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To start, Europe must rid itself of the dangerous illusion that it is weak—and stop acting like it. Europe’s NATO members have a combined GDP of $23trn, ten times that of Russia. Nevertheless, their lack of decisive action so far means that Russia and its impoverished allies still spend around 40% more on destroying Ukraine than the combined West spends on helping Ukraine defend itself.
However, this also means the cost of putting Ukraine on an equal footing with Russia is lower than one might think. In the past six months Russia has been humiliated in Syria, failed to dislodge three Ukrainian brigades from the Kursk region, and taken more than 200,000 casualties in advancing roughly the distance from central London to Heathrow airport. This means that its “consistent advances” on the battlefield during the past year have been tiny, and have come at a cost of more than 4,000 Russian casualties per kilometre.
According to new research by the Tony Blair Institute, an additional $40bn per year in military support for Ukraine—just 0.2% of the GDP of European NATO members—would probably be enough to match Russia’s resources on the battlefield. Given its extreme losses and teetering economy, this would eventually put Russia in a situation where continuing its war would lead to military and economic disaster. That is a good starting point for bringing Russia to the negotiating table on terms favourable to Ukraine and Europe.
