The US and Europe in the Ukraine Conflict: Why Europe Is Losing

ON FEBRUARY 24, 2022, the day the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine began, US allies, primarily in Europe, lost all alternatives to their Russia policy. The Ukraine crisis that stemmed from the February 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine gave the US a pretext, first, to formulate a new argument in favor of NATO’s continued existence, and second, to maximally consolidate the anti-Russia trend in the EU political course – to neutralize the vacillations of some of its members (Germany, Italy, and France) and their pragmatic attitude toward Moscow in order to suppress confusion and disarray in the EU’s Russia policy. It should be acknowledged that Russia’s actions since February 2022 have been effectively exploited by the developers of this American strategy.

The joint efforts of Washington and its European allies to support the Kiev regime financially, economically, and with deliveries of weapons and ammunition demonstrated that despite the objectively harmful confrontation with Russia, Europe is ready to go quite far in demonstrating its allied loyalty. It has not yet shaken off its deeply embedded fear of Russia inherited from the Cold War period. It does not treat Russia’s “imperial revanchist” intention to return to its orbit at least some parts of its former sphere of influence as an abstraction. The EU, for its part, treats chances to expand into these territories as a guarantee of its continued existence and progress.

Main Factors of Europe’s Dependence

DESPITE all sorts of sanctions against Moscow introduced by the US and its European allies and the gradual building up of their military presence along Russia’s western borders during the previous period of the Ukraine crisis (2014-2022), Europe (or at least locomotives of the European project such as Germany and France) still had freedom of maneuver and diplomacy on the Russian track. Moreover, they and the Russian Federation were connected by certain common mechanisms (the Normandy Format being one of them) that presupposed conflict settlement in the southeast of Ukraine.

It cannot be said that Europe did not take advantage of these opportunities: In 2015, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s minister of foreign affairs at the time, proposed a formula for the phased implementation of the Minsk-2 agreement, an integrated version of which was approved four years later by the Trilateral Contact Group. An absence of any practical steps by Berlin or Paris that could have compelled Kiev to take at least several steps toward implementing the Minsk Agreements showed that Europe, represented by its most influential players, had no intention of seriously opposing the US, which wanted to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian tool.

Late in 2021, the EU more or less identically responded to what Russia proposed to the US and NATO as security guarantees. Their unproductive and weak response spoke volumes of their decision to remain within the confines of the common line elaborated by NATO (under US “guidance”). Peter Stano, the [European Commission’s] lead spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, limited himself to the standard Western talking points: Each sovereign state has the right to freely choose its foreign policy, its security policy, and unions, and the EU is ready to discuss European security issues within the existing formats.¹ This means that the EU, very much like the US and NATO, brushed aside as “unfounded” Moscow’s worries about the gradual movement of NATO and its infrastructure toward Russia’s borders and the potential NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia that was confirmed by the decisions of the 2008 Bucharest summit. Russia therefore had no choice but to respond with military measures to the threats that had been formed long ago and in which Ukraine was given a special role to play.

The time that has already passed since the beginning of the SMO has confirmed the earlier conclusion that the EU and its leading members that tried to transform Europe into a pole of economic and political influence in its own right was one of the main losers in the Ukraine conflict. This has become obvious in several areas.

First, the economic bleeding of Europe, especially of such engines of European integration as Germany, is intensifying. The US, sharing with the EU its desire to contain “Russia’s revanchism” and at the same time trying to enhance its own advantages in the struggle with its European rivals, is openly demonstrating its economic egoism, which would seem hardly compatible with allied values and priorities. In this respect, the [Joe] Biden administration differs but little from the previous administration of Donald Trump: They employed different methods to achieve identical aims. As soon as the SMO began, Washington and the EU launched a “race of anti-Russia sanctions”; each of the allies wanted to demonstrate its maximal determination. In the final analysis, however, the Old World lost its entrepreneurial and intellectual resources appropriated by the US to push Europe toward de-industrialization.

