"Europe is safe because Ukrainians have been successfully pinning down the powerful Russian army," Munich Security Conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger told Deutsche Welle in December. Strip away the diplomatic packaging and the statement is: Ukrainians are dying so that Europeans don't have to.
And that is exactly what is happening. Europe is watching Ukraine slowly bleed to death—and making excuses for why it cannot act.
The excuses
Excuse one: the "steel porcupine"
Arm Ukraine well enough and it can deter Russia on its own after a ceasefire. No NATO membership, no collective defense—just weapons, training, and vague security guarantees.
If that logic held, NATO itself would be unnecessary. No one suggests that France, with its nuclear arsenal and the EU's largest military, should guarantee its own security without Article 5. Germany doesn't. Poland doesn't. The Baltic states—facing a fraction of the threat Ukraine endures daily—don't. They have collective defense. Ukraine is offered a porcupine costume and wished good luck.
The porcupine is a mirage. It exists so that European leaders can say they are "doing something" without doing the one thing that would actually work: treating Ukraine's security as inseparable from their own.
Excuse two: "peace talks"
Throughout 2025, the US facilitated negotiations that were hailed as progress. In reality, under American pressure, Ukraine was forced to shelve its 2024 Victory Plan and accept a ceasefire framework that would leave millions of citizens under Russian occupation. That is not peace. It is the capitulation of everything Ukraine has been fighting for—dressed in diplomatic language.
Both rounds of Abu Dhabi talks were accompanied by major Russian strikes on civilian energy infrastructure. The so-called energy "ceasefire" in early February was a masterclass in deception—no one knew its scope, duration, or start date. When Putin violated it, Trump said Putin "kept his word." As Iryna Krasnoshtan wrote for Euromaidan Press, negotiations give Russia exactly what it needs: diplomatic cover to escalate while paralyzing Western response.
Excuse three: "it is for Ukraine to decide on sensitive issues like territory"
This is the most cynical of all. Europe shifts responsibility for its own inaction onto Ukrainians enduring 80% blackouts, indoor temperatures of 7–10°C, and 147 Russian drones every night. As if people being frozen and bombed in their homes are making free choices.
What "Europe is safe" looks like from Kyiv
The year Ischinger describes as keeping Europe safe was the deadliest for Ukrainian civilians since the full-scale invasion. Russia killed 2,514 verified civilians and injured 12,142 in 2025—31% more than the year before.
Russia launched 53,732 combat drones—a fivefold increase, averaging 147 every night. It nearly doubled ballistic missile use to 568, fired 1,330 cruise missiles, and in January 2026 alone launched 91 ballistic missiles, 6,000 drones, 5,500 guided aerial bombs, and 158 additional missiles.
The energy campaign has reduced Ukraine's power production to 20% of pre-war capacity. Russia destroyed approximately 90% of thermal power plants. Russia routinely strikes the same location twice—first to destroy, then to kill the rescue workers who respond.
In February 2025, a Russian drone hit the protective confinement over Chornobyl's destroyed Unit 4 reactor—the structure built with billions in international funding to shield Europe from radiological contamination. Its safety functions have been compromised. Europe's own nuclear safety is already at risk, and Munich's conference-goers barely noticed.
Even now, during the Munich Security Conference, at a Black Sea dinner dedicated to discussing the impact of the war on regional security, we had to remind participants that only the return of Crimea to Ukraine can make the Black Sea safe for everyone—because today it is the Armed Forces of Ukraine who are containing Russia at sea.
2025 was the deadliest year not because Russia grew dramatically stronger, but because Ukraine did not receive the support it needed. Western countries continue to withhold long-range weapons. Many still restrict use of provided weapons against military targets inside Russia—shielding missile factories while Ukrainian cities burn. The drip-feeding of military aid is no longer "escalation management." It has become a tool of coercion—against Ukraine.
“If not Brussels, then Moscow:” Munich Security Report 2026 paints stark picture of Europe’s security crisis
The guarantees are worthless
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has promised a "devastating reaction" should Russia violate a future ceasefire. The response to the full-scale invasion was supposed to be "sanctions from hell." What followed was years of incremental packages riddled with loopholes—no comprehensive embargo, no confiscation of sovereign assets, no Russian perpetrators brought to justice.
Western politicians insist new security guarantees will be "better than the Budapest Memorandum." The Budapest Memorandum didn't fail because of poor drafting. It failed because nobody enforced it. The US, UK, and France didn't take the matter to the General Assembly. They didn't join Ukraine's self-defense. They didn't even try to suspend Russia's vote.
A coalition that will not fight a weakened Russia today—after Ukraine has degraded its military for three years—will not fight a reconstituted Russia tomorrow, after Moscow rebuilds during a ceasefire.
Everyone knows how this ends
Russia will not stop until it is stopped. Not by porcupine posturing. Not by peace talks where every round is accompanied by missile strikes. Not by security guarantees from countries that have broken every previous one.
Europe can wait until Ukraine bleeds to death and then face Russia on its own borders—without Ukraine's battle-hardened military, without a buffer, and without the three years of Russian degradation that Ukraine has accomplished at unimaginable cost.
Or it can act.
Acting means air defense missiles now—not after a theoretical ceasefire. Provide Ukraine with massive long-range strike capabilities, so Ukraine can hit missile production and storage at the source, because intercepting 800 drones a night is not sustainable without reducing the supply. Ukraine has proven that it can independently conduct deep strikes using its own drone technologies, so it will bring peace faster.
Deploying a European air shield over Ukraine while Russian missiles are killing civilians in their homes—intercepting missiles and drones is not an act of war; it is, at minimum, an act of self-interest, given that Europe's own radiological safety is at stake every time Russia strikes near a nuclear power plant.
And building what Hans Petter Midttun, former Norwegian Defense Attaché to Ukraine, has called a genuine military alliance of like-minded nations—with shared threat perception, mandatory defense spending, and Ukraine as a founding member—instead of another layer of reassuring language over structures that have already failed.
As Poland's Donald Tusk has observed, it is a paradox "that 500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians."
The deeper paradox: those same Europeans expect 37 million Ukrainians to manage the threat alone, while they discuss security at a conference in a heated hotel.
But that would require Europe to stop being hostage to both Putin and Trump. It would require acting. And so far, Munich has been a place for talking.
This article draws on a position paper presented at the Munich Security Conference 2026 by the Direct Initiative International Centre for Ukraine, National Interests Advocacy Network—ANTS, and the International Centre for Ukrainian Victory.
Editor's note. The opinions expressed in our Opinion section belong to their authors. Euromaidan Press' editorial team may or may not share them.
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