Europe’s bravado exposes its contradictions, chaos, and growing voter disconnect.
Arrogant, haughty, conceited, overbearing, pompous, high-handed, swaggering, boastful – if you thought these terms described Ukrainian leader Zelensky after Friday’s Oval Office debacle, all you had to do was wait for how European leaders reacted.
In less than 24 hours, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced to select EU leaders that “we will go further to develop a coalition of the willing” to defend a deal in Ukraine and “guarantee peace.” He said Britain would be prepared to back this “with boots on the ground, and planes in the air…together with others.” He also announced a loan of 2.2 billion British pounds ($2.8 billion) to support Ukraine, funded by the freezing of Russian assets (passed on Saturday).
Europe’s leaders are talking a big game on Ukraine, but are they actually putting their money where their mouth is? Here’s a look at how much these countries are spending on defense. Some are stepping up, but is it enough? And more importantly—are their voters even on board?
For all the pomp of the announcement, we noticed that the money didn’t belong to the UK in the first place and was not a gift. Pity the U.S. taxpayer, who shelled out nearly $120 billion in grants and free money to Ukraine that will never be repaid.
Maybe Starmer was trying to appeal to Kaja Kallas, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. Mere hours after Zelensky was asked to leave the White House, she displayed classic hubris, saying “that the Free World needs a new leader.” And she spoke for the coalition of the willing: “Ukraine is Europe! We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor.”
Not to be outdone, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, posted on LinkedIn: “We need a lasting peace in Ukraine. But it can only be achieved through strength. And we need a massive surge in European Defence. At Thursday’s European Council, I will present a plan to rearm Europe.”
Even as Starmer and von der Leyen bowed to Davos and the global elite, not everyone in Europe was on board, including Hungary, Estonia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Latvia – states that are geographically closer to Russia and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the British Ambassador to the U.S. Lord Peter Mandelson appeared on ABC’s This Week to say: “President Zelensky needs to give ‘his unequivocal backing’ to the initiative that President Trump is taking to END the war and to bring a just and lasting PEACE.” Someone in the British Foreign Service forgot to tell Mandelson what his boss was doing in London.
The leaders also conveniently forgot what voters have been telling them. Democracy is a word that the EU leaders adore, often acting as the only ones left on the planet to defend it. Just a week earlier in Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party achieved a historic second place with 20.8%, doubling its support base from the 2021 election. The AfD ran on normalizing relations with Russia. Worse, German Chancellor Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) suffered a significant loss, dropping to 16.4%, their worst postwar result. Scholz was at the London summit.
In the June 2024 European Parliament elections, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) emerged as the largest group, securing around 186 seats (about 26% of the total). Soon after, in the French parliamentary elections, the RN, led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, took a strong lead with 33.2% of the vote (about 10 million). Le Pen has consistently favored normalizing relations with Moscow, a stance that resonated with voters. The high turnout—66.7%, the highest since 1997—underscored the electorate’s engagement and dissatisfaction with the establishment. Because France votes in two rounds, Macron somehow engineered a result in which the RN wouldn’t win by forming a coalition to keep the RN out.
Of course, the beneficiary of all this drama is Ukrainian President Zelensky, whose term ended legally in May 2024 but has been extended indefinitely because of martial law, which Kyiv imposed on February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded the country. Article 19 of Ukraine’s “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” explicitly prohibits presidential, parliamentary, and local elections during martial law, which has been extended multiple times—most recently until May 9, 2025—as approved by the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. The Ukrainian Constitution further supports Zelensky’s continued presidency. Article 108 states “The President of Ukraine exercises his or her powers until the assumption of office by the newly-elected President of Ukraine.” Since no election can occur under martial law, Zelensky legally retains his position until a successor is elected.
South Carolina GOP senator Lindsey Graham, who has had a deep passion for Ukraine’s affairs dating back to the Maidan Revolution in Kyiv when he joined his best friends John McCain and Christopher Murphy to protest for the ouster of the pro-Kremlin leader, has been on Zelensky’s Rolodex every day that Zelensky is in office. Graham is a seasoned politician with an acute sense of shifting political winds, always ready to reposition himself as needed.
After Zelensky haughtily left the White House, Graham went to the cameras, which always have a magnetic effect on the senator, to describe the meeting as a “complete and utter disaster.” “He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change,” Graham said of Zelensky. Graham was throwing a good friend under the bus, a skill that comes naturally to the senator.
However, Zelensky’s response showed how he could tolerate no criticism, even from his best friend in the GOP wing, who helped push over $120 billion of aid to Kyiv. Speaking to a reporter, Zelensky said: “Lindsey Graham is a very good guy…I can give him Ukrainian citizenship, then his voice will gain weight.” With just a few words, Zelensky reduced Graham, who often received welcomes in Kyiv akin to those given to heads of state, to an ordinary Ukrainian voter.
Arrogance, hubris, and self-importance—here’s the modern EU. It is ironic that the EU’s main charges against Trump are the same. Unfortunately for the EU, Trump just got elected with a sound mandate to lead the most powerful and wealthy nation on Earth.