Second, the European countries are losing their stocks of weapons and ammunition, sent to Ukraine as military aid, while American military companies have acquired an excellent opportunity to impose their products on European allies. This is especially true with respect to the former socialist countries that joined NATO after the Cold War. In late February 2023, those NATO members that had belonged to the Soviet bloc were forced to transfer the bulk of their stocks of Soviet arms and armaments (some of them licensed by the Warsaw Treaty Organization) to the Ukrainian authorities. The massive flow of weapons from European NATO countries to Ukraine led to the problem of replenishing their stocks of equipment and ammunition. Even the most optimistic experts admit that NATO has recapitalization woes. It will take years for member states to replenish the weapons and ammunition sent to Ukraine, and those losses will only increase if the war goes on.²

Third, Europe’s claims to be an independent European defense identity as an alternative of sorts to NATO is seriously undermined by the need to mobilize military, economic, and financial resources to support Kiev. In fact, European military resources are mobilized in a direction that helps consolidate the Atlantic vector of Europe.

Fourth, the situation that has taken shape after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine requiring the involvement of the entire European resource has objectively devalued the political impact of the leaders of “old” Europe (Germany and France, in the first place) and increased the political weight within the EU of East European states that prioritized, after the disintegration of the “Soviet Bloc,” the prevention of “Russia’s revanche” and have bet on the US. In fact, Eastern Europe, whose military warehouses (inherited from the Warsaw Treaty Organization) were emptied, offers the best opportunities among all European countries to American military corporations to export their products to NATO allies. “When it comes to new equipment, the Eastern European partners will primarily turn to the United States,” said Matthias Wachter, chief defense analyst at the German industry association BDI. “Germany and France have unfortunately disqualified themselves in the eyes of many Eastern Europeans by way of their reluctant stance on military support for Ukraine.”³

Fifth, fighting in Ukraine has helped the US implement its geopolitical plans to add “missing links” to the NATO chain in Eastern Europe, in the area directly neighboring Russia. This was done due on account of the decision of Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Both countries had been actively discussing this before the SMO. Although Sweden’s accession has been delayed due to the special position of Turkey, as well as Hungary, there is little doubt that it will be integrated into the alliance.

Washington’s Energy Leverage

ONE of the aforementioned factors that has been hindering Europe’s efforts to pursue a relatively independent Russian policy since the start of the Ukraine crisis (especially since February 2022) is Washington’s rather ample opportunities to manipulate the dependence of its European allies on Russian energy sources. However, the energy issue should be considered not only in the context of the confrontation with Russia, but also as an integral element of Washington’s strategy to weaken Europe as an economic rival.

The economic war against the EU, which reached its apogee under the Trump administration, did not end during Joe Biden’s presidency but merely acquired new forms, new rationales, and new means of legal justification. Washington profited from the SMO that Russia launched in February 2022: It destroyed all expectations of Europe (a fairly broad segment of its political class and business community) to build an economic and, later, political bridge with Russia.

This problem should not be oversimplified and made out to seem that Europe is treating this bridge as an alternative to its political and military dependence on the US and, therefore, as a priority, and that Washington is using all tools at its disposal to exploit its allies’ dependence. This is true, yet Europe has also feared Russia since the times of bipolar confrontation, and this fear has lingered even amid highly optimistic expectations for the Russia-West partnership after the Cold War. This explains the steady post-Cold War expansion of NATO that, importantly for Europe, was synchronized with EU expansion. The obvious degradation of the European political class is one of America’s strategic achievements. Politicians who are clearly unable to defend European independence, to say nothing of the independence of their own countries, have moved to the fore – for example, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and top EU bureaucrats like President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen or High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell. The increasing number of anti-Russia sanctions (11 packages as of fall 2023) correlated and adopted by the US and EU means that Europe does not want to prevent a breakup with Russia. This is related, among other things, to such existentially important areas as energy.

