Russia’s President Vladimir Putin should be tried in The Hague for war crimes, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a surprise visit to the Netherlands.
“We all want to see a different Vladimir here in The Hague,” Zelenskyy said. “The one who deserves to be sentenced for these criminal actions right here, in the capital of international law.”
The Ukrainian president spoke in The Hague, where he traveled unexpectedly Thursday. He is expected to meet Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo later in the day.
In March, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant against Putin over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow has previously said it did not recognize the court’s authority, but the warrant means that the ICC’s 123 member countries are required to arrest Putin if he ever sets foot on their territory, and transfer him to The Hague.
The warrant’s existence has already caused a stir in South Africa, where the Russian president could attend the next BRICS summit in August.
Last week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the country should leave the ICC — but his office backtracked a few hours later, stressing South Africa remained part of the court.
In spite of numerousreports that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine — including a recent U.N. investigation which said that Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children amounted to a war crime — the Kremlin has denied it committed any crimes.
In his speech Thursday, Zelenskyy said Russian forces had committed more than 6,000 war crimes in April alone, killing 207 Ukrainian civilians.
The Ukrainian president renewed his call to create a Nüremberg-style, “full-fledged” tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression and deliver “a full justice” — and lasting peace.
“The sustainability of peace arises from the complete justice towards the aggressor,” Zelenskyy said.
Speaking shortly before Zelenskyy, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said the Netherlands was “ready and willing” to host that court, as well as registers of the damages caused by Russia’s invasion, echoing similar statements he made in December.
“Illegal wars cannot be unpunished,” Hoekstra said. “We will do everything in our power to ensure that Russia is held to account.”
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
KYIV — “She’ll say whatever the FSB [Federal Security Service] wants her to say,” said Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian lawmaker-turned-dissident who now lives in Kyiv.
Discussing who was behind the bombing of a St. Petersburg café earlier this month — which left 40 injured and warmongering military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky dead — the “she” in question was 26-year-old Darya Trepova who, until recently, was an assistant at a vintage clothing store and a feminist activist, and has been accused of being the bomber.
And the St. Petersburg bombing — as well as another carried out against commentator Darya Dugina — has now sharpened a debate within the deeply fractured, often argumentative and diverse Russian opposition, regarding the most effective tactics to oppose President Vladimir Putin and collapse his regime — raising the question of whether violence should play a role, and if so, when and how?
Russian authorities arrested Trepova within hours of the blast, and in an interrogation video they released, she can be seen admitting to taking a plaster figurine packed with explosives into a café that is likely owned by the paramilitary Wagner group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin. On CCTV footage, she can be seen leaving the wrecked café, apparently as shocked and dazed as others caught in the blast.
But Ponomarev says she wasn’t the perpetrator, instead insisting that it was the National Republican Army (NRA) — a shadowy group that also claimed responsibility for the August car bombing that killed Dugina, daughter of ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin. Yet, many security experts are skeptical of the NRA’s claims, as the group has offered no concrete evidence to the outside world.
Still, Ponomarev insists they shouldn’t be doubtful and says the group does indeed exist.
“I do understand why people are skeptical. The NRA must be cautious, and for them, the result is more important than PR about who they are. That’s why they asked me to help them with getting the word out, and whatever evidence they show me cannot be disclosed because that would jeopardize their security.”
But who, exactly, are they? According to Ponomarev, the group is comprised of 24 “young radical activists, who I would say are a bit more inclined to the left, but there are different views inside the group, judging from what I have heard during our discussions” — which have only been conducted remotely.
When asked if any of them had serious military training, he said he didn’t think so. “What they pulled off in St. Petersburg wouldn’t require any, and what was done with Dugin’s daughter? We don’t know the technical details but, in general, I can see how that could have been done by a person without any specific training.”
Yet, security experts say they aren’t convinced that either of the apparently remotely triggered bombings could have been accomplished by individuals without some expertise in building bombs and triggering them remotely — especially when it comes to the attack on Dugina, who was killed at the wheel of her car.
Regardless, the bombings are intensifying discussions within the country’s fragmented opposition.
On the one hand, key liberal figures, including Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza — who was found guilty of treason just last week and handed a 25-year jail term — Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov and Dmitry Gudkov, are all critical of violence. Although they don’t oppose acts of sabotage.
Alexei Navalny is among those who are critical of violence, though aren’t opposed to sabotage | Kiril Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty images
“The Russian opposition needs to agree on nonaggression because conflicts and scandals in its ranks weaken us all,” Gudkov, a former lawmaker, said. “We need to stop calling each other ‘agents of the Kremlin’ and find the points according to which we can work together toward the common goal of the collapse of the Kremlin regime,” he added in recent public comments.
Gudkov, along with his father Gennady — a former KGB officer — and Ponomarev became leading names in the 2012 protests opposing Putin’s reelection, and they joined forces to mount an act of parliamentary defiance that same year, filibustering a bill allowing large fines for anti-government protesters.
On the issue of mounting violent attacks and targeting civilians, however, they aren’t on the same page. “There are many people inside the Russian liberal opposition who are against violent methods, and I don’t see much of a reason to debate with them,” Ponomarev told POLITICO. There are times when nonviolent methods can work — but not now, he argues.
Meanwhile, inside Russia, Vesna — the youth democratic movement founded in 2013 by former members of the country’s liberal Yabloko party — led many of the initial anti-war street protests observing the principle of nonviolence, though that didn’t prevent the Kremlin from adding it to its list of proscribed “terrorist” and extremist organizations. Nonviolence is likewise observed by the Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAR), which was launched by activists Daria Serenko and Ella Rossman hours after Russia invaded Ukraine.
“We are the resistance to the war, to patriarchy, to authoritarianism and militarism. We are the future and we will win,” reads FAR’s manifesto. The organization has used an array of creative micro-methods to try and get its anti-Putin message across, including writing anti-war slogans on banknotes, installing anti-war art in public spaces, and handing out bouquets of flowers on the streets.
Interestingly, scrawling on bank notes is reminiscent of Otto and Elise Hampel in Nazi Germany during the 1940s — a working-class German couple who handwrote over 287 postcards, dropping them in mailboxes and leaving them in stairwells, urging people to overthrow the Nazis. It took the Gestapo two years to identify them, and they were guillotined in April 1943.
But such methods don’t satisfy Ponomarev, the lone lawmaker to vote against Putin’s annexation of Crimea in the Russian Duma in 2014. He says he’s in touch with other partisan groups inside Russia, and at a conference of exiled opposition figures sponsored by the Free Russia Forum in Vilnius last year, he called on participants to support direct action within Russia. However, he was largely met with indifference and has subsequently been blackballed by the liberal opposition due to his calls for armed resistance.
Meanwhile, opposition journalist Roman Popkov — who was jailed for two years for taking part in anti-Putin protests and is now in exile — is even more dismissive of nonviolence, saying he talks with direct-action groups inside Russia like Stop the Wagons, who claim to have sabotaged and derailed more than 80 freight trains.
On Telegram, Popkov mocked liberal opposition figures for their caution and doubts about the St. Petersburg bombing. “The Russian liberal establishment is groaning in fear of a possible ‘toughening of state terror’ after the destruction of the war criminal Tatarsky,” he wrote. Adding, “It is difficult to understand what other toughening of state terror you are afraid of.”
According to Popkov, who is also a member of the Congress of People’s Deputies — a group of exiled former Russian lawmakers — the opposition doesn’t have a plan because it is too fragmented, but “there is the need for an armed uprising.”
However, several of Putin’s liberal opponents, including Khodorkovsky, approach the issue from a more cautious angle, saying that people should prepare for armed resistance but that the time is nowhere near right for launching it — the result would almost certainly be ineffective and end up in a bloodbath.
Hungary’s troubled relationship with neighboring Ukraine spiraled again Friday as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán dismissed the country’s NATO dreams with a one-word tweet.
“What?!” the prime minister exclaimed in a Twitter post responding to a POLITICO article on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s declaration in Kyiv on Thursday that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.”
Relations between Budapest and Kyiv are tense. Hungary spent years blocking high-level NATO sessions with Ukrainian officials, ostensibly over concerns about the rights of Hungarian speakers in western Ukraine.
And despite condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion, Hungary has refused to send weapons to aid its neighbor. Senior Hungarian officials, meanwhile, continue to regularly visit Moscow and maintain close ties to the Kremlin. At the same time, Hungary joining Turkey in blocking Sweden’s NATO bid has frustrated Western capitals.
NATO allies — including Hungary — decided back in 2008 that Ukraine will eventually join the alliance. But Kyiv’s path to NATO has stalled, and in September Ukraine’s leadership requested an “accelerated accession” to join.
But the issue is highly sensitive. Most NATO allies — including the U.S. — want to avoid any big moves on the accession process for Ukraine while the war is ongoing.
A group of eastern members is now pushing for NATO to give Kyiv a signal that it is moving closer to the alliance.
During his visit to Kyiv, Stoltenberg said he discussed a multi-year NATO initiative to help Ukraine transition away from Soviet-era military equipment to the alliance’s own standards.
But it remains unclear what kind of political signal NATO leaders will opt to give Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the alliance’s upcoming summit, scheduled for July.
Speaking in Germany on Friday morning, as Ukraine’s partners gathered at Ramstein Air Base to discuss further assistance to Kyiv, Stoltenberg reiterated that for now allies want to keep their eyes on the pressing challenge of helping Ukraine win.
“All NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a NATO member,” he said. “But the main focus now is of course on how to ensure that Ukraine prevails.”
