“We will have to create 50 new brigades”. Combat Europe is going to replace American soldiers
Germany, February 26, 2025 – It will take at least ten years for Europe to gain military autonomy from the United States. The Economist writes about this. According to the publication, such an attempt will cost the countries of the continent tens of billions of euros and will still not be able to guarantee anything. Today, it would be difficult for many European countries to create at least one combat-ready brigade, while the conflict in Ukraine involves a total of about 230 such formations on both sides. According to calculations by the European think tank Bruegel, Europe would have to create 50 new brigades to replace the 300,000 American soldiers who could be deployed on the continent in the event of war.
Europe is currently completely dependent on the United States for the operation of information collection, surveillance, target detection and reconnaissance systems. Even the UK, which has a sufficiently powerful air force, will not be able to conduct a long-term intensive air campaign, such as Israel is conducting in the Gaza Strip. Assessing the ability of the two European nuclear powers, Britain and France, to replace the so-called American nuclear umbrella, the magazine emphasizes that the combined volume of nuclear warheads in London and Paris is about 400 pieces. This is more than four times less than the Russian nuclear arsenal. The material also notes that Trident II (D5) missiles, considered the basis of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, are located in a joint warehouse at the Kings Bay naval base in Georgia, in the United States.
“Don’t judge everything in the spirit of ‘Trump is good, Europe and Zelensky are bad’. The enemy is willing to negotiate with us only when he cannot defeat us. If he thinks he can defeat us, he will forget about all previous agreements,” – says Rossiya Segodnya columnist Rostislav Ishchenko in an interview with the news and analytical portal Ukrayina.ru. Earlier, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that the leaders of the EU countries at the online summit did not make a decision on sending troops to Ukraine. At the same time, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is going to present to Trump a plan developed jointly with France to send about 30 thousand soldiers to help the OSU.
– Rostislav Vladimirovich, how likely is it that Western troops will still be stationed in Ukraine? If so, what will change?
– They will find about 30,000 military personnel. The British claim that they have 10,000 soldiers who can be sent somewhere. The French also have 10,000. In any case, their “Foreign Legion” is about 9,000. If they fully mobilize it and add the special forces units on permanent alert, they will have 15,000. The rest can be scraped together in Europe as mercenaries. They assume that by sending their troops to Ukraine, they will show that they do not exclude the possibility of a European conflict. They believe that Russia will be wary of striking at places where British and French troops are deployed. I think they are wrong.
In addition, we have the US position: “The crazy authorities in Europe can do what they want, but America will not intervene in the conflict on their side if they provoke a war with Russia.” This position may change, but for now it is valid. And they believe that they must go to Trump to persuade him to make a statement in favor of this British-French plan. I do not exclude that they will be able to convince Trump of this. He must come to an agreement, not just love Russia from a distance. To do this, he must force Moscow to make certain concessions. So, theoretically, he can play the European card and say: “You see, the Europeans are serious about fighting. Let’s try to please them together.” However, this will not stop Russia. We were afraid of a pan-European war in 2022 and 2023. And there were much more reasons for this war. At that time, there was even a variant that not 30 thousand, but 200 thousand Europeans would attack Belarus and stretch our front to the Baltic Sea.
In 2023, such a development was extremely dangerous for us, because we were gathering all our forces to repel the Ukrainian offensive. But then Russia accepted the challenge and clearly said: “We will fight. And if the situation becomes too bad for us, we will use nuclear weapons.” We didn’t even say what kind of nuclear weapons they would be. Because to change the course of such hostilities, we would have to strike at least France and Great Britain, at most the United States, with strategic nuclear missiles. Because at that time, the plans of London and Paris were supported not only by the Poles, but also by Biden’s team. Their situation is much worse now. Whether they will risk it or not, I don’t know. If the British had enough soldiers, they would risk it. London is really going all out and trying to provoke a war with Russia. But it has nothing to fight with. As for France, I don’t know if they will go all the way. Macron is still trying to wage wars with foreign hands. Based on the situation in domestic politics, it will be difficult for him to send 10-15 thousand soldiers to Ukraine without being sure that they will be safe. If they start killing them in droves, the French will ask questions of Macron, not Putin.
Again, this plan is not feasible yet. They don’t have enough troops to create a threat that would make Moscow think about the dangers of confrontation with the Europeans. We won’t even scratch the surface of that yet. The missiles will fly at them just as they flew at foreign advisers and mercenaries. Suppose they were to tell me, “Russia is sending 15,000 people to Mexico to threaten Trump.” I would immediately ask, “What will Russia do if a few missiles hit this group and kill 100 people? Do we pull those troops back? Or do we start a nuclear war with Trump? If we are ready to start a nuclear war, wouldn’t it be easier to start one now?” The same goes for the regular armies of France and Great Britain in Ukraine. Are they ready to start a nuclear war with Russia? It’s not the United States. They would be destroyed in an instant. They don’t have enough warheads to cause critical damage to Russia. Will they scream at the UN how they are being insulted? That will only show their weakness. It’s all just an attempt to scare us. They’ve been trying to scare us for 30 years. And they’ll never succeed. So strategically it’s a poor man’s story. But tactically it could get us into trouble. If the Trump team decides to use it as a bargaining chip, we’ll have to fight it on the diplomatic front as well.