All disagreements over the severity of certain sanctions are caused by Europe’s clear awareness that these sanctions bring it unacceptable losses. Despite its vulnerability, the EU, to the extent possible, tries to stand up to America’s domination and to avoid taking measures that are too radical (rejection of hydrocarbon fuel in the form of piped or liquefied natural gas). Their dependence is still very high, since supplies from Russia cannot be replaced anytime soon by supplies from other sources.

In fact, since the 1970s (when it tried to disrupt the Soviet-German “gas-pipes” deal), Washington has not abandoned its attempts to prevent Europe’s excessive dependence on Russian energy sources. In the post- Cold War period, the still unrealized partnership between Russia and the West is slipping into another “cold war” amid the struggle against Russia’s “energy imperialism” and its European “collaborators” and “fifth column” (such as former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, on whom opponents of the Russian-European energy bridge especially lavished such labels).

Washington bet heavily on anti-Russian sentiments in East European countries that were especially bothered by their energy dependence on Russia. It was in the anti-Russian geoenergy context that the US in various years supported obviously anti-Russian intergovernmental projects in Eastern Europe: the short-lived and practically forgotten Community of Democratic Choice in the 2000s and The Three Seas Initiative set up in 2016 with Poland as the self-appointed leader.

In fact, the EU had itself initiated much of what objectively weakened its competitive positions in its relations with the US (in the energy sphere, among others) long before the Ukraine conflict and the sanctions race of Washington and its allies began. One such initiative was the EU’s Third Energy Package, adopted in 2009. It sought to limit the dominance of gas and electricity suppliers that take advantage of their monopoly of transmission networks and thereby hinder competition between energy companies. The target was primarily [Russia’s] Gazprom.

The green energy course struck another blow to Europe’s possibility to build up its independent energy strategy. It cardinally changed European energy priorities for the sake of an obviously utopian aim of replacing hydrocarbon fuels in the energy balance or, at least, to replace its share with renewable energy sources. It was the EU that trapped the Old Continent. When President Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Accords and pushed the green agenda out of the system of American priorities, the EU sought to fill the void by “creating a market based on the euro rather than the dollar and to make it a reserve currency in this market, eliminating emission dependence on the US Federal Reserve System.”⁴

Later, when Joe Biden took office and America returned to the Paris Climate Accords, Washington seized the green agenda from the EU with expected and far-reaching repercussions for European producers, who had already been gradually losing their profitable positions. The process intensified after February 2022, when they were forced to retreat from the Russian market. The Inflation Reduction Act, adopted by Congress and signed by the US president in August 2022, was one of the most important steps in this direction. It presupposed an “additional $400 billion of loan authority for projects eligible for loan guarantees” for American producers (of electric cars in the first place) that used “clean energy technologies.”

A sharp, negative response followed from at least some European leaders. President of France Emmanuel Macron spoke of the law as “superaggressive.” In November 2022, speaking at a meeting with representatives of a European “roundtable” of industrialists, he urged them not to move their enterprises to the US despite its lower energy prices and inflation reduction measures.⁵ Shortly before that, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Sovereignty Fund had been established to prevent an “industrial desert” in Europe that might appear under the pressure of the new American legislation⁶ and to help European businesses invest at home while observing all environmental standards and requirements under the green course.

The “war of subsidies,” an inevitable repercussion of the measures taken by the Biden administration to inspire American “green energy production,” will negatively affect European producers and exacerbate the negative effects of anti-Russia sanctions (even if, as has been written above, the EU tries to make them selective rather than comprehensive) on the “fossil fuels” sector and Europe’s inevitable reorientation from Russian pipeline to more expensive American liquefied natural gas.