“What we do know is that our support helps Ukraine move toward the Euro-Atlantic integration,” he said, adding, “without a sovereign, independent Ukraine, there is no meaning in discussing membership.”
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — American-made Abrams tanks that Ukrainians will use for training will arrive in Germany in the next few weeks, allowing soldiers to begin learning to use the much-anticipated armor, according to two U.S. Defense Department officials.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to announce the move at a Friday press conference after the 11th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a gathering of more than 40 nations dedicated to supporting Kyiv against Russia’s all-out assault, said one of the DoD officials, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive operations.
The 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks — a Ukrainian battalion’s worth — will arrive at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany by mid-to-late May, according to the officials. The training will begin a week or two later, after the tanks go through a maintenance period.
But the tanks the Ukrainian armed forces will train on in Germany are different from the ones that will eventually arrive in Ukraine for use on the battlefield, the first DoD official added, noting that those are still being refurbished.
The training on how to operate and maintain the Abrams is expected to take up to 10 weeks and may include instruction on how to maneuver in combat, the official said. Some 250 Ukrainians are expected to go through the training program, which is run by 7th Army Training Command.
The U.S. is accelerating the delivery of the Abrams by opting to send older M1A1 versions, rather than the newer M1A2 type originally planned to go to Ukraine. The Pentagon anticipates the tanks will arrive on the battlefield by the end of the year.
During his opening remarks ahead of the contact group meeting, Austin applauded his counterparts for their donations. He noted that Italy, France, Canada and Norway are also providing air defense systems, while Estonia has spent more than 1 percent of its GDP on Ukraine.
“Our common efforts have made a huge difference to Ukraine’s defenders on the battlefield. And they underscore just how badly the Kremlin miscalculated,” Austin said. “After more than a year of Russian aggression and deceit, this contact group is as united as ever and more global than ever.”
The group is also working to deliver defense systems to counter Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, Austin said. Two Patriot missile defense systems, including one from the U.S. and one made up of components from Germany and the Netherlands, arrived in Ukraine on Wednesday.
In total, the members of the contact group have provided more than $55 billion in security assistance for Ukraine since the group’s founding a year ago. The U.S. alone has provided $35 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began, including the most recent package of $325 million.
Oil and gas giant Shell must donate more than $1 billion in unexpected profits from the potential sale of its assets in Russia to help rebuild Ukraine, according to a top Kyiv official.
In a letter to CEO Wael Sawan, dated April 18 and seen by POLITICO, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s economic adviser Oleg Ustenko called on Shell to share with Ukraine any profits from a potential Russian buyout of the British firm’s stake in a Siberian fossil fuel venture.
“If completed, this sale would represent the transfer of more than $1 billion in Russian cash into Shell’s accounts. That would be blood money, pure and simple,” Ustenko wrote.
“We call on Shell to put any Russian sale or dividend proceeds to work for the victims of the war — the same war that those assets have fuelled and funded,” he added.
Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Shell announced it would exit the Russian market and write off up to $5 billion of assets and investments in the country as a result.
That included a 27.5 percent stake in the Sakhalin-2 project, a major oil field and offshore gas drilling venture in the Russian far east. The company wrote down around $1.6 billion for its stake in the site, and the Kremlin’s move to nationalize the venture in July last year raised concerns the firm would lose its capital.
However, Russian business media reported earlier this week that the government signed off on a trade in which the country’s second-largest gas producer, Novatek, would buy out Shell’s stake for 95 billion rubles — currently worth around $1.16 billion. Shell has previously said it is not involved in any negotiations on the issue.
Shell declined to give a public comment, but pointed out that the company is not actively engaged in any business with ongoing operations inside Russia, is not party to any current negotiations for the sale of a stake in Sakhalin-2 and has no clarity over what would happen to the proceeds from such a sale.
“We appreciate that as of this moment, Shell may not have a choice on whether to accept this offer,” Ustenko conceded in the letter, but maintained there is an “overwhelming” moral case for donating any such profits.
Rebuilding from the rubble
According to NGO Global Witness, the funds would amount to more than a tenth of the total repair bill for attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which a U.N. report last week warned could be as high as $10 billion.
“It would be egregious if Shell kept this money,” said Louis Wilson, who leads Ukraine policy at the NGO. “This is money they’ve told the world they’ve written off as a loss and it’s money that comes straight from the Russian oil and gas sector. Shell has already set a precedent that profits from the war should go to Ukraine.”
In March 2022, the energy firm said it would donate $60 million to humanitarian causes in Ukraine following an outcry over its decision to purchase a cargo of Russian crude to be refined into petroleum products. While the trade did not contravene sanctions at the time, Shell admitted “it was not the right decision” and apologized.
In an interview with POLITICO last month, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko urged major energy companies to donate excess revenues to his country.
“A lot of energy companies get enormous windfall profits due to the war,” he said. “I think it would be fair to share this money with Ukraine. To help us to restore, to rebuild the energy sector.”
That idea is getting some support from EU countries — although the final decision of whether to send cash to Ukraine is up to companies and their shareholders.
There’s an Emmanuel Macron-shaped shadow hovering over this week’s U.S. visit by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
In contrast to the French president — who in an interview with POLITICO tried to put some distance between the U.S. and Europe in any future confrontation with China over Taiwan and called for strengthening the Continent’s “strategic autonomy” — the Polish leader is underlining the critical importance of the alliance between America and Europe, not least because his country is one of Kyiv’s strongest allies in the war with Russia.
“Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States,” he said before flying to Washington.
In the U.S. capital, Morawiecki continued with his under-the-table kicks at the French president.
“I see no alternative, and we are absolutely on the same wavelength here, to building an even closer alliance with the Americans. If countries to the west of Poland understand this less, it is probably because of historical circumstances,” he said on Tuesday in Washington.
Unlike France, which has spent decades bristling at Europe’s reliance on the U.S. for its security, Poland is one of the Continent’s keenest American allies. Warsaw has pushed hard for years for U.S. troops to be stationed on its territory, and many of its recent arms contracts have gone to American companies. It signed a $1.4 billion deal earlier this year to buy a second batch of Abrams tanks, and has also agreed to spend $4.6 billion on advanced F-35 fighter jets.
“I am glad that this proposal for an even deeper strategic partnership is something that finds such fertile ground here in the United States, because we know that there are various concepts formulated by others in Europe, concepts that create more threats, more question marks, more unknowns,” Morawiecki said. “Poland is trying to maintain the most commonsense policy based on a close alliance with the United States within the framework of the European Union, and this is the best path for Poland.”
Fast friends
Poland has become one of Ukraine’s most important allies, and access to its roads, railways and airports is crucial in funneling weapons, ammunition and other aid to Ukraine.
That’s helped shift perceptions of Poland — seen before the war as an increasingly marginal member of the Western club thanks to its issues with violating the rule of law, into a key country of the NATO alliance.
Warsaw also sees the Russian attack on Ukraine as justifying its long-held suspicion of its historical foe, and it hasn’t been shy in pointing the finger at Paris and Berlin for being wrong about the threat posed by the Kremlin.
“Old Europe believed in an agreement with Russia, and old Europe failed,” Morawiecki said in a joint news conference with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. “But there is a new Europe — Europe that remembers what Russian communism was. And Poland is the leader of this new Europe.”
That’s why Macron’s comments have been seized on by Warsaw.
According to Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki, Emmanuel Macron’s talks of distancing the EU from America “threatens to break up” the block | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“I absolutely don’t agree with President Macron. We believe that more America is needed in Europe … We want more cooperation with the U.S. on a partnership basis,” Marcin Przydacz, a foreign policy adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, told Poland’s Radio Zet, adding that the strategic autonomy idea pushed by Macron “has the goal of cutting links between Europe and the United States.”
While Poland is keen on European countries hitting NATO’s goal of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense — a target that only seven alliance members, including Poland, but not France and Germany, are meeting — and has no problem with them building up military industries, it doesn’t want to weaken ties with the U.S., said Sławomir Dębski, head of the state-financed Polish Institute of International Affairs.
He warned that Macron’s talks of distancing Europe from America in the event of a conflict with China “threatens to break up the EU, which is against the interests not only of Poland, but also of most European countries.”
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping showed no sign of changing his position over Russia’s war on Ukraine after talks Thursday with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
On the second day of Macron’s state visit to China, Xi took his long-standing line on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — saying that “all sides” have “reasonable security concerns” — and gave no hint he would use his influence to help end the conflict.
“China is willing to jointly appeal with France to the international community to remain rational and calm,” was as far as the Chinese leader would go during a press conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
“Peace talks should be resumed as soon as possible, taking into account the reasonable security concerns of all sides with reference to the U.N. Charter … seeking political resolution and constructing a balanced, effective and sustainable European security framework,” he added, sitting next to Macron.
The French president arrived in China on Wednesday in the hope of pushing China to use its leverage with Russia to end the conflict, and to get Beijing to speak out against the Kremlin’s threat to host nuclear missiles in Belarus.
During his private meeting with Xi, Macron raised Western concerns that Beijing will deliver weapons to Russia, according to a French diplomat with knowledge of the talks. But the French leader didn’t seem to get far.
“The president urged Xi not to make deliveries to Russia that would help its war against Ukraine. Xi said this war is not his,” the diplomat said, speaking anonymously to describe the private session.
The talks — which an Elysée Palace official nonetheless described as “frank and constructive” — ultimately lasted an hour and a half.
