this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
190 points (99.5% liked)

Europe

8083 readers
1024 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
federalreverse@feddit.org
poVoq@slrpnk.net
anzo@programming.dev
EuroMod@feddit.org
190
Ukraine War: Russia Must Shrink its Army for Any Peace to Hold, Says Top EU Diplomat (www.kyivpost.com)
submitted 22 hours ago by Sepia@mander.xyz to c/europe@feddit.org
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Web archive link

Any peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine will only last if Moscow makes real concessions, including limiting the size of its armed forces and curbing its growing military budget, the EU’s top diplomat has said.

In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera published on Friday, Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, warned that without meaningful concessions from Moscow, Europe risks facing new conflicts elsewhere.

...

The problem for peace is Russia,” Kallas said, adding: “Even if Ukraine received security guarantees, without concessions from the Russian side, we would have other wars, perhaps not in Ukraine but elsewhere.”

...

Kallas said that Kyiv and its allies “certainly welcome the momentum toward peace that the U.S. administration is showing,” but cautioned that Russia lacks a “genuine will for peace.”

“It [Russia] is constantly bombing Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure,” she told Corriere della Sera, stressing that “first we need to see a ceasefire.”

She said that in order to achieve sustainable peace, it is necessary to ensure that “Russia does not attack again”, adding that this requires clear concessions from Moscow.

...

"We need concessions from Russia, whether that means limiting its army or restraining its military budget,” said Kallas, who served as Estonia’s prime minister from 2016 to 2021.

Moscow has significantly increased its military budget in recent years, diverting vast resources toward the defense industry to sustain its war in Ukraine.

...

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 7 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Europe probably has more raw capacity for power in terms of labour and technology but it's much less capable of marshalling it towards a goal. The fact that you have to go through the market economy makes all the resources needed to exercise power more expensive. Russian shells cost 4x less than Europe's. More centrally managed economies tend to outcompete at this. Having to go through the 27 countries democracies to direct it is another challenge. All Russia has to do is get several Orbans in domestic governments to keep the power level low. In effect Europe is less strong than Russia even though it could be much stronger. And this doesn't stop with milirary power. Even simple stuff like tackling internal security from sabotage, economic security etc.

There's also other structural blockers to projecting power, like the external energy dependence. Europe was critically dependdnt on Russian fossil fuels. Now a significant portion has been shifted to the US. As a result, uncle Donnie has a significant say in EU's ability to exercise power over entities he likes.

This is why Kallas'es statements look more like stern finger wagging than anything real to anyone aware of these issues. Or Germany's stern warnings to the Russian ambassador. Kaja gives good strong vibes to the EU citizenry but it's not changing the material reality. Eventually it would stop working. My guess is that's gonna happen quickly once uncle Donnie decides to go through with taking Russia's reserve money under her nose and giving it to his corporations to invest in Russia, like they're planning to.