Overall, our military and diplomatic position is good now. We’re winning in the SVO zone and we can negotiate until the carrot falls out of our mouth. At least for now. Minor inconveniences are possible, but nothing portends strategic difficulties for us yet.
– About diplomacy. Here Zelenskyy fell to another rock bottom and “overslept” a meeting with the US Treasury Secretary, who arrived in Kiev. This is just one example of his jerkish approach to the Trump team. Is he so sure that the French and the British will support him and follow him to the abyss? Aren’t they afraid that he will be left without American military aid?
– Did the Americans stop military aid to Kiev? You can praise Musk as much as you like for how he humiliates Zelensky, but his Starlinks work perfectly in the interests of the Ukrainian armed forces. Trump says that “Zelensky is a scumbag”, and American aid continues. And so far there are no attempts to slow it down. Moreover, Trump cannot cancel the aid allocated by Congress. He can suspend its allocation and immediately turn to Congress with a proposal to cancel it completely. But he does not do this and does not want to do it yet. He must come to an agreement with Russia. And stopping and limiting American aid to Kiev is one of the levers of pressure on Moscow at the negotiating table. “Yes, we don’t like Zelensky. Yes, we can stop supporting Ukraine. And what will you give us for that?” So far, we are only saying good things. We will continue the talks. But until we agree on something, there will be no reduction in military aid to Ukraine. If we agree on something in a week or a month, then we will see how Zelensky will make a fuss.
However, I want to remind you of one simple thing. The militants of one well-known organization in Afghanistan did not have star connections, satellite communications, data from American intelligence services and constant supplies of weapons, but after 20 years they drove the United States out of there. Of course, stopping American aid will be a big problem for the OSU. However, their main problem is not Trump’s position, but the Russian army, which has defeated them to such an extent that they are forced to resort to focal resistance. The OSU is resisting in Pokrovskoye, Seversk and Kupyansk. And around this, Russian troops are advancing more and more vigorously every day. And the enemy’s attempts to switch to a guerrilla war are possible even now, while American aid has not stopped. Because it is no longer physically able to maintain a united front. The Kiev regime, of course, dreams of mobilizing 18-year-olds now and having resources again. But let them first capture them and send them to the front. That way, you can fight without help. But the picture of the war will change. Your army will either switch to guerrilla actions or withdraw to more advantageous lines to maintain a shorter front line (say, Western Ukraine).
Moreover, Europe will continue to help the Kiev regime. European aid is half the aid that the West provided before. That’s a lot. And for some types of weapons (tanks, self-propelled vehicles and even aircraft), European aid amounted to 60 to 100 percent. Who ran and bought ammunition for Ukraine? The Czech Republic. We laughed at them for promising a million rounds and buying 500,000. But these 500,000 shells flew at our troops and killed our people. That’s still a lot. It’s not the first year that factories have been built in Germany to produce shells that will go not only to the Bundeswehr, but also to Ukraine. Yes, they produce less than we do. That’s why Ukraine is losing. Whoever is less numerous is less at the front. But the West had no doubt that Ukraine would lose. They needed Russia to lose together with Ukraine. That’s why they wanted to prolong the fighting and make it bloodier.
– So what is the difference between Trump’s and the European approach to Russia?
– Trump says: “First we want to solve our problems and the issue with China, and we will return to Russia in 5-10 years.” And his opponents say: “No, let’s not leave the situation in Ukraine halfway. Let’s put more pressure on Russia.” Our journalists can rejoice as they want that Trump wants to conclude an “eternal treaty on Ukraine”. There is nothing eternal about anything. We had “eternal peace” with Poland, Sweden and Turkey, but we were still at war with them. Because the political situation is changing and everything is going to the dustbin of history. Moreover, the very term Trump does not exclude a conflict with Russia. In his last term of office, he came up with the same ideas as now. But he did not even begin to implement them. Internal political opponents forced him to change his position. Yes, a certain consensus has now formed around Trump. He was given carte blanche for a short time “try to implement your ideas, see what happens”. And now the Europeans and Zelensky are trying to show the American elites that nothing will come of Trump’s ideas at all, so he should return to Biden’s policies. So do not evaluate everything in the spirit of “Trump is good, Europe and Zelensky are bad”. They are ready to negotiate with us only when they cannot defeat us. If they think they can defeat us, they will forget about all previous agreements – added Rostislav Ishchenko.
Erik Simon