Afterward, the action moved to a signing ceremony, where officials and business leaders inked several deals, including the sale of 160 Airbus aircraft. According to the Elysée, the Chinese government approved the purchase of 150 A320 Neo planes and 10 A350s — a delivery that was part of a €36-billion deal Airbus announced last year. The information contradicted previous information from an Elysée official, who said a new sale was being negotiated.
During the deal-signing ceremony, every Chinese minister and business executive bowed deeply to Xi before signing the contracts with their French counterparts.
Xi and Macron then stepped in for their joint appearance, billed as a “press conference with Communist characteristics” — essentially meaning no press questions allowed.
The two leaders’ contrasting styles were immediately apparent. Xi read his carefully scripted remarks while staring straight ahead before ceding to Macron. The French leader then proceeded to speak for roughly twice as long as his host — a protocol faux pas that members of Xi’s Chinese entourage noticed.
Xi himself at times looked impatient and annoyed as Macron continued speaking. The Chinese leader heaved several deep sighs and appeared uncomfortable as Macron addressed him directly while apparently ad-libbing on the Ukraine war and their joint responsibility to uphold peace.
Macron also appealed to Xi to explicitly condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Speaking about peace and stability means talking about the war waged by Russia against Ukraine. You’ve made some important comments,” the French leader said. “This is a war that involves all of us because a member of the Security Council has decided to violate the U.N. charter. We cannot accept that.”
Macron and Xi spent one and a half hours in bilateral talks that were described as “frank and constructive” by an Elysée Palace official | POOL photo by Ng Han Guan/AFP via Getty Images
French lawmaker Anne Genetet, who also held talks Thursday with Chinese officials, admitted there were “no surprises” in the Chinese position on Ukraine, but argued it was still useful to lay some groundwork on the issue.
“It’s the beginning,” Genetet said. “There will be more talks and some private moments [between Xi and Macron]. Maybe we’ll get some other messages.”
Xi and Macron will head to the Chinese city of Guangzhou on Friday, where they will hold more talks and a private dinner.
However, in what will be read as a concession to the French, Xi did talk about the need for the warring parties to “protect victims including women and children,” which comes after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Putin over his role in illegally transferring Ukrainian children to Russia.
Xi didn’t explicitly mention Russia in his remarks, though. And in a move likely to irk U.S. officials, Xi also said that China and France should “resume exchanges between the legislative bodies and militaries.” He then included France in a common refrain that Chinese officials use to criticize the U.S.
“China and France shall continue to … oppose Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation, joining hands in addressing all types of global challenges,” Xi said.
On Thursday, Xi also held talks with Macron and with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was invited by Macron to showcase European unity but who will not take part in many of the events between the Chinese and French leaders.
Indeed, von der Leyen held her own solo press conference as night fell on Thursday in Beijing. Unencumbered by the formalities of a state visit, the EU leader took questions from reporters and sent several pointed messages to Beijing.
She warned it against aiding Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine: “Arming the aggressor is a clear violation of international law — he should never be armed,” she said. “This would indeed significantly harm the relationship between the European Union and China.”
And she touched a diplomatic third rail: Taiwan.
“Nobody should unilaterally change the status quo by force in this region,” she said, alluding to China’s threats toward the self-governing island. “The threat of the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Von der Leyen did echo Macron’s message, however, that China could play an important role in Ukraine, calling Beijing’s stance “crucial.”
She added: “We expect China will play its role and promote a just peace, one that respects Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.”
Clea Caulcutt and Jamil Anderlini reported from Beijing. Stuart Lau reported from Brussels.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron is jetting off on an ambitious diplomatic mission to woo Beijing away from Moscow. Officials in Washington wish him luck with that.
France hopes to dissuade China’s leader Xi Jinping from getting any cozier with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and wants the Chinese instead to play a mediation role over the war in Ukraine.
However, it is unclear what leverage Macron has — and the backdrop to his three-day trip starting Tuesday isn’t easy. Europe continues to reel from the impact of cutting off trade ties to Russia and geopolitical tensions are ratcheting up between China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest economies.
The French president wants to play a more personal card with his Chinese counterpart, after drawing fierce criticism for hours of fruitless phone calls with Putin last year — an effort that failed to stop Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Macron is expected to spend several hours in discussions with Xi, and the trip includes a visit to a city that holds personal value for the Chinese president.
“You can count with one hand the number of world leaders who could have an in-depth discussion with Xi,” said an Elysée advisor who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
But while expectations in France of a breakthrough are moderate, the view among other Western officials is even bleaker.
Given Macron’s failed attempts at playing a center-stage role in resolving conflicts, such as stopping the war in Ukraine or salvaging the Iran nuclear deal, there are doubts in the U.S. and elsewhere that this trip will deliver major results.
The White House has little expectation that Macron will achieve a breakthrough, according to three administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Xi is unlikely to act on Macron’s requests or curtail any of China’s assertive moves in the Pacific, the officials said.
White House aides ruefully recalled Macron’s failed attempts to insert himself as a peacemaker with Putin on the eve of the invasion more than a year ago and anticipate more of the same this time.
There is also some concern in the Biden administration about France’s potential coziness with China at a time when tensions between Washington and Beijing are at their highest in decades, even though the White House is supportive of the trip, the three officials said. There is no ill will toward Macron’s efforts in Beijing, they stressed.
But what might further complicate Macron’s endeavors is an emerging feud between the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is traveling with the president, and the Chinese.
Last Thursday, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen delivered a keynote address on EU-China relations at the European Policy Centre in Brussels | Valeria Mongelli/AFP via Getty Images
In a high-profile speech on EU-China relations Thursday, von der Leyen urged EU countries to “de-risk” from overdependency on China. She also implied that the EU could terminate the pursuit of a landmark trade deal with China, which was clinched in 2020 but subsequently stalled. Her remarks sparked swift blowback from Chinese diplomats. Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the European Union, said Friday he was “a little bit disappointed.”
“That speech contained a lot of misrepresentation and misinterpretation of Chinese policies and the Chinese positions,” Fu told state-owned broadcaster CGTN.
The Europeans’ visit will also be scrutinized from a human rights perspective given China’s authoritarian pivot and alleged human rights abuses across the nation.
“President Macron and von der Leyen should not sweep the Chinese government’s deepening authoritarianism under the rug during their visit to Beijing,” said Bénédicte Jeannerod, France director at Human Rights Watch. “They should use their public appearances with Xi Jinping to express strong concerns over widespread rights abuses across China, heightened oppression in Hong Kong and Tibet, and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”
Macron’s playbook
Speaking ahead of the visit to Beijing, the French leader said his aim was to “try and involve China as much as possible to put pressure on Russia” on topics such as nuclear weapons.
But will Macron’s charm work on Putin’s “best friend” Xi?
China has sought to position itself as a neutral party on the conflict, even as it has burnished its ties with the nation, importing energy from Russia at a discount. Despite massive international pressure on Moscow, Xi decided to make the Kremlin his first destination for a state visit after he secured a norm-breaking third term as Chinese leader. Meanwhile, POLITICO and other media have reported that the Chinese have made shipments of assault weapons and body armor to Russia.
Western European leaders that were cozy with Moscow just before the war started are now calling for engagement with China, including Macron himself. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was in China just days before Macron’s arrival, saying that the world “must listen to its voice” on Russia and Ukraine.
During his visit, which aides have been discussing since at least November last year, Macron will spend several hours with Xi in Beijing, and accompany him to the city of Guangzhou. The Chinese leader’s father, Xi Zhongxun used to work there as Guangdong province governor.
“Altogether the president will spend six to seven hours in discussions with the Chinese leader. The fact that he will be the first French president to visit Guangzhou is also a personal touch, since President Xi’s father used to be a party leader there,” said the Elysee official cited earlier.
The French are hoping the time Macron spends privately with Xi will help win Chinese support on issues such as stopping Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine or halting the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children.
It’s also expected that Macron will try to test Xi’s reaction to Russia’s threat to host nuclear missiles in Belarus, a decision that flies in the face of China’s non-proliferation stance, barely a month after Beijing revealed its 12-point plan for resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
Despite massive international pressure on Moscow, Xi decided to make the Kremlin his first destination for a state visit after he secured a norm-breaking third term as Chinese leader | Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s absolutely fundamental to have moments of private encounters,” said Sylvie Bermann, France’s former ambassador to China. “Diplomacy is about playing the long game …With China, I don’t think it is easy to strike up relationships as Westerners. But maybe it means that we’ll be able to talk when the time comes.”
Despite the show of goodwill however, the French president will not hold back from sending “some messages” to Beijing on supporting Russia, particularly when it comes to arms deliveries, a senior French official said.
“We aren’t going to threaten, but send some warnings: The Chinese need to understand that [sending weapons] would have consequences for Europe, for us … We need to remind them of our security interests.” The official said Macron would steer clear of threatening sanctions.
Antoine Bondaz, China specialist at Paris’ Foundation for Strategic Research, questioned the emphasis on trying to bond with Xi. “That’s not how things work in China. It’s not France’s ‘small fry’ president, who spends two hours walking with Xi who will change things, China only understands the balance of power,” he said. “Maybe it works with Putin, who has spent over 400 hours with Xi in the last ten years, but Macron doesn’t know Xi.”
EU unity on show as trade takes center stage
Trade will also feature high on Macron’s priorities as he brings with him a large delegation of business leaders including representatives from EDF, Alstom, Veolia and the aerospace giant Airbus. According to an Elysée official speaking on condition of anonymity, a potential deal with European plane maker Airbus may be in the works, which would come after China ordered 300 planes for €30 billion in 2019.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna are also traveling with the president.
