Geopolitics and Ukraine

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In 2004, seven countries – including Estonia and Latvia sharing borders with Russia – entered NATO and the EU. In the same year, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, alleged by Russia to be an orchestrated colour revolution, was successful in removing pro-Russian Victor Yanukovych from power. But he returned, and a bigger Euromaidan had to be designed for his re-ouster. The same was attempted in Belarus in 2006, against pro-Russia Lukashenko, in the Denim Revolution.

Yanukovych was ousted again in 2014, the Donbas War ignited, and Russia annexed Crimea. Both Minsk I and II (2014, 2015) ceasefire agreements between Russia and Ukraine failed, and Russia entered Ukraine in 2022.

The US was also successful in instating pro-EU and pro-NATO presidents, Poroshenko and later Zelensky into power in 2014 and 2019.

All this context was to show that ever since the post-Cold War, post-Soviet era the unidirectional goal of the West for Europe was the expansion of the EU and NATO and the encircling of Russia, even when it was broken and frail.

And all was going according to plan, until just after three years of the Ukraine war. All of a sudden, the support for NATO/EU expansion started ceasing; rather it seemed that both the EU and NATO are losing their relevance. In the passing year far-right parties, which espouse anti-climate, anti-immigration and anti-Ukraine war ideas, have won in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia. Far-right parties in France and Germany have also taken quiet a lead. These parties also disprove the idea of being members of the EU and NATO. In Germany, the AfD, openly questioned German membership of NATO in the election campaign.

The cancellation of the Romanian elections in December under the allegation that Russia interfered is also interesting in this regard, as it was US Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk who denounced this decision as undemocratic and the country's top court as a tyrant. So, who is anti-Ukraine, anti-EU and anti-NATO – the far-right parties of Europe or the new Trump administration?

Europe is already facing existential crisis. It is facing lack of entrepreneurship, dearth of technological innovation, high energy prices, declining euro-dollar parity and aging populations. Already since the 2008 financial crisis, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Spain are living through their bailout plans, and now in 2025 the strongest EU economies like Germany and France, suffering lack of competitiveness, are standing on the verge of economic crisis.

All this but still the EU has spent around €127 billion on Ukraine since January 2022. Why? Because Europe believed in a joint future with the US; it thought that together with the US, it was on a joint crusade against China and Russia. But little did it know that one fine morning, Trump would leapfrog the whole of Europe and join hands with Russia.

This is the dawn of a new world order. This is a split within the strong liberal, White, Christian civilisation that had ruled humanity for centuries now. And that's not all, Trump is not just sawing the branch the US is sitting on, he is sawing all branches. He is hitting tariff on Canada, Mexico, China, India, Russia, Iran and many more, making its friends-list shorter and foes-list longer.

The truth is that Europe has long lost its sovereignty and agency; everything is done in concert with the US. That is why the US president can call in Macron, Starmer and Zelensky turn by turn, and rebuke them on live telecast in the Oval Office. From Europe's standpoint, while the US is distancing itself from the conflict zone that they want Europe to become, it is embracing far-right leaderships in Europe that will ensure the disintegration of the EU and even of NATO so that Europe remains nothing but a stepping stone for the US. Now, Europe has played the divide-and-rule game long enough. Will it fall into the same so easily?

Trump needs to reckon that if the world is going towards a new order, that won't necessarily be of his liking. Once the order of things is upended, things will settle in along new paradigms. European states will wake up to their own interests, just like Germany's new government has allowed itself to borrow more, creating a €500 billion fund for infrastructure and military spending. And surely, it will rethink its relations with China, when Trump can rethink Russia. Macron has warned the EU leaders that the continent is at a "turning point of history", and Ursula von der Leyen has announced an unprecedented defence package, dubbed ReArm Europe.

Is it thinkable that after decades of enmity from the West, Russia would blindly go for a US-friendship and leave the cherished relation with China? Considering that NATO is the sinking boat, and not BRICS, one can wonder who needs to switch to whose boat. China and Russia are not getting so much isolated because of the tariff-regime, rather they are gaining more friends and more markets via platforms like the BRICS, SPIEF and BRI. So, China has simply put retaliatory tariffs on the US, saying, "if war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we're ready to fight till the end."

Trump has said that Zelensky does not have the cards, and that Russia has all the cards. What he doesn't say is that it was America's flawed strategic policies that dragged Ukraine and Europe into the war in the first place, and their shortsightedness that led to Russia's gains. And it is immoral on the part of the US to ditch them and switch sides at a critical juncture.

But you know how morality goes in the West – it's relative.