According to a Russian author, this is politically motivated for the EU and economically motivated for the US.⁷ European countries that depended more than their neighbors on gas from Russia have suffered huge financial losses. The EU has decided to completely abandon Russian energy by 2027: This decision, which can hardly be implemented in such a short time, will only worsen the situation. According to the 2023 Economic Report of the US President, US exports of liquefied natural gas to the countries of European economic area and Great Britain increased nearly 150% – from 47.8 million cubic meters in 2021 to 117.4 million cu.m.⁸ Director-General for Energy at the European Commission Ditte Juul Jørgensen told The Financial Times that the EU had “the instruments that we need” (by which she meant more renewable energy) to endure another winter energy crisis in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war. She said, however, that the bloc’s reliance on exports of US LNG would persist for decades.⁹

There is no reason to discuss whether the US profited from the blowing up of the Nord Stream-2 pipelines in September 2022 (irrespective of who was responsible), which not only considerably limited the volumes of Russian gas supplies to Europe but deprived it of future increases. Even before Russia’s SMO in Ukraine, much had been done to delay the pipeline’s commissioning for a year, while the Trump administration imposed huge sanctions on it. This meant direct profits for American energy corporations and a shattering blow for the European independent energy strategy and Germany’s role as an energy hub and an economic and even political locomotive of European integration.

The sabotage of Nord Stream-2 gave the US and all who support “Atlantic discipline” a chance to impose new NATO functions on Europe related to boadly interpreted “hybrid threats” emanating from Russia in the first place. NATO is expected, in particular, to assume responsibility for the security of important infrastructure within its area of responsibility. In February 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the creation of a Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell at NATO Headquarters.¹⁰

Reliance on Europe Has Its Limits

IN THE foreseeable future, as long as the Ukraine crisis remains vehement enough, the US can rest assured that Europe will not abandon the path of containing Russia. On one hand, due to its decreasing independence and increasing dependence on the US and, on the other, due to its awareness that it must preserve itself as a civilizational project and center of attraction for all pro-European forces, the EU considers it necessary to channel all available resources to Ukraine, so as not to lag behind the US. After visiting Odessa in late September 2023, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that “our military support to Ukraine has reached the figure of 25 billion euros. And altogether, military, civilian, and humanitarian [support] has reached the figure of 85 billion euros, which is – together from European institutions and Member States – the highest amount in the world.”¹¹

Those EU members – Italy, in particular – that before SMO did not demonstrate brinkmanship in their confrontation with Moscow today demonstrate no obvious intentions to undermine Western unity. This can be said about the government of Giorgia Meloni, who had previously been seen as representing right-wing populist forces on which Russia has been betting to an extent. Marine Le Pen, ex-president of [France’s] National Rally [party], moved to a similar position when Russia began its SMO. Very much as before, she firmly objects to disrupting relations with Moscow and is fairly skeptical about the effectiveness of anti-Russian sanctions and military supplies to Kiev.

In fact, Europe even calls on the US establishment to avoid periodical isolationist temptations (which frequently crop up during presidential election campaigns). This is especially important in crises of no existential importance to the US (e.g., Ukraine). Some American experts are convinced, with good reason, that in view of the nature of the unfolding presidential campaign in the US and the slogans of certain potential Republican candidates who exploit the isolationist discourse, the main threat to reducing or even stopping Western aid to Ukraine could come from the US. That is why the prevailing view among Washington’s European allies is that the US is the weak link in the transatlantic chain, at least as far as the “Ukraine issue” is concerned.¹²

Robert Gates, former US secretary of defense, discussed this issue in a broader context: It is very important to revive popular support of the idea of America’s global responsibility inside the US in order to revive the confidence of allies and demonstrate to its opponents that the US remains loyal to its obligations. The former head of the Pentagon is convinced that due to the political split in the US and contradictory signals from various American political forces and ambiguous statements of American politicians about the role of their country in the world, its reliability is doubted: “Both friends and adversaries wonder whether Biden’s engagement and alliance-building is a return to normal or whether Trump’s ‘America first’ disdain for allies will be the dominant thread in American policy in the future.”¹³

Granted, Europe is not united. Despite their agreement that Moscow should be “contained,” not all European NATO members are ready to continue supporting, with the same enthusiasm, Ukraine in previous unlimited scopes or are willing for an unlimited escalation of anti-Russian sanctions. The UK (which due to Brexit has consolidated the geostrategic priorities it shares with the US) is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the anti-Russian course together with Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland and Sweden, two recent NATO members with still unregistered statuses.