With the EU facing an emerging trade war between China and the U.S., the presence of von der Leyen, will add yet another layer of complexity to the mix. The French president said in March that he had “suggested to von der Leyen that she accompany him to China” so they could speak “with a unified voice.”
“I don’t have a European mandate, as France has its independent diplomacy — but I’m attached to European coordination,” he said.
A joint trip with the EU head sets him apart from Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor whom French officials criticized in private for hurrying to China for a day trip with Xi last year, focusing more on German rather than EU interests.
With von der Leyen by his side, Macron may well hope to be seen as the EU’s leading voice. In the U.S., the French president had tried that tactic and obtained some concessions on America’s green subsidies plan for the bloc.
In China, that card may be harder to play.
Clea Caulcutt reported in Paris, Stuart Lau in Brussels and Jonathan Lemire in Washington.
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday called for the “immediate cessation” of the war in Ukraine during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Erdoğan also “thanked President Putin for his positive stance regarding the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative” and added that the two countries “could take further steps” when it comes to economic cooperation, the Turkish presidency’s communications directorate said in a statement on Saturday.
The Black Sea grain deal, which allowed the export of foodstuffs from Ukraine to resume after Moscow’s unlawful invasion of the country blocked several ports, was extended last weekend. The grain agreement was originally signed last summer by Kyiv and Moscow under the auspices of the United Nations.
The Kremlin said in a statement following the Putin-Erdoğan phone call that the two leaders also discussed the situation in Syria.
They emphasized “the need to continue the process of normalizing relations between Turkey and Syria” and “Russia’s constructive role as a mediator,” according to the statement.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has declared Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas “history.”
But others, from senior Ukrainian officials to MEPs and industry insiders, say that chapter of history is still being written.
Significant quantities of Russian hydrocarbons, particularly oil, are still flowing around sanctions and into the European market, they say, earning payments that fund Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
“I had a friend in New York in the 1990s who complained cockroaches would get into his apartment through any available hole — that’s what Russia is doing with its energy,” Oleg Ustenko, economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told POLITICO. “We have to fix these holes to stop Russia receiving this blood money they are using to finance the military machine that is destroying our country and killing our people.”
Crude oil is notoriously difficult to track on global markets. It can easily be mixed or blended with other shipments in transit countries, effectively creating a larger batch of oil whose origins can’t be determined. The refining process, necessary for any practical application, also removes all traces of the feedstock’s origin.
A complex network of shipping companies, carrying the flags of inscrutable offshore jurisdictions, adds a further layer of mystery; some have been accused of helping Russia to hide the origin of its crude exports using a variety of different means.
“Unlike pipeline gas, the oil market is global. Swap and netting systems, and mixing varieties are common practice,” said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a prominent exiled critic of Putin and the former CEO of oil and gas giant Yukos.
“The result of the embargo is a significant increase in Russian transportation costs, a significant redistribution of income in favor of intermediaries, and some additional discount due to the narrowing of the buyers’ market.”
Crude workarounds?
The EU has largely banned Russian fossil fuels since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with exceptions for limited quantities of pipeline crude oil, pipeline gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and oil products.
But large volumes of Russian crude oil — a bigger source of revenue than gas — are still being shipped onto global markets, leading some experts to suspect they are finding their way to Europe’s market through the back door.
“Since the introduction of sanctions, the volumes of crude oil Russia is exporting have remained more or less steady,” said Saad Rahim, chief economist at global commodities trading firm Trafigura. “It’s possible that Russian oil is still being sold on to the EU and Western nations via middlemen.”
Crude oil is notoriously difficult to track on global markets | Image via iStock
One potential route into Europe is through Azerbaijan, which borders Russia and is the starting point of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, operated by BP. The port of Ceyhan, in Turkey, is a major supply hub from which crude oil is shipped to Europe; it also receives large quantities from Iraq through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline.
François Bellamy, a French MEP and member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, aired suspicions about this route in a recent question to the Commission. Data show that Azerbaijan exported 242,000 barrels a day more than it produced between April and July last year, he said — a large margin over domestic production, which stood at 648,000 barrels a day last month and is in long-term decline, according to ministry figures.
“How can a country diminish its production and increase its exports at the same time? There is something completely inconsistent in the figures and this inconsistency creates suspicions that sanctions are being circumvented,” Bellamy said.
A spokesperson for the Commission said it is working to crack down on loopholes in sanctions regimes and has appointed the EU’s former ambassador to the U.S., David O’Sullivan, as a special envoy tasked with tackling circumvention. The official also pointed out that data cited by Bellamy on Azerbaijani oil transactions, the most recent publicly available, “happened before the sanctions entered into force so there is no question of evasion of sanctions there.”
“Azerbaijan does not export Russian oil to the EU via the BTC pipeline,” said Aykhan Hajizada, spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry, adding that while “Azerbaijan continues to use all non-sanctioned oil regardless of source,” it “remains committed to conducting its supply and trading operations with the utmost care and diligence, in line with relevant laws and regulations.”
BP has previously been forced to deny that the BTC pipeline carries Russian oil, and data seen by POLITICO for crude shipments from Ceyhan shows a recent dip in the volume of exports to the EU, from around 3 million tons per month (about 700,000 barrels per day) in early 2022 to around 2 million tons a month this year.
Slick operations
At the same time, though, Turkey doubled its direct imports of Russian oil last year and has refused to impose sanctions on Russian crude despite simultaneously offering military and humanitarian support to Ukraine.
Finland’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) warned late last year that “a new route for Russian oil to the EU is emerging through Turkey, a growing destination for Russian crude oil,” where it is refined into oil products that are not subject to sanctions and sold on.
“We have enough evidence that some international companies are buying refinery products made from Russian oil and selling them on to Europe,” said Ustenko, the Zelenskyy adviser. “It’s completely legal, but completely immoral. Just because it’s allowed doesn’t mean we don’t need to do anything about it.”
On Monday, British NGO Global Witness released a report that found Russian oil has consistently been sold at prices far exceeding the $60 cap imposed by G7 countries in December last year.
“The fact Russian oil continues to flow round the world is a feature, not a bug, of Western sanctions,” said Mai Rosner, a campaigner who worked on the report. “Governments offered the fossil fuel industry a wide-open back door, and commodity traders and big oil companies are exploiting these loopholes to continue business as usual.”
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant Friday for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the forced transfer of children to Russia after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainians accuse Russia of attempting genocide against them and seeking to destroy their identity — partly through deporting children to Russia.
Putin is “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children)” and that of “unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation,” the Hague-based court said in a statement Friday.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for these crimes, the statement read.
The Russian president, the court argued, failed “to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts” and who were “under his effective authority and control.”
Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights in the office of the president, was also hit by the ICC warrant for her role in the deportations.
This is the first time the ICC has issued warrants in relation to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began last February. It comes ahead of a visit to Russia next week by Chinese President Xi Jinping and will severely limit Putin’s own potential range of diplomatic visits.
Moscow has previously said it did not recognize the court’s authority.
In response, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said: “The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin. No need to explain WHERE this paper should be used … ” concluding with a toilet paper emoji.
In spite of numerousreports that Russian forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine — including a recent U.N. investigation which said that Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children amounted to a war crime — the Kremlin has denied it committed any crimes.
In a statement, Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, welcomed the announcement, saying the warrant sent “a clear message that giving orders to commit or tolerating serious crimes against civilians may lead to a prison cell.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a three-day visit to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next week, Beijing and Moscow announced Friday, with “strategic cooperation” on the agenda.
“On March 20-22, 2023, at the invitation of Vladimir Putin, president of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Russia,” the Kremlin’s press service said in a statement.
“A number of important bilateral documents will be signed,” the statement reads.
Neither country confirmed previous reports from the Wall Street Journal that Xi would use the opportunity to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — in what would be the first communication between the two leaders since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February.
While China was initially committed to a “no-limit partnership” passed with Moscow days before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Beijing has since sought to position itself as a peace broker, introducing a 12-point plan for peace.
Yet, Beijing’s attempts have drawn criticism from Western leaders. China, they said, is anything but neutral in the war, and thus not a good fit to be playing the arbiter.
China has been accused by the U.S. of delivering non-lethal “support” to Russia — and, according to exclusive customs data obtained by POLITICO, Chinese companies shipped more than 1,000 assault rifles, drone parts and body armor to Russian entities between June and December of last year.
A provocative Vladimir Putin made a surprise weekend visit to Russian-occupied Mariupol, one of the symbols of Ukrainian resistance.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, is located in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast and this is the Russian president’s first trip in the region since the start of his war against Ukraine in February 2022.
Mariupol fell to Russia last May, after the Kremlin failed to seize Kyiv. The battle for Mariupol was one of the war’s longest and bloodiest, as Moscow’s troops carried out some of their most notorious strikes. The Russian assaults included an attack on a maternity ward, which the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said was a war crime, and the bombing of a theater that was clearly marked as housing children.
It is the closest to the front lines Putin has been since the yearlong war began. The move is likely to be seen as particularly provoking to Ukrainians. The trip to Mariupol came after Putin travelled to Crimea on Saturday in an unannounced visit to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Putin’s visits come just after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader and top Russian official Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova over the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.
German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said on Sunday that if Putin enters the territory of Germany, he would be detained under the ICC warrant. “Germany will be obliged to arrest President Putin if he enters German territory and hand him over to the ICC,” Buschmann told the Bilt am Sonntag newspaper.
So far during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin has largely remained inside the Kremlin, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a number of trips to the battlefield to boost the morale of Kyiv’s troops.
