This is an opinion piece: it argues a point of view. The facts it rests on are sourced at the end.
Russia told us what it wants
In December 2021, two months before the invasion, Russia sent NATO two draft treaties. They demanded that NATO withdraw its forces from every country that joined after 1997: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria and more. In other words, half of today’s EU would go back to being Russia’s buffer zone. Ukraine was never the end of the list. It was the first item.
The hidden war has already started
You do not have to be in Ukraine to be a target. Since 2022, European security services have linked Russia to arson attacks on warehouses and shopping centres, parcels that caught fire at courier hubs, plots against arms makers, cut undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea, cyber-attacks, and the jamming of GPS signals that affects thousands of flights. A “shadow fleet” of old, badly insured tankers sails past the Dutch coast to sell Russian oil around the sanctions. In September 2025 Russian drones flew into Poland and had to be shot down by NATO jets, including Dutch F-35s.
And the Dutch already know what Russia’s denial looks like: 196 of the victims of MH17 were Dutch, and Russia has never admitted it.
Weakness invites attack
Putin did not invade Ukraine in 2022 because the West was strong. He did it because the reaction to Georgia in 2008 and to Crimea in 2014 was weak: a few sanctions, and gas deals as usual. A Russian victory in Ukraine, or a “peace” that rewards the invasion with land, would teach the same lesson again: aggression pays. The next test would come in a place where NATO’s promise to defend its members is on the line, such as the Baltic states.
Support is the cheap option
All European aid to Ukraine since 2022 is a fraction of one percent of Europe’s economy per year. Ukraine supplies the soldiers; Europe supplies money and weapons. Compare that with the price of a Russia that wins: millions more refugees, a militarised Russian army on the EU’s border with years of combat experience, and defence budgets that would have to rise far further than the 5% NATO already agreed in The Hague in 2025. Helping Ukraine hold Russia now is not charity. It is the cheapest defence Europe will ever buy.
What it means in practice
Keep the weapons and the money flowing, including Russia’s frozen central bank assets. Keep the sanctions, and enforce them against the shadow fleet. Do not accept a deal that hands over people to the occupation described in War crimes: the evidence. And do not believe anyone who says the war is null of our business. Russia has already decided that it is.
Sources
- 2021 Russian ultimatum to NATO (Wikipedia); Bloomberg: Russia demands NATO return to 1997
- Kiel Institute: Ukraine Support Tracker, aid compared with GDP
- AIVD (Dutch intelligence) annual reports, on Russian sabotage and espionage in the Netherlands
- Dutch Ministry of Defence: Dutch F-35s shoot down Russian drones over Poland
- MH17: what the investigation proved