Today, the contrast within Europe between firm supporters of Atlantic orthodoxy (they are in the minority in the EU) and the states that are concerned about long-term European interests might sooner or later undermine European reliability as a loyal supporter of American geostrategy in Europe that confronts Russia and is expected to consolidate Ukraine as a tool of a proxy war with Russia. We can agree with the authors of the aforementioned article in Foreign Affairs who wrote that “to Europeans, the longer the war continues, the more it could seem intractable and costly, more a vehicle for US power than a core European interest.”¹⁴

The current situation, associated with the strict need to integrate into American geostrategy, not only bleeds Europe dry economically but makes it a second-class political actor in world politics; it is pushed to the “backyard of history” amid the US-China rivalry that has developed into an axis of this policy. European politicians, especially those with the prefix “ex-” before their titles, are free to express their opinions from all sorts of academic rostrums. Josep Piqué, former foreign minister of Spain who died in April 2023, spoke about this at an academic forum several months after the start of Russia’s SMO in Ukraine.¹⁵

The fact that Europe has been pushed to the margins of Western geopolitics is especially obvious given that the countries of the global South, which although for the most part did not support Russia in the Ukraine crisis and share the dominant opinion about Ukraine’s “territorial integrity,” have preferred to go their own way and not join the anti-Russian sanctions.

The authors of a research project published by the European Council on Foreign Relations in February 2023 (the first anniversary of Russia’s SMO) pointed out that the events of the past year deepened the unfolding differences between the Western and Non-Western worlds not only on issues related to Russia (is it an adversary or a partner) and the desired result of the Ukraine crisis (either Kiev’s total victory or a compromise) but also on the preferred future world order. “Most people in major non- Western countries … predict the West will soon be just one global pole among several” rather than a West-centrist world or American-Chinese bipolarity.¹⁶

This can be assessed as the failure of the EU in the first place: obvious confirmation of the fact that in the contemporary world, vassal behavior toward the US is a losing option rejected by countries that are even less economically developed and politically integrated into the West-centric system (Third World countries, as they used to be called.)

It is growing much clearer that Washington’s long-term strategy is nothing more than a desire to plunge Europe into the Ukraine conflict with an obvious understanding that the end will hardly be positive for Ukraine. It has assumed the role of coordinator that would propose the “general line” to be followed by the dependent countries. In this context, Washington rather than Europe would profit from further expansion of the EU by accelerating membership talks with European (including Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia) and West Balkan states; this will weaken the EU as Washington’s rival.

This line is de facto promoted, contrary to the long-term interests of EU members that are the driving force of European integration, by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who in September 2023 said in her annual State of the Union Address: “A Union fit for enlargement can be achieved faster. But we cannot – and we should not – wait for Treaty change to move ahead with enlargement.”¹⁷

No matter how much the EU’s political independence has been devalued by its inclusion against its will and interests in America’s anti-Russian geostrategy, some European state leaders fairly loyal to the “Atlantic discipline” are fully aware of the fact that the Ukraine crisis, or at least its acute phase, will sooner or later end or be frozen, and that the problem of Europe’s stronger independence within NATO and the collective West will reappear on the agenda. This has been proved by statements of President Macron in 2022 and 2023, probably not the most appropriate of times, when the West should be closing ranks in the face of Russia’s actions in Ukraine. In late December 2022, in an interview with several journalists, Macron confirmed his complete loyalty to the absolute defense of Ukraine and its victory but still commented that European defenses within NATO should be developed to achieve greater autonomy (from the US) in terms of technologies and defense potential.¹⁸