Putin flew by helicopter to Mariupol, Russian new agencies reported, citing the Kremlin. Then he travelled around several parts of the city, driving a car and making stops to talk to residents.
The Kremlin said Putin also examined the coastline of Mariupol, visiting a yacht club and theater building. In the Nevsky district of Mariupol, Putin visited a family in their home. The new residential neighborhood has been built by Russian military with the first people moving in last September, according to media reports.
Residents have been “actively” returning, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who accompanied Putin, was cited as saying by Russian agencies. “The downtown has been badly damaged,” Khusnullin was reported as saying. “We want to finish [reconstruction] of the center by the end of the year, at least the facade part. The center is very beautiful.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s office, criticized Putin’s visit to Mariupol on Sunday.
“The criminal always returns to the crime scene,” Podolyak said in a tweet. “The murderer of thousands of Mariupol families came to admire the ruins of the city & graves. Cynicism & lack of remorse,” he said.
The Kremlin has not commented yet on the ICC arrest warrant. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said: “The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin. No need to explain WHERE this paper should be used … ” concluding with a toilet paper emoji.
Moscow has previously said it did not recognize the court’s authority.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is planning to visit Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin as early as next week, according to reports by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.
The U.S. newspaper added that Xi would also call Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which will be the first time the two men will have had direct communication, at least publicly, since the Russian invasion started more than a year ago.
The Kremlin last week refused to comment on reports saying that Xi would be in the Russian capital on March 21.
Xi, who broke with tradition and embarked on his third five-year term as president last week, has long considered Putin his “old friend,” while the two governments reached a “no-limit partnership” shortly before Putin waged war on Ukraine.
There was no immediate response from Beijing or Moscow.
Sergii Nikoforov, Zelenskyy’s spokesman, would not deny or confirm the upcoming talks. “I don’t have any additional information … yet,” he said.
The U.S. has over recent weeks been accusing China of considering sending lethal arms to Russia; Beijing has labelled that as “slandering” tactics.
Meanwhile, Beijing has proposed a vaguely worded peace proposal. Zelenskyy has said he would be open to discussing part of the plan in a meeting with Xi, even as the West criticized Beijing for showing pro-Russia bias in the text.
Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting from Kyiv.
Nearly six months on from the subsea gas pipeline explosions, which sent geopolitical shockwaves around the world in September, there is still no conclusive answer to the question of who blew up Nord Stream.
Some were quick to place the blame squarely at Russia’s door — citing its record of hybrid warfare and a possible motive of intimidation, in the midst of a bitter economic war with Europe over gas supply.
But half a year has passed without any firm evidence for this — or any other explanation — being produced by the ongoing investigations of authorities in three European countries.
Since the day of the attack, four states — Russia, the U.S., Ukraine and the U.K. — have been publicly blamed for the explosions, with varying degrees of evidence.
Still, some things are known for sure.
As was widely assumed within hours of the blast, the explosions were an act of deliberate sabotage. One of the three investigations, led by Sweden’s Prosecution Authority, confirmed in November that residues of explosives and several “foreign objects” were found at the “crime scene” on the seabed, around 100 meters below the surface of the Baltic Sea, close to the Danish Island of Bornholm.
Now two new media reports — one from the New York Times, the other a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR, plus newspaper Die Zeit — raised the possibility that a pro-Ukrainian group — though not necessarily state-backed — may have been responsible. On Wednesday, the German Prosecutor’s Office confirmed it had searched a ship in January suspected of transporting explosives used in the sabotage, but was still investigating the seized objects, the identities of the perpetrators and their possible motives.
In the information vacuum since September, various theories have surfaced as to the culprit and their motive:
Theory 1: Putin, the energy bully
In the days immediately after the attack, the working assumption of many analysts in the West was that this was a brazen act of intimidation on the part of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spelt out the hypothesis via his Twitter feed on September 27 — the day after the explosions were first detected. He branded the incident “nothing more [than] a terrorist attack planned by Russia and act of aggression towards the EU” linked to Moscow’s determination to provoke “pre-winter panic” over gas supplies to Europe.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also hinted at Russian involvement. Russia denied responsibility.
The Nord Stream pipes are part-owned by Russia’s Gazprom. The company had by the time of the explosions announced an “indefinite” shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipes, citing technical issues which the EU branded “fallacious pretences.” The new Nord Stream 2 pipes, meanwhile, had never been brought into the service. Within days of Gazprom announcing the shutdown in early September, Putin issued a veiled threat that Europe would “freeze” if it stuck to its plan of energy sanctions against Russia.
But why blow up the pipeline, if gas blackmail via shutdowns had already proved effective? Why end the possibility of gas ever flowing again?
Simone Tagliapietra, energy specialist and senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said it was possible that — if it was Russia — there may have been internal divisions about any such decision. “At that point, when Putin had basically decided to stop supplying [gas to] Germany, many in Russia may have been against that. This was a source of revenues.” It is possible, Tagliapietra said, that “hardliners” took the decision to end the debate by ending the pipelines.
Blowing up Nord Stream, in this reading of the situation, was a final declaration of Russia’s willingness to cut off Europe’s gas supply indefinitely, while also demonstrating its hybrid warfare capabilities. In October, Putin said that the attack had shown that “any critical infrastructure in transport, energy or communication infrastructure is under threat — regardless of what part of the world it is located” — words viewed by many in the West as a veiled threat of more to come.
Theory 2: The Brits did it
From the beginning, Russian leaders have insinuated that either Ukraine or its Western allies were behind the attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said two days after the explosions that accusations of Russian culpability were “quite predictable and predictably stupid.” He added that Moscow had no interest in blowing up Nord Stream. “We have lost a route for gas supplies to Europe.”
Then a month on from the blasts, the Russian defense ministry made the very specific allegation that “representatives of the U.K. Navy participated in planning, supporting and executing” the attack. No evidence was given. The same supposed British specialists were also involved in helping Ukraine coordinate a drone attack on Sevastopol in Crimea, Moscow said.
The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said the “invented” allegations were intended to distract attention from Russia’s recent defeats on the battlefield. In any case, Moscow soon changed its tune.
Theory 3: U.S. black ops
In February, with formal investigations in Germany, Sweden and Denmark still yet to report, an article by the U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh triggered a new wave of speculation. Hersh’s allegation: U.S. forces blew up Nord Stream on direct orders from Joe Biden.
The account — based on a single source said to have “direct knowledge of the operational planning” — alleged that an “obscure deep-diving group in Panama City” was secretly assigned to lay remotely-detonated mines on the pipelines. It suggested Biden’s rationale was to sever once and for all Russia’s gas link to Germany, ensuring that no amount of Kremlin blackmail could deter Berlin from steadfastly supporting Ukraine.
Hersh’s article also drew on Biden’s public remarks when, in February 2022, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he told reporters that should Russia invade “there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
The White House described Hersh’s story as “utterly false and complete fiction.” The article certainly included some dubious claims, not least that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has “cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War.” Stoltenberg, born in 1959, was 16 years old when the war ended.
Russian leaders, however, seized on the report, citing it as evidence at the U.N. Security Council later in February and calling for an U.N.-led inquiry into the attacks, prompting Germany, Denmark and Sweden to issue a joint statement saying their investigations were ongoing.
Theory 4: The mystery boatmen
The latest clues — following reports on Tuesday from the New York Times and German media — center on a boat, six people with forged passports and the tiny Danish island of Christiansø.
According to these reports, a boat that set sail from the German port of Rostock, later stopping at Christiansø, is at the center of the Nord Stream investigations.
Germany’s federal prosecutor confirmed on Wednesday that a ship suspected of transporting explosives had been searched in January — and some of the 100 or so residents of tiny Christiansø told Denmark’s TV2 that police had visited the island and made inquiries. Residents were invited to come forward with information via a post on the island’s Facebook page.
Both the New York Times and the German media reports suggested that intelligence is pointing to a link to a pro-Ukrainian group, although there is no evidence that any orders came from the Ukrainian government and the identities of the alleged perpetrators are also still unknown.
Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s adviser, tweeted he was enjoying “collecting amusing conspiracy theories” about what happened to Nord Stream, but that Ukraine had “nothing to do” with it and had “no information about pro-Ukraine sabotage groups.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against “jumping to conclusions” about the latest reports, adding that it was possible that there may have been a “false flag” operation to blame Ukraine.
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said only that their investigation was ongoing, while a spokesperson for Sweden’s Prosecution Authority said information would be shared when available — but there was “no timeline” for when the inquiries would be completed.
MOSCOW — Every year, during the anniversary of the battle that turned back the Nazi assault on the Soviet Union, the city of Volgograd is briefly renamed Stalingrad, its Soviet-era name.
During this year’s commemoration, however, authorities went further. They unveiled a bust of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and paraded soldiers dressed as secret police in a bid to emphasize the parallels between Russia’s past and its present.
“It’s unbelievable but true: we are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin, who traveled to Volgograd to deliver a speech on February 2. “Again and again, we have to repel the aggression of the collective West.”
Putin’s statement was full of factual inaccuracies: Russia is fighting not the West but Ukraine, because it invaded the country; the German Leopards being delivered to Kyiv date back only to the 1960s; there’s no plan for them to enter Russian territory.
But the Russian president’s evocation of former victories was telling — it was a distillation of his approach to justifying an invasion that hasn’t gone to plan. These days in Russia, if the present is hard to explain, appeal to the past.
