Europe, Stop Counting Chickens in a War Zone

They hatch only after you dump the all-defense playbook—now.

Petr Pavel and Boris Pistorius.

If these two men ask, I will drop everything and work for them. Not Starmer. Not Merz. Not Macron. But Pavel and Pistorius. You all know how much I value what I do, but these two men have displayed something that's far beyond politics. I really can’t give you the list, but they have, time and time again, kept humans before political decisions—and I deeply respect that.

They’ve spoken in language that doesn't come from NATO handbooks or stale diplomatic cables, but from lived understanding. They have a grasp of the stakes. They know what it means when a frontline freezes for weeks and what it costs when it shifts by just a few meters. It’s rare. And in a world full of technocrats and calculators, they’ve managed to hold on to some moral compass—one that doesn’t swing depending on polling data or Sunday op-eds.

But just because I would love to have Pavel as my boss does not mean I will say yes when he makes a mistake. I will do the same even if he is my boss. That’s what real loyalty means—staying grounded, not blind.

And what he said during the NATO summit was a huge mistake. Not just a rhetorical slip. A strategic failure. It shows how badly they still assess the situation, how the old instincts of appeasement and "measured response" still haunt European policy.

During the summit, while talking about Europe’s effort to bring Trump on board with Russia sanctions, Pavel said:

“We were very united and collectively tried to convince him that the time has come to significantly increase economic pressure on Russia. Not to cause Russia’s economic collapse — that’s not in our interest — but to make them realize they have no other choice but to act.”

Horrible, horrible view.

Putin has sacrificed more than a million families. Has repeatedly said Ukraine has no right to exist. He wants to destroy the home of 40 million humans. He wants to resurrect the Soviet Union and is open to keep building record-breaking cemeteries for it.

• Did he worry about Ukraine’s economy collapsing when he blockaded the Black Sea with his navy when the war began?

• Did he worry about a food crisis and how many million Africans suffered because of it?

• Did he worry about energy markets, or grain prices, or fertilizer shipments? Did he flinch before blowing out every civilian transformer station in Kyiv?

Why is Poland talking about nuclear weapons? Because they live next to a country run by a man who doesn’t blink before erasing cities.

But Pavel and Europe want to do sanctions lite, so that the Russian economy does not collapse? They want to leave just enough oxygen in the Kremlin war machine to keep the illusion of "control" alive? To keep some leverage for a future negotiation that will never come?

That’s not strategy. That’s fear, dressed up in policy language.

Why not open a credit line while we’re at it? Just in case things go south, Putin can use it to stabilize his economy and attack Lithuania two years from now.

Again and again, Europe keeps underestimating the brilliance of Russian Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina. Just she alone—and maybe her team too—is enough to protect the Russian war machine if Europe keeps up this sanctions-lite dance. She has managed a wartime monetary system with breathtaking efficiency, keeping inflation in check and freezing domestic panic.

You think she won’t survive another round of tepid European half-measures?

Make no mistake: if it is sanctions lite, then Europe will stay in war mode for a very long time. Not months. Years. Because they still do not have clarity on the situation. They keep thinking this is about leverage, about “shaping behavior.” It’s not. It’s about removing Russia’s ability to wage war, full stop. And anything short of that is not a plan. It’s an invitation to more death.

Sorry, President Pavel. Either you fight to win or start preparing to lose.

There will never be a middle ground.

Not with this regime. Maybe Europe should check its archives—pull out the 2022 interviews of Estonia’s former Prime Minister. She warned you. She told you Russia must be stopped, not managed. The only way to stop Russia is to break its war machine. Not delay it. Not degrade it. Break it.

This strategic blunder shows all of us just how much we are now dependent on the clarity of Zelenskyy and Budanov to get us out. Because if left to European leadership, they will wait for a draw, hand over negotiation points, and snatch defeat right out of Putin’s hands—dragging the rest of us with them into some lukewarm geopolitical purgatory. And they’ll call it “peace.”

But there’s a flicker of light.

On that front, the German decision to focus on building Ukraine’s defense industry looks like a strategic masterstroke. It’s quiet. Understated. But it matters. Germany took the decision to invest directly inside Ukraine before even talking about scaling up its own defense production. That’s foresight. It’s targeted statecraft. And it’s the first real sign that someone in Europe gets it.

Sure, that investment is only five billion euros. And yes, it’s Germany—and it’s only one announcement. But it’s the kind of move that changes the shape of the war.

I need to start looking at the numbers more closely, but I think the total now exceeds twenty billion, ploughed directly into Ukraine’s weapon production ecosystem.

Long-range ground-launched missiles are the best solution. Ukraine’s long-range strike program—something that was a distant idea just a year ago—is now taking shape. And that program has been funded and supported by Germany.

So whenever Ukraine starts to hit Russia’s rear logistics, its airbases, its staging posts inside occupied territory—that is when the real downfall of the Russian empire will begin.

And the next move? The United States might finally be catching up.

There has been some movement on the bipartisan sanctions bill. If tabled, it will clear the Senate in no time—filibuster-proof with 85 votes. Yes, eighty-five. It will clear the Senate in record time, and the House too, without delay. And then it will sit—glowing, loaded, and full of political consequence—on Trump’s desk.

The details are still not clear, but from what’s leaked, it looks like the bill gives enough room—or more than enough—for Trump to make that call. Basically, the wording gives Trump the green light to slap some really loud sanctions on Russia, if he chooses to. And that “if” carries the weight of the entire war.

I have no idea what he will do. It’s very, very difficult to predict the outcome. But unlike the last time, when he had the same opportunity, and asked the GOP senate to not to table the bill—this time, he has said nothing. Not a word. That silence is odd. And we still don’t know what the bill will actually contain.

If you followed how the GOP handled the so-called “beautiful” bill, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. For months, they said one thing—then passed something else entirely. Public messaging had no resemblance to actual execution. The only accurate part was the tax break. Everything else was a placeholder for whatever they needed it to be.

That’s why I won’t comment in detail unless the full sanctions bill is released to the public. But even if it is, even if it passes, even if it lands on Trump’s desk and survives whatever dealmaking storm surrounds it—I do not expect results anytime soon.

But I do love this moment.

Because what this moment signals is something deeper. We now have the Trump administration moving closer and closer to the midline—that dangerous gray zone—between Ukraine and Russia. A few weeks ago, they quietly removed sanctions on Rosatom. The justification was nuclear energy cooperation. The real reason? To help their ideological partner in Hungary.

That move—the lifting of Rosatom sanctions—set the stage for even broader relief for the Kremlin. That was the slippery slope. That was the test balloon.

But the slope didn’t hold.

I don’t think we’ll see any Kremlin sanctions relief now. Not this quarter. Maybe not for a while. That door may have just been quietly, but firmly, shut.

Thank you, Elbridge Colby. You may have just made a complete mess out of the Kremlin’s near-term future. Short-term damage? Absolutely. But in this war, every day counts. Every week of pressure matters. Every delay in their recovery is a victory for freedom.

Hey Colby. Trump or the tech bros? Just asking for a reader.

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