Another statement of the French president, made in April 2023 after his visit to China and talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, likewise, echoed far and wide in the West. This time he spoke not of the Ukraine but the highly unpredictable Taiwan crisis that might draw Europe into conflicts to which it is unrelated and in which it had no interests. “If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals. The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers. The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] in Taiwan?”¹⁹

Beginning in February 2022, the erosion and loss of EU political agency has been proceeding at a faster pace than elsewhere in Europe: The EU had no choice but to take orders from the US. In this context, Ukraine was but a factor of acceleration. At least some leaders of “old” Europe have realized that Washington’s desire for total political domination over Europe will not be limited to the Ukraine issue. This is clear even to the current president of France, under whom Paris sought in vain to claim the role of the main lobbyist of European autonomy in the security sphere: In the foreseeable future, Washington will try to subordinate Europe to its China strategy. And on the Chinese issue, unlike the Ukrainian one, maintaining its own independence and the ability to resist American diktat is vital for the European Union.

It should be said that under certain circumstances, some of Washington’s most loyal allies in Central and Eastern Europe might become “weak links” in the chain of the common European Anti-Russian front, a product of an inevitable obligation to extend assistance to the Kiev regime. This is related, first and foremost, to Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán does not want to sever all ties with Moscow, especially in the energy sphere, while his relations with Kiev are strained because of the status of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.

Other states that cannot be suspected of sympathies toward Russia may find themselves in a similar situation. Poland became a source of similar threats in the summer and fall of 2023 ahead of the October parliamentary elections in which Law and Justice, the ruling right-wing nationalist party, might lose a considerable share of votes or even move into opposition. Politico has pointed out in this regard that “the leaders of some of these ride-or-die allies face reelection battles or other domestic challenges, and governments get nervous about the impact of Ukraine one day joining the European Union, that support is starting to waver.”²⁰

In the case of Poland, the campaign appeals of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (that might crop up in any European country under similar circumstances) are intensified by the nationalist or even xenophobic ideology and practices of the Polish ruling party. A conflict with the EU has been stirred up by active exploitation of the dissatisfaction of Polish farmers irritated by the massive import of Ukrainian grain, the flow of Ukrainian refugees, as well as the rapidly depleting stores of weapons and ammunition supplied to Kiev. Hence the threats (hardly realizable) of the Polish government to halt weapon supplies (Poland would never halt the transit of weapons and ammunition across its territory); these threats rather speak of the real state of weapon and ammunition stores when Russia began the SMO.

Conclusion

NO MATTER how much Europe wanted to save its strategic alliance with the US and prevent Russia’s geopolitical resurrection, it is objectively reluctant to support a hot conflict at its eastern borders. Indeed, doing so might turn Europe into a battlefield (of a nuclear war, in the worstcase scenario); this means that it will inevitably try to somehow facilitate a settlement of the conflict. Europe, even the countries of the Eastern flank of NATO, former allies of the Soviet Union now claiming the role of America’s “proxies,” cannot ignore the fact that no effective security architecture in Europe is possible without Russia or set up against it.

The gap between the US and at least its main European allies on the final aims of their current acute confrontation with Moscow and on what will be a “final victory” over Russia in this conflict is widening. In the long-term perspective, the EU will not benefit either economically or politically from the military confrontation in Ukraine; this will inevitably contradict its ad hoc desire to demonstrate its unity with Washington in its confrontation with Russia.

NOTES

1 “V ES prokommentirovali predlozheniye Rossii po garantiyam bezopsnosti,” RIA Novosti, December 17, 2021, https:// ria.ru/20211217/garantii-1764329318.html (retrieved on September 23, 2023).

2 Kendall-Taylor A., Kofman M. “Russia’s Dangerous Decline. The Kremlin Won’t Go Down Without a Fight,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2022, Vol. 101, No. 6, pp. 32-33.