“The language of history has replaced the language of politics,” said Ivan Kurilla, a historian at the European University at St. Petersburg. “It is used to explain what is happening in a simple way that Russians understand.”
Putin has long harkened back to World War II — known in the country as The Great Patriotic War, in which more than 20 million Soviet citizens are estimated to have died.
Invoking the fight against Adolf Hitler simultaneously taps into Russian trauma and frames the country as being on the right side of history. “It has been turned into a master narrative through which [Putin] communicates the basic ideas of what is good and bad; who is friend and who foe,” said Kurilla.
Putin’s announcement of his full-scale assault on Ukraine was no exception. On February 24, 2022, Russians awoke to a televised speech announcing the start of “a special military operation” to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine.
“The official narrative was: ‘there are fascists in Ukraine, and we want to help people there. We are fighting for the sake of a great cause,’” said Tamara Eidelman, an expert in Russian propaganda.
On the streets, however, Russians seemed confused.
Asked in the early days of the war what “denazification” meant by the Russian website 7×7, one man suggested: “Respect for people of different ethnicities, respect for different languages, equality before the law and freedom of the press.”
Russia’s laws punish those seen as discrediting the Russian Armed Forces or spreading fake news by using the word “war” | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images
Another interviewee ventured a different definition: “Destroy everyone who is not for a normal, peaceful life.”
The term “special military operation” at least was somewhat clearer. It suggested a speedy, professional, targeted offensive.
“There is a certain mundaneness to it — ‘yes, this is going to be unpleasant, but we’ll take care of it quickly,’” said Eidelman, the propaganda expert.
А week after the invasion, Russia’s laws were amended to punish those seen as discrediting the Russian armed forces or spreading fake news, including by using the word “war.”
Historical parallels
As the special military operation turned into a protracted conflict, and the facts on the ground refused to bend to Putin’s narrative, the Kremlin has gradually been forced to change its story.
Images of a bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol or corpses littering the streets of Bucha were dismissed by state propaganda as fake or a provocation — and yet by spring the terms “demilitarization” and “denazification” had practically disappeared from the public sphere.
New justifications for the invasion were inserted into speeches and broadcasts, such as a claim that the United States had been developing biological weapons in Ukraine. In October, Putin declared that one of the main goals of the war had been to provide Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, with a stable water supply.
But the appeal to history has remained central to Putin’s communication effort.
While World War II remains his favorite leitmotif, the Russian president has been expansive in his historical comparisons. In June, he referenced Peter the Great’s campaign to “return what was Russia’s.” And during an October ceremony to lay claim to four regions in Ukraine, it was Catherine the Great who got a mention.
“Every so many months, another story is put forward as if they’re studying the reaction, looking to see what resonates,” said Kurilla.
The search for historical parallels has also bubbled up from below, as even supporters of the war search for justification. “Especially in spring and early summer, there was an attempt to Sovietize the war, with people waving red flags, trying to make sense of it through that lens.”
In the city of Syzran, students were filmed late last year pushing dummy tanks around in a sports hall in a re-enactment of the World War II Battle of Kursk. More recently, law students in St. Petersburg took part in a supposed restaging of the Nuremberg trials, which the region’s governor praised as “timely” in light of Russia’s current struggle against Nazism.
More recent statement by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin himself have made the idea of “war” less taboo | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Throughout, the Kremlin has sought to depict the conflict as a battle against powerful Western interests bent on using Ukraine to undermine Russia — a narrative that has become increasingly important as the Kremlin demands bigger sacrifices from the Russian population, most notably with a mobilization campaign in September.
“Long before February last year, people were already telling us: We are being dragged into a war by the West which we don’t want but there is no retreating from,” said Denis Volkov, director of the independent pollster Levada Center.
The sentiment, he added, has been widespread since the nineties, fed by disappointment over Russia’s diminished standing after the Cold War. “What we observe today is the culmination of that feeling of resentment, of unrealized illusions, especially among those over 50,” he said.
Long haul
With the war approaching the one-year mark, the narrative is once again having to adapt.
Even as hundreds in Russia are being prosecuted under wartime censorship laws, slips of the tongue by top officials such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and even Putin himself in December have made the idea of “war” less taboo.
“We are moving away from a special military operation towards a holy war … against 50 countries united by Satanism,” the veteran propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said on his program in January.
According to Levada, Russians are now expecting the war to last another six months or longer. “The majority keep to the sidelines, and passively support the war, as long as it doesn’t affect them directly,” said Volkov, the pollster.
Meanwhile, reports of Western weapons deliveries have been used to reinforce the argument that Russia is battling the West under the umbrella of NATO — no longer in an ideological sense, but in a literal one.
“A year of war has changed not the words that are said themselves but what they stand for in real life,” said Kurilla, the historian. “What started out as a historic metaphor is being fueled by actual spilled blood.”
In newspaper stands, Russians will find magazines such as “The Historian,” full of detailed spreads arguing that the Soviet Union’s Western allies in World War II were, in fact, Nazi sympathizers all along — another recycled trope from Russian history.
“During the Cold War, you would find caricatures depicting Western leaders such as President Eisenhower in fascist dress and a NATO helmet,” said Eidelman, the expert in Russian propaganda.
“This level of hatred and aggressive nationalism has not been seen since the late Stalin period,” she added.
The anti-West sentiment in Russia has been fed by disappointment over the country’s diminished standing after the Cold War | Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
On Tuesday, three days before the one-year anniversary of the invasion, Putin is scheduled to give another speech. He is expected to distract from Russia’s failure to capture any new large settlements in Ukraine by rehearsing old themes such as his gripes with the West and Russia’s past and present heroism.
There may be a limit, however, to how much the Russian president can infuse his subjects with enthusiasm for his country’s past glories.
In Volgograd, proposals to have the city permanently renamed to Stalingrad have been unsuccessful, with polls showing a large majority of the population is against such an initiative.
When it comes to embracing the past, Russians are still one step behind their leaders.
The Baltic states and Poland want to make it easier to sanction the family members and entourage of Russia’s richest men and women but are facing resistance from Hungary, several EU diplomats told POLITICO.
Under its current rules, the EU can freeze the assets and impose visa bans on “leading businesspersons operating in Russia.” Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland now want to expand this definition, according to their proposal seen by POLITICO, to include “their immediate family members, or other natural persons, benefitting from them.”
The EU has sanctioned more than 1,400 people in relation to Russia’s activities in Ukraine, many of who are Russian oligarchs. An additional 96 people could be added to the EU’s next sanctions package, draft documents seen by POLITICO indicate. Including oligarchs’ family members and other associates of oligarchs would make it possible to sanctions thousands more people without having to prove that they are directly involved in the war in Ukraine or acting in the economic interest of the Russian state.
This could, for example, apply to the ex-wife of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, whose daughters have been sanctioned but has not been herself, and other members of the oligarchs’ entourage.
While some countries had doubts, legal experts are on board, said one of the diplomats.
Yet, in a meeting on Tuesday, at which EU ambassadors discussed the bloc’s next round of sanctions, Hungary resisted such plans, the diplomats said. Budapest argued that this is not part of the 10th sanctions package, said one of the diplomats. Hungary has long been skeptical of including too many names on the list.
Hungary also pushed to strike four people out the already existing sanctions list, two of the diplomats said.
It was not immediately possible to learn the identity of the four individuals.
That request is igniting tensions, and will be likely subject to another heated debate during a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday. During that meeting, they will not only discuss the new package of sanctions against Russia, but also the so-called rollover of the 1,400-plus names already on the list to keep them sanctioned.
That’s because the regime is subject to a six-month review, which has hitherto been more or less a formality. Now, Hungary is using this extension review as leverage by insisting that four specific people have to be struck from the EU’s existing sanctions list before it will agree to the rollover. If Hungary blocks the rollover and refuses to compromise, all 1,400 people would be de-listed, the two diplomats warned.
One of the diplomats didn’t hide his frustration: “It shows Hungary’s disregard for unity and European values that they are willing to risk this in the week where we commemorate one year since the Russian invasion,” he said.
And those aren’t the only measure that Hungary takes issue with. It also is chiefly against sanctioning personnel working in the nuclear sector.
But a Hungarian official poured water on this last point, saying that “the only open issue for Hungary is with the length of the rollover and not with the listings.”
On the oligarchs issue and the proposal of the Baltics and Poland, the same Hungarian official said that this is not part of the 10th package.
As all EU countries have to agree to the proposal, any country could veto the move even if all other 26 EU countries were in favor. Time is running out, with the EU wanting to adopt the 10th sanctions package before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday.
MOSCOW — Among the perks offered to those stamping their feet to stay warm outside Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium there were hot drinks, payouts, free food or a day off from class. Others had simply been told by their employers to attend, independent media reported.
“We’re from the Russian Post,” a young man with dark hair said glumly, burying his face into his coat. Minutes earlier, a woman in a white wooly hat had called out his name from a list and handed him a paper invite in the colors of the Russian tricolor.
“Invite to the festive program ‘Glory to the Defenders of the Fatherland,’” it read.
The mass event at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium on Wednesday could hardly be called spontaneous. But it was certainly a crowd-puller.
Тens of thousands were reported to have poured through the metal detectors installed on the grounds of Luzhniki, once the gem of the World Cup Russia hosted in 2018 and a symbol of its international appeal. Now it is a favorite location for staged patriotic rallies.
This event was timed for Defender of the Fatherland Day on February 23, a traditional holiday in Russia which this year acts as an upbeat to the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a day later.
The lineup included a number of pop stars who are regular faces at patriotic events, such as singers Grigory Leps and Oleg Gazmanov, both of whom are on the EU’s sanctions list.
