Why have all European media and politicians alike suddenly ganged up to cry an anticipated Ukrainian victory? Why is it so difficult to accept a Russian victory? This article tries to answer these questions in depth.
A Ukrainian imminent victory was forged, just on paper and in TV studios
More recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked Europe for more money – and he got it – and promised victory in 90 days. Then, Ukrainian drones struck deeper inside Russia, attacking oil infrastructure and conducting some operations behind enemy lines, reinforcing an image of a Kremlin steadily losing control of the war. All the media and political elite of the EU and member states, including the European Parliament, have not looked at the reality on the battlefield and chanted in chorus that Ukraine was about to win or had won the war. Statements by Friedrich Merz, “Russia is beginning to realise it will not win this war”, or by Ursula von der Leyen, “The tide is turning,” were then repeated in chorus by most media.
It was common to read headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, such as “The tide is turning” (Associated Press), “Has Ukraine Turned the Tide?” (The American Prospect), “Ukraine’s military success is exposing the myth of inevitable Russian victory” (The Atlantic Council), “How Ukraine Brought the War to Russia” (The New Yorker), “Despite his best efforts, Trump may just have won the war for Kyiv” (The Telegraph), “Russia is losing its war against Ukraine” (The Independent), and so it goes.
It was therefore remarkable that the person who perhaps did most to challenge this false narrative was not a Western realist or a critic of Kyiv, but Ukraine’s own former commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, now ambassador to the United Kingdom. In a rare intervention, he warned against assuming that Russia had already “effectively lost the war,” describing such conclusions as a “dangerous misreading” based on isolated battlefield episodes rather than the broader strategic balance. Needless to say, Zaluzhnyi did not secure a headline or a TV interview in Western Europe to explain his position, but did so in the Ukrainian Kyiv Independent.
Zaluzhnyi’s warning reflected an uncomfortable reality: wars are not won through headlines, information campaigns or wishful thinking, but through resources, industrial capacity, manpower and endurance. In reminding Western audiences of this fact, he injected a dose of realism into a debate that had increasingly become detached from the harsh arithmetic of attritional warfare.
A Russian Victory Is Too Bitter to Swallow
A Russian victory in Ukraine wouldn’t just be a military loss for Kyiv. For many European elites, it would feel like the total collapse of a geopolitical worldview and of the Russophobia that has shaped the continent since the end of the Cold War.
For over thirty years, Europe has operated on certain assumptions: that borders on the continent were now unchangeable; that economic interdependence would keep revisionist powers in check; and that Western integration and NATO could keep expanding eastward without sparking a major conflict. Ukraine became the ultimate test of those beliefs. If Russia were to win, many Europeans would see all three assumptions collapse at once, leaving them only with Russophobia and no more solid geopolitical foundation.
The emotional stakes here are enormous. European leaders haven’t just poured hundreds of billions of euros into military, financial, and humanitarian support for Ukraine; they’ve also invested a huge amount of political capital and moral authority. Many analysts, journalists, and commentators have gone beyond the cold logic of geopolitics, embracing an emotional narrative. The latest waves of “victory” rhetoric in the media are less an objective analysis of the battlefield realities and more a kind of collective wishful thinking, a way to save face.
Since 2022, the war has been cast less as a classic geopolitical conflict and more as a civilizational struggle: democracy against authoritarianism, Europe against Eurasia, international law against brute force. In this reading, a Russian victory wouldn’t just mean Ukraine’s defeat; it would be seen as Europe’s own loss, fought by proxy.
That’s one reason diplomacy is now so politically difficult in many European capitals, especially in Berlin, and at the heart of the European Union in Brussels. Accepting any settlement that leaves Russia with significant territorial gains risks looking like capitulation and risks appearing to be the abandonment of principles that European institutions claim to defend globally – with the exception of Palestine and Gaza -, while ignoring NATO expansion. European leaders keep repeating that borders can’t be changed by force and that Ukraine’s sovereignty is non-negotiable, even as they ignore the existential threat that NATO’s expansion represents to Moscow.
The Psychological Trauma of a Russian Victory
There’s a psychological dimension, too. For many in Brussels, Warsaw, Stockholm, and the Baltic capitals, it would be a shock of Realpolitik, where military power still matters, geography still matters, and great powers still impose outcomes. For others, it is the end of the Western self-proclaimed “End-of-History” world, where peace is not a permanent condition but a temporary political and diplomatic achievement. In terms of deterrence, NATO will no longer be regarded as a supreme guarantor.
Political psychologists call all this a collective narcissistic injury, where the reality refuses to conform to deeply held beliefs about one’s values, institutions and historical mission. And then finally comes ressentiment: a mixture of humiliation, frustration and unresolved grievance. Russia would not merely be perceived as a geopolitical rival but as the country that destroyed Europe’s post-Cold War assumptions, exposed European military weaknesses, revealed umbilical dependence on American protection, demonstrated the limits of sanctions and economic coercion, and forced Europe back into the logic of deterrence and military spending in detriment of its social welfare state.
The result could look like what France experienced after 1871, following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, which led to the unification of Germany, or like Germany after Versailles: not immediate revenge, but a long collective memory of humiliation.
In this sense, a Russian victory might not psychologically end the conflict. It could instead become Europe’s founding trauma of the twenty-first century; the moment when the continent woke up from the belief that history, and war itself, had permanently left Europe behind.
Europe may end up struggling more with the consequences of a Russian victory than with the results of the war in Ukraine itself, as the war has turned into a defining moment for its own identity, much as the Cold War shaped previous generations. Losing that contest wouldn’t just trigger strategic uncertainty; it would leave a bitter political aftertaste and a deep sense of impotence.
The resentment could last for decades. Russia would no longer be seen as just a rival, but as the power that humiliated Europe, exposed its dependence on the U.S. military, and demonstrated the limits of sanctions as a weapon.
Ironically, a Russian victory might not bring peace to Europe at all. Instead, it could open the door to a new era shaped by rearmament, deep strategic mistrust, and historical grievances. The relationship could easily turn even colder and more hostile than during the original Cold War, with a militarised dividing line stretching from the Arctic to the Black Sea. Meanwhile, defence ministers in several EU member states—including Germany—are already talking openly about a possible conflict with Russia in 2030.
Ricardo Martins – Doctor of Sociology, specialist in European and international politics as well as geopolitics
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