3 Gould J., Sprenger S. “Ukraine weapon switcheroos are flushing Soviet arms out of Europe,” Defense News, April 28, 2022, https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/04/28/ukraine-weapon-switcheroos-are-flushing-soviet-arms-out-of-europe (retrieved on September 26, 2023).

4 Konoplyanik A.A. “Protivostoyanie ES i SShA na fone borby s Rossyey. Evrosoyuz ne uspel perekhvatit liderstvo v sisteme chistykh tekhnologiy,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, December 12, 2022.

5 “Zelenye tekhnologii: ES i SShA mogut doyti to suda v WTO,” RFI, December 22, 2022 (archival copy).

6 Certain American experts, however, are convinced: “There was no need for the EU to react so dramatically to the IRA. The impact of the IRA on Europe’s clean-energy industries is likely to be very limited.” See: Crawford N. “Europe’s Measured Response to the US Inflation Reduction Act,” Survival Online, April 21, 2023, https:// www.iiss.org/en/ online-analysis/survival-online/2023/04/europes-measured-response-to-the-us-inflationreduction- act (retrieved on October 6, 2023).

7 Konoplyanik A.A., op. cit.

8 Economic Report of the President. Transmitted to Congress. March 2023, p. 103.

9 “Top EU energy official says US gas will be needed for decades,” The Financial Times, September 24, 2023, https:// www.ft.com/content/7e94bc82-c358-4a8c-b539- 781d62dbc3c9 (retrieved on September 26, 2023).

10 NATO stands up undersea infrastructure coordination cell. February 15, 2023, https:// www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_211919.htm?selectedLocale=en

11 “Ukraine: Press remarks by High Representative Josep Borrell on Russia’s information manipulation in its military aggression,” European Union External Action, October 1, 2023, https:// www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/ukraine-press-remarks-high-representative-josepborrell- russia’s-information-manipulation-its_en (retrieved on October 3, 2023).

12 Fix L., Kimmage M. “Will the West Abandon Ukraine? Kyiv Must Prepare for a Possible Change of Heart in America and Europe,” Foreign Affairs, September 12, 2023, https://www. foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/will-west-abandon-ukraine?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_ source=fatoday&utm_campaign=Will%20the%20West%20Abandon%20Ukraine?&utm_ content=20230912&utm_term=FA%20Today%20-%20112017 (retrieved on September 15, 2023).

13 Gates R.M. “The Dysfunctional Superpower. Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia?” Foreign Affairs, September 29, 2023, https:// www.foreignaffairs.com/ united-states/robert-gates-america-china-russia-dysfunctional-superpower (retrieved on September 29, 2023).

14 Fix L., Kimmage M., op. cit.

15 Josep Piqué, ex minister: “Europa será barrida por el viento de la historia si no avanza en su integración,” Diario de Navarra, September 27, 2022.

16 Ash T.G., Krastev I., Leonard M. “United West, Divided from the Rest: Global Public Opinion One Year into Russia’s War on Ukraine – ECFR/482,” European Council on Foreign Relations. Policy Brief. February 2023, 19 pp.

17 “2023 State of the Union Address by President von der Leyen,” European Commission. European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, September 13, 2023, https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/2023-state-union-address-presidentvon- der-leyen-2023-09-13_en (retrieved on October 2, 2023).

18 Emmanuel Macron sur la guerre en Ukraine: “Je n’ai pas envie que ce soient les Chinois et les Turcs seuls qui négocient le jour d’après,” Le Monde, December 22, 2022 (retrieved on September 19, 2023).

19 “Europe must resist pressure to become ‘America’s followers,’ says Macron,” Politico, September 4, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-china-americapressure- interview (retrieved on September 21, 2023).

20 “Europe blinks amid calls to stop backing Ukraine,” Politico, September 22, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-poland-central-europe-eastern-kyiv-balticszelenskyy- war-invasion (retrieved on September 25, 2023).

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