Тhe singer Shaman belted out his ballad “We’ll rise,” dressed in a T-shirt reading: “I am Russian.”
But the real star was President Vladimir Putin who looked visibly pleased after walking on stage to chants of: “Russia! Russia!”
“Right now there is a battle going on our historic lands, for our people … we are proud of them,” he told the crowd. “Today, in defending our interests, our people, our culture, language, territory, all of it, our entire people is the defender of the fatherland.”
Earlier, a group of young children described as being from Mariupol were brought on stage with footage of a destroyed city playing in the background. “I want to thank Uncle Yurya for saving me and hundreds of thousands of others,” one of the girls said before being encouraged to hug а military commander said to have “saved” more than 350 children.
Generally, public messaging has tended to avoid putting too much focus on Ukraine and the war — a term which in Russia is still a criminal offense — and more on a broader and less contentious narrative of patriotism and support for the country’s armed forces.
Тens of thousands were reported to have poured through the metal detectors installed on the grounds of Luzhniki, once the gem of the World Cup Russia hosted in 2018 | Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images
At the stadium, some law enforcement officers, but few visitors, brandished Zs, the letter that has become a symbol of the war. Similarly, across the city, billboards featured veterans and modern-day soldiers and slogans such as “We stand together!” but rarely did they explicitly mention Ukraine.
Access to the concert was strictly controlled. There were no tickets for purchase and only a handful of media were allowed in. Attendants had to sign up beforehand via youth organizations, state companies and educational institutions.
“I was signed up by my university,” a young man dressed in a light gray hooded sweater said. Asked whether it had been mandatory, he nodded and looked away.
He declined to give his name and, fearing reprisals, others were similarly wary to talk. “We don’t speak Russian,” a woman of Central Asian appearance said, after being asked what had brought her there.
“It’s very cold today, and we’re just having a snack, thank you, goodbye,” said another woman in a fur coat, who stood outside with a group eating sausage sandwiches and pickles in the snow.
A similar rally in Luzhniki was held in March last year, when Russia marked the eight-year anniversary of the annexation of Crimea. And another in October on Red Square after a ceremony annexing four more Ukrainian regions, despite them not being fully under Russian control.
In fact, since 2014 the rallies have become a fixed feature of Putin’s leadership.
“After Crimea’s annexation, Putin went from aspiring to the legitimacy of an elected president to that of being an almighty Leader. And if you’re a Leader, you need a crowd to gather around you,” analyst Nikolai Petrov, a consultant at Chatham House think tank, told POLITICO.
But even the most fervent Kremlin supporter would struggle to portray the rallies as spontaneous. In fact, the traditional scenes of rows of similar buses transporting similar-looking people who then wave similar-sized Russian flags are more like North Korea than Woodstock.
However, said Petrov, the Kremlin is unlikely to consider this a weakness. “The Kremlin doesn’t need people to mobilize themselves, even in its support,” he said. “The whole idea of such events is to demonstrate loyalty, not some kind of fanatical love.”
Though the Luzhniki concert was the big showstopper, other festivities are expected across the country in the coming days.
According to the business outlet RBC, the presidential administration has sent out guidelines to regional authorities on suitable activities. Suggestions reportedly included painting military-themed murals, staging flash mobs with people lining up in the form of a star-shaped war medal, and arts and crafts workshops to produce, among other things, knitted socks that could later be sent to soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
The real star of the show was President Vladimir Putin who looked visibly pleased after walking on stage to chants | Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images
Russians who have family or friends involved in the “special military operation” have also been encouraged to record personal video messages and share them online under the hashtag #ourheroes.
In one such video posted on Instagram — a platform that has been banned in Russia as extremist but is still widely used via VPN — a teary-eyed woman from the town of Prokhladny in Kabardino-Balkaria dressed in uniform tells her husband: “You’re our rock, our defender. I wish for you to come back victorious, healthy, unharmed. I love you very much.”
Back at Luzhniki, ahead of the rally, loudspeakers promised attendants free hot tea, porridge and sausages.
Meanwhile, coordinators continued to call out names from their clipboards to groups of middle-aged women in mittens and fur coats and men in dark jackets and hats. “Smirnova, Oxana Pavlovna!” one such organizer yelled. Answering to that name, a woman walked forwards and accepted her entry ticket with little emotion.
After getting their names ticked, a trickle of people headed straight back to the metro, away from the grounds before the celebrations had even started, some of them with the Russian tricolor flags they had been given still in hand.
With another anniversary, the annexation of Crimea, around the corner in March, they are likely to be back soon.
“I woke at 5 o’clock,” the Estonian prime minister recalled recently. The phone was ringing. Her Lithuanian counterpart was on the line.
“Oh my God, it’s really happening,” came the ominous words, according to Kallas. Another call came in. This time it was the Latvian prime minister.
It was February 24, 2022. War had begun on the European continent.
The night before, Kallas had told her Cabinet members to keep their phones on overnight in anticipation of just this moment: Russia was blitzing Ukraine in an attempt to decapitate the government and seize the country. For those in Estonia and its Baltic neighbors, where memories of Soviet occupation linger, the first images of war tapped into a national terror.
“I went to bed hoping that I was not right,” Kallas said.
Across Europe, similar wakeup calls rolled in, as Russian tanks barrelled into Ukraine and missiles pierced the early morning sky. In recent weeks, POLITICO spoke with prime ministers, high-ranking EU and NATO officials, foreign ministers and diplomats — nearly 20 in total — to reflect on the war’s early days as it reaches its ruinous one-year mark on Friday. All described a similar foreboding that morning, a sense that the world had irrevocably changed.
Within a year, the Russian invasion would profoundly reshape Europe, upending traditional foreign policy presumptions, cleaving it from Russian energy and reawakening long-dormant arguments about extending the EU eastward.
But for those centrally involved in the war’s buildup, the events of February 24 are still seared in their memories.
In an interview with POLITICO, Charles Michel — head of the European Council, the EU body comprising all 27 national leaders — recalled how he received a call directly from Kyiv as the attacks began.
“I was woken up by Zelenskyy,” Michel recounted. It was around 3 a.m. The Ukrainian president told Michel: “The aggression had started and that it was a full-scale invasion.”
Michel hit the phones, speaking to prime ministers across the EU throughout the night.
Ursula von der Leyen and Josep Borrell speak to the press on February 24, 2022 | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
By 5 a.m., EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was in his office. Three hours later, he was standing next to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as the duo made the EU’s first major public statement about the dawning war. Von der Leyen then convened the 27 commissioners overseeing EU policy for an emergency meeting.
Elsewhere in Brussels, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg was on the phone with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who were six hours behind in Washington, D.C. He then raced over to NATO headquarters, where he urgently gathered the military alliance’s decision-making body.
The mood that morning, Stoltenberg recalled in a recent conversation with reporters, was “serious” but “measured and well-organized.”
In Ukraine, missiles had begun raining down in Kyiv, Odesa and Mariupol. Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to social media, confirming in a video that war had begun. He urged Ukrainians to stay calm.
These video updates would soon become a regular feature of Zelenskyy’s wartime leadership. But this first one was especially jarring — a message from a president whose life, whose country, was now at risk.
It would be one of the last times the Ukrainian president, dressed in a dove-gray suit jacket and crisp white shirt, appeared in civilian clothes.
Europe’s 21st-century Munich moment
February 24, 2022 is an indelible memory for those who lived through it. For many, however, it felt inevitable.
Five days before the invasion, Zelenskyy traveled to the Munich Security Conference, an annual powwow of defense and security experts frequented by senior politicians.
It was here that the Ukrainian leader made one final, desperate plea for more weapons and more sanctions, hitting out at Germany for promising helmets and chiding NATO countries for not doing enough.
“What are you waiting for?” he implored in the highly charged atmosphere in the Bayerischer Hof hotel. “We don’t need sanctions after bombardment happens, after we have no borders, no economy. Why would we need those sanctions then?”
The symbolism was rife — Munich, a city forever associated with appeasement following Neville Chamberlain’s ill-fated attempt to swap land for peace with Adolf Hitler in 1938, was now the setting for Zelenskyy’s last appeal to the West.
Zelenskyy, never missing a moment, seized the historical analogy.
Five days before the invasion, Zelenskyy traveled to the Munich Security Conference, where he made one final, desperate plea for more weapons and more sanctions | Pool photo by Ronald Wittek/Getty Images
“Has our world completely forgotten the mistakes of the 20th century?” he asked. “Where does appeasement policy usually lead to?”
But his calls for more arms were ignored, even as countries began ordering their citizens to evacuate and airlines began canceling flights in and out of the country.
A few days later, Zelenskyy’s warnings were coming true. On February 22, Vladimir Putin inched closer to war, recognizing the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine. It was a decisive moment for the Russian president, paving the way for his all-out assault less than 48 hours later.
The EU responded the next day — its first major action against Moscow’s activities in Ukraine since the escalation of tensions in 2021. Officials unveiled the first in what would be nine sanction packages against Russia (and counting).
In an equally significant move, a reluctant Germany finally pulled the plug on Nord Stream 2, the yet unopened gas pipeline linking Russia to northern Germany — the decision, made after months of pressure, presaged how the Russian invasion would soon upend the way Europeans powered their lives and heated their homes.
Summit showdown
As it happened, EU leaders were already scheduled to meet in Brussels on February 24, the day the invasion began. Charles Michel had summoned the leaders earlier that week to deal with the escalating crisis, and to sign off on the sanctions.
