’s F-35 jets in the face of a Russian attack.
• Denmark has increased defence spending, extended its standard military service period from four to 11 months, and opted to start a mandatory military draft for young women two years earlier than planned.

Europe alone. Many of these preparations are predicated on the idea of an end to reliable US military support for Europe. In reality the US will stay in Nato, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says, but a ‘Europe-alone’ perspective has taken root even so, especially in view of Vice President Vance’s speech in Munich in February lambasting Europe as a so-called enemy of free speech.

The glitch. Many weapons systems located in Europe

• are sourced from the US;
• are designed to use US-made weapons (like those launched from F-35s);
• rely on software updates from US manufacturers; and
• automatically send key data points to the US.

Mind the gap. To be able to defend themselves without US weapons and support by 2030, EU member states have identified seven priority areas including: air and missile defence against cruise and ballistic missiles, artillery systems, ammunition and missiles, drones and counter-drone systems, military mobility, cyber and electronic warfare and ​​strategic enablers such as more airlift, air-to-air refuelling, intelligence and surveillance capabilities.

Long road. These goals are ambitious, and experts at Chatham House say to have a chance of achieving them the EU needs to press ahead with plans to loosen its fiscal rules to allow member states to increase defence expenditure. It should also

• improve venture capital’s access to financing European dual-use and defence tech start-ups;
• address critical labour shortages in defence companies, including by attracting expertise from the US;
• boost recruitment and retention of skilled armed forces personnel; and
• learn from the modern battlefield in Ukraine, which has shown the effectiveness of using cheap technology and scaling it quickly.

What’s more… If Donald Trump is serious about Greenland, Denmark may soon be busy on another front.