How the People of Ukraine Have Changed Us
The people of Ukraine have made Europeans believe in ourselves again. They have shaken us out of inertia and shown us what greatness looks like. And, thereby, left us with no excuses for not being great.
When we climbed out of our pandemic grottos, we were still sleepwalking—mainly reacting to whatever the world’s largest powers did to us. We were dependent on Russian oil and gas. In 2020, during the peak of the pandemic, we had to import 90% of our face masks from China. We let America dominate our security.
Then came February 24, 2022. Putin had decided that Ukraine was his to take.
Two days after Russia’s large-scale invasion, President Zelensky said the famous words, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” Ukrainians had stopped the Russian forces and were not going to surrender. European sleepwalking ended with a snap, but we needed a pot of coffee or two to let the facts sink in.
Fast forward to the summer of 2026: Russian troops have moved a total of 60 km. That’s less than 140 meters a day. Recently occupied Pokrovsk is 645 km from Kyiv.
The Ukrainian people have stood up to Goliath, and, in a smaller way, so have we.
Renewed confidence
The people of Ukraine forced our leaders to take more responsibility. And responsibility breeds mastery. Mastery breeds confidence. And this renewed confidence among European leaders has spread to the rest of the population.
The standing ovations for Zelensky wherever he goes reflect on us, too.
After more than four years of this grisly war, Europeans realise we can stand on our own two feet. We can defend ourselves. If not now, at least tomorrow. We can produce our own stuff and no longer need to buy everything from across the Atlantic. Ukraine may even replace America as our main arms supplier. Who would have imagined that, watching the long line of Russian tanks crawling towards Kyiv in February 2022?
Europe can act. America no longer decides what we can do in Ukraine. We are no longer shocked by what Vance, Rubio or the Orange Man himself says about us. Instead, we put our feet firmly down when Trump threatened to invade Greenland.
We are Ukraine’s best partners. We help Ukraine win this war. Yes, we have started to talk about victory—even serious experts do that now, watching how Ukrainian heroes, enabled by European taxpayers, smash Russian factories and refineries night after night. It’s a question, though, what the victory will look like, how long it will take, and how much more suffering the people of Ukraine are willing to endure.
Europe is not old and dying. Europe is mature.
This shift in mentality has spilt over to other sectors. The Stockholm-based European social platform W was launched this month. Denmark and France are phasing out Windows for government employees. America’s tariffs and unregulated greed are, to a large degree, behind those changes.
Even so, it is the Ukrainians who have led the way. They showed us not just that we can manage without America, but that we should. Partnerships are fine; it is the dependency that has been utterly wrong.
We are loosening the grip other powers have had around us as well. The import of Russian oil and gas to Europe is going to end before 2028. We have even started to defy China. Being dependent on the world’s largest dictatorship was not a good idea after all.
It was not “Ukraine” or “the war in Ukraine” that contributed to this renewed European confidence. Those are abstracts. Behind everything that happens in Ukraine, you find Ukrainian people.
And the people of Ukraine have aided other positive changes in Europe, too.
Permission to celebrate
The pride the Ukrainians, rightly so, take in their own culture and history has made it permissible for other Europeans to celebrate our virtues again.
We have not forgotten our flaws. The economy, climate change, immigration and populism are still with us. But Europe is not old and dying. Europe is mature.
No one in Europe is one cancer diagnosis away from homelessness. Waiters earn living wages. No one can buy any bread, beer or beans unless they are proven to be safe. No other part of the world offers the same quality of life alongside an abundant history and culture—from the steppes of Ukraine to the fjords of Norway, from the Acropolis to Stonehenge, from Kafka to Kant.
No excuses for not being great
But the Ukrainians’ influence doesn’t stop there. They have sparked European pride and confidence, but they have also shown us what we are capable of becoming. And that applies to every European, not just those within the borders of the EU.
We no longer have any excuses for not being great. If Ukraine, less developed than most other European countries, can withstand Russia—and even win—through bravery, endurance and intelligent innovation, we have no excuse. If they can be great, so must we.
We can, as Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, said, be a force for good.
That is what is meant by greatness. It is not measured in military might or economic power to dominate.
A force for good
And by being a force for good, Europe can influence the world — without military force, without destroying the planet, without bribing. We can quietly export our values, gain the soft power America had tenfold—because Europe, unlike America, can live up to its own values. We don’t talk about how great we are. We show it. Thus, we can become a much more credible role model.
We can be the soft-spoken leader of the world with a good heart and a steady moral compass. The one who does not have a hidden agenda. The one who does not promise quick fixes. The one who does not always believe they know best.
Europe can be the leader that encourages others to be the best they can be.
But being a force for good also means that you recognise a bully when you see one and stand up to them.
We should have learnt to treat bastards as the bastards they are.
To never again waste years on flattering a man like Trump. To not boost the economy of a dictatorship like China. To not need 20 packages of sanctions, or more, to stop a man like Putin.
Within this potential greatness lies Europe’s future.
Europe can, together with countries like Canada, Australia and Japan, become the world’s leading actors.
“The new world order,” said Mark Carney,” will be built starting with Europe.” And that is much thanks to the People of Ukraine.
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Thanks for reading! Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦
LINKS
Canada’s Carney says middle-power countries shouldn’t compete for favor with the U.S.
Europe will not submit to an ‘insular and brutal world’, says Carney
Prime Minister Carney addresses the World Economic Forum
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos
EU leaders back stronger trade defences amid Chinese export surge
European alternatives for digital products
The European social platform W
Ben Hodges: “I Believe That Ukraine Is Going To Win” | Amanpour and Company
Dr. Timothy Snyder: Why the Ukrainian Victory is Important for the World?