Throughout the afternoon, Brussels was abuzz — TV cameras from around the world had descended on the European quarter. Helicopters circled overhead.
European leaders gathered in Brussels following the invasion | Pool photo by Olivier Hoslet/AFP via Getty Images
Suddenly, the regular European Council meeting of EU leaders, oftena forum for technical document drafting as much as political decision-making, had become hugely consequential. With war unfolding, the world was looking at the EU to respond — and lead.
The meeting was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. As leaders were gathering, news came that Russia had seized the Chernobyl nuclear plant, Moldova had declared a state of emergency and thousands of people were pouring out of Ukraine. Later that night, Zelenskyy announced a general mobilization:every man between the ages of 18 and 60 was being asked to fight.
Many leaders were wearing facemasks, a reminder that another crisis, which now seemed to pale in comparison, was still ever-present.
Just before joining colleagues at the Europa building in Brussels, Emmanuel Macron phoned Putin — the French president’s latest effort to mediate with the Russian leader. Macron had visited Moscow on February 7 but left empty-handed after five hours of discussions. He later said he made the call at Zelenskyy’s request, to ask Putin to stop the war.
“It did not produce any results,” Macron said of the call. “The Russian president has chosen war.”
Arriving at the summit, Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš captured the gravity of the moment. “Europe is experiencing the biggest military invasion since the Second World War,” he said. “Our response has to be united.”
But inside the room, divisions were on full display. How far, leaders wondered, could Europe go in sanctioning Russia, given the potential economic blowback? Countries dug in along fault lines that would become familiar in the succeeding months.
The realities of war soon pierced the academic debates. Zelenskyy’s team had set up a video link as missile strikes encircled the capital city, wanting to get the president talking to his EU counterparts.
One person present in the room recalled the percolating anxiety as the video feed beamed through — the image out of focus, the camera shaky. Then the picture sharpened and Zelenskyy appeared, dressed in a khaki shirt and looking deathly pale. His surroundings were faceless, an unknown room somewhere in Kyiv.
“Everyone was silent, the atmosphere was completely tense,” said the official who requested anonymity to speak freely.
Zelenskyy, shaken and utterly focused, told leaders that they may not see him again — the Kremlin wanted him dead.
Black smoke rises from a military airport in Chuguyev near Kharkiv on February 24, 2022 | Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
“If you, EU leaders and leaders of the free world, do not really help Ukraine today, tomorrow the war will also knock at your door,” he warned, invoking an argument he would return to again and again: that this wasn’t just Ukraine’s war — it was Europe’s war.
Within hours, EU leaders had signed off on their second package of pre-prepared sanctions hitting Russia. But a fractious debate had already begun about what should come next.
The Baltic nations and Poland wanted more — more penalties, more economic punishments. Others were holding back. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi aired their reluctance about expelling Russian banks from the global SWIFT payment system. It was needed to pay for Russian gas, after all.
How quickly that would change.
Sanctions were not the only pressing matter. There was a humanitarian crisis unfolding on Europe’s doorstep. The EU had to both get aid into a war zone and prepare for a mass exodus of people fleeing it.
Janez Lenarčič, the EU’s crisis management commissioner, landed in Paris on the day of the invasion, returning from Niger. Officials started making plans to get ambulances, generators and medicine into Ukraine — ultimately comprising 85,000 tons of aid.
“The most complex, biggest and longest-ever operation” of its kind for the EU, he said.
By that weekend, there was also a plan for the refugees escaping Russian bombs. At a rare Sunday meeting, ministers agreed to welcome and distribute the escaping Ukrainians — a feat that has long eluded the EU for other migrants. Days later, they would grant Ukrainians the instant right to live and work in the EU — another first in an extraordinary time. Decisions that normally took years were now flying through in hours.
Looming over everything were Ukraine’s repeated — and increasingly dire — entreaties for more weapons. Europe’s military investments had lapsed in recent decades, and World War II still cast a dark shadow over countries like Germany, where the idea of sending arms to a warzone still felt verboten.
There were also quiet doubts (not to mention intelligence assessments). Would Ukraine even have its own government next week? Why risk war with Russia if it was days away from toppling Kyiv?
“What we didn’t know at that point was that the Ukrainian resistance would be so successful,” a senior NATO diplomat told POLITICO on condition of anonymity. “We were thinking there would be a change of regime [in Kyiv], what do we do?”
That, too, was all about to change.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addressed Germany on the night of Russia’s invasion | Pool photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Getty Images
By the weekend, Germany had sloughed off its reluctance, slowly warming to its role as a key military player. The EU, too, dipped its toe into historic waters that weekend, agreeing to help reimburse countries sending weapons to Ukraine — another startling first for a self-proclaimed peace project.
“I remember, saying, ‘OK, now we go for it,’” said Stefano Sannino, secretary-general of the EU’s diplomatic arm.
Ironically, the EU would refund countries using the so-called European Peace Facility — a little-known fund that was suddenly the EU’s main vehicle to support lethal arms going to a warzone.
Over at NATO, the alliance activated its defense plans and sent extra forces to the alliance’s eastern flank. The mission had two tracks, Stoltenberg recounted — “to support Ukraine, but also prevent escalation beyond Ukraine.”
Treading that fine line would become the defining balancing act over the coming year for the Western allies as they blew through one taboo after another.
Who knew what, when
As those dramatic, heady early days fade into history, Europeans are now grappling with what the war means — for their identity, for their sense of security and for the European Union that binds them together.
The invasion has rattled the core tenets underlying the European project, said Ivan Krastev, a prominent political scientist who has long studied Europe’s place in the world.
“For different reasons, many Europeans believed that this is a post-war Continent,” he said.
Post-World War II Europe was built on the assumption that open economic policies, trade between neighbors and mild military power would preserve peace.
“For the Europeans to accept the possibility of the war was basically to accept the limits of our own model,” Krastev argued.
The disbelief has bred self-reflection: Has the war permanently changed the EU? Will a generation that had confined memories of World War II and the Cold War to the past view the next conflict differently?
And, perhaps most acutely, did Europe miss the signs?
Ukrainian refugees gather and rest upon their arrival at the main railway station in Berlin | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
“The start of that war has changed our lives, that’s for sure,” said Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu. It wasn’t, however, unexpected, he argued. “We are very attentive to what happens in our region,” he said. “The signs were quite clear.”
Aurescu pointed back to April 2021 as the moment he knew: “It was quite clear that Russia was preparing an aggression against Ukraine.”
Not everyone in Europe shared that assessment, though — to the degree that U.S. officials became worried. They started a public and private campaign in 2021 to warn Europe of an imminent invasion as Russia massed its troops on the Ukrainian border.
In November 2021, von der Leyen made her first trip to the White House. She sat down with Joe Biden in the Oval Office, surrounded by a coterie of national security and intelligence officials. Biden had just received a briefing before the gathering on the Russia battalion buildup and wanted to sound the alarm.
“The president was very concerned,” said one European official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “This was a time when no one in Europe was paying any attention, even the intelligence services.”
But others disputed the narrative that Europe was unprepared as America sounded the alarm.
“It’s a question of perspective. You can see the same information, but come to a different conclusion,” said one senior EU official involved in discussions in the runup to the war, while conceding that the U.S. and U.K. — both members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance — did have better information.
Even if those sounding the alarm proved right, said Pierre Vimont, a former secretary-general of the EU’s diplomatic wing and Macron’s Russia envoy until the war broke out, it was hard to know in advance what, exactly, to plan for.
“What type of military operation would it be?” he recalled people debating. A limited operation in the east? A full occupation? A surgical strike on Kyiv?
Here’s where most landed: Russia’s onslaught was horrifying — its brutality staggering. But the signs had been there. Something was going to happen.
“We knew that the invasion is going to happen, and we had shared intelligence,” Stoltenberg stressed. “Of course, until the planes are flying and the battle tanks are rolling, and the soldiers are marching, you can always change your plans. But the more we approached the 24th of February last year, the more obvious it was.”
Then on the day, he recounted, it was a matter of dutifully enacting the plan: “We were prepared, we knew exactly what to do.”
“You may be shocked by this invasion,” he added, “but you cannot be surprised.”
Clea Caulcutt and Cristina Gallardo contributed reporting.
French President Emmanuel Macron is wasting his time talking to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday.
“It’s a useless dialogue. In truth, Macron is wasting his time,” Zelenskyy said during an interview with several Italian newspapers.
“I have come to the conclusion that we are unable to change the Russian attitude,” Zelenskyy added. “It is up to them to choose whether to cooperate with the international community.”
Macron has been criticized by Zelenskyy in the past for his attempts to keep lines of communication open with Moscow since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In remarks made over the weekend during the Munich Security Conference, Macron said that he had not spoken to Putin since last September, adding that “now [was] not the time for dialogue.”
But, a day later, Macron added that although he wished for the Kremlin to lose, the war would end not on the battlefield but with peace talks — and that France would “never” support “crushing Russia.”
In the same interview with Italian media, Zelenskyy also reacted ironically to the recent statements from former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who triggered an internal revolt among European conservatives last week after he said the Ukrainian president was responsible for the war.
Berlusconi, who has described himself as a close friend of Putin, was heard boasting about receiving bottles of vodka from Putin for his birthday in audio tapes leaked to the press.
“He likes vodka? If that’s the case, we have some of the finest quality in Ukraine — we can offer him some,” Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president also commented on recent reports from the U.S. that China was ready to send weapons to Russia, saying he hoped Beijing would keep a “pragmatic approach,” to avoid a “Third World War.”
