We’re Going to Have a Meeting About That... Leaving Ukraine to Swing in the Wind.
As I type this, it will be 1,564 days or 4 years, 3 months, 14 days, 0 hours, 20 minutes since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
That unprovoked invasion was supposed to last but a few days before total capitulation. It seems the nation and its president had other ideas. Offered a flight out by the US, President Zelensky replied, “Don’t send me transportation, send me bullets.”
And thus began a heroic tale that stunned the world.
For many European heads of state, it became a useful photo opportunity. Arriving in Kiev, smiling at the camera while shaking the president’s hand, they guarantee their unwavering support and scamper back to whatever country from which they came.
How do I love thee, let me count the ways…
Surprisingly, my sources confirm that more than 40 European presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, and senior EU leaders have made at least one visit. Many have gone multiple times.
June 16, 2022, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Mario Draghi, Klaus Iohannis visited together.
February 24, 2024 (2nd anniversary) the leaders of Canada, Italy, Belgium and a number of EU institutions visited Kyiv.
February 24, 2025 (3rd anniversary) One of the largest gatherings included leaders from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Canada and others, joined Zelensky in Kyiv.
May 10, 2025, Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Donald Tusk arrived together in Kyiv to support Ukraine and call for a ceasefire.
February 24, 2026, (4th anniversary) a new summit in Kyiv brought Nordic, Baltic and other European leaders to Ukraine on the war’s fourth anniversary.
In total, Kyiv has hosted dozens of European leaders and well over 100 individual leader visits since February 2022, making it one of the most heavily visited wartime capitals in modern history.
Most heavily visited and most lightly supported.
Love, it seems, is more observation of body-counts than the bullets requested.
It’s one thing to honor anniversaries, and quite another to agree to a marriage. In my view, Europe and, probably more importantly, the United States, never showed up at the alter.
Since the disastrous Trump-Zelensky White House shaming in February of 2025, Europe has held roughly 15–20 major leader-level conferences, summits, and Coalition of the Willing meetings in about 15 months. These include gatherings in London, Paris, Kyiv, Brussels, Berlin, and several virtual summits.
Bottom line, the Coalition of the Willing wasn’t all that willing.
Launched by Britain and France in March of 2025, leaders held a London summit, a Virtual summit, and a Paris summit, all of which occurred within a month. Additional meetings in April, May, July, September, October, November, and December of 2025 were sort of ‘base camps’ for approaching a Paris summit in January, and a Kyiv summit in February of 2026.
No sherpas were in sight. All of which embarrassed both themselves and the definition of summitry.
Even so, like a proper sugar daddy,the recalcitrant Coalition came up with about $300 billion.
Both supporters and critics can claim partial validation. Supporters will tell you the aid stopped a sovereign democracy from being erased, while critics insist all that dough only produced a very bloody stalemate.
But, even with Trump declaring Ukraine had no cards to play, by mid-2023, public rhetoric in parts of Washington, London, Brussels, and the media, escalated toward recovering all occupied territory, isolating Russia economically, crippling its military, and weakening Putin permanently.
All of which are pretty much ‘high, apple pie, in the sky expectations’ for Ukraine, when you compare it to the US’s inability to make that happen during an entire Cold War. That required far more than survival, including sustained offensive superiority, industrial overmatch, air dominance, ammunition supremacy, and political unity over many years.
None of those advantages were on the menu in Kiev.
Meanwhile, Zelensky was holding the whole thing together with chewing gum.
So, the apple pie conditions never fully materialized, as Russia adapted its economy to sanctions, China, India and others continued buying Russian energy, and Moscow ramped up drone and artillery production.
The 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive became a psychological turning point. And, way too many in the West expected dramatic breakthroughs, including the collapse of the Russian initiative, and Crimea possibly being under immediate threat. That was a study in ‘wishful thinking,’ which might well have happened if Europe had stepped forward with an upgrade in weaponry.
Didn’t happen.
And, you might well ask, if $300 billion cannot decisively win the war, what exactly is Europe’s (and Putin’s) endgame?
Time to call it what it is, and admit that Europe is terrified of Putin, and his nuclear capability.
All this nonsense, along with summits that never deal with real issues is hanging Ukraine out to dry, just as Britain’s Neville Chamberlain did in WWII, when he sacrificed Czechoslovakia for “Peace in our Time.”
Winston Churchill nailed it when he told Chamberlain, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” There are those who say Britain wasn’t yet ready.
When is anyone ever ‘ready’ for a madman?
This fear of Putin and atomic response will go on and on, as he nibbles away at Europe. Who’s next? “Well,” the summit attendees are bound to respond, “he will never dare to attack a NATO country.” Peace in our time was a pretty hard nut to crack for Poland, France, and Hitler’s other targets in continental Europe.
If Europe will not have the courage to arm Ukraine with ‘like for like’ missiles and aircover, it ought at least have the moral courage to say so. Mothers shielding their babies with their own bodies in basements, and ‘making do’ with destroyed infrastructure, while European heads of state attend endless summits, is Churchill’s definition of ‘dishonor.’
No international bully has ever been appeased.
Vladimir Zelensky, the bravest man of this century, deserves better than to beg his way around Western powers. So do Ukrainian soldiers and its public…
And that is largely where the debate now lives.