Europe fears Ukraine’s military collapse starting in April: the question is what comes next

Europe fears war. National leaders and the bloc’s common institutions, the European Union and NATO, They have been warning for weeks about a possibility that is getting closer every day and concrete that the war due to the Russian attack on Ukraine will extend to the entire continent. These warnings are linked to announcements of significant increases in military spending, the return in some countries – and the debate for now in others – of compulsory military service and the signing of military alliances. of France and Germany with Ukraine, which is outside these European institutions, even though it wants to join both the European Union and NATO.

The increase in this rhetoric and the announcements of increased spending began in February after the Munich Security Conference, the annual conclave that brings together chancellors, defense ministers, heads of military intelligence and sector companies in the German city to discuss of future security scenarios.

At this year’s meeting, American leaders began sharing with Europeans intelligence reports of those who warned a probable collapse of the Ukrainian front starting from April and especially in the next European summer.

Russia is more prepared

Russia It has an enormous capacity to mobilize men and even if for now tens or hundreds of thousands die in Ukraine it has no political consequences for President Putin because the majority are not children of the most politicized class of the large cities of Western Russia, but poor children from ethnic minorities.

Russia did it too an industry capable of producing the essential elements for war much faster of this type: tanks, missiles, artillery, howitzers, assault rifles, mines and material to fortify positions.

Ukraine It has almost no military industrial capacity (he tries to develop it in the middle of the war) and European and American industry he can’t keep up in which Ukraine fires artillery shells. A French public television report explained last week that the entire French industry is capable of producing 20,000 155-millimeter howitzers (the NATO standard used by Ukraine) per year, enough for Ukraine to fire. two days if you don’t want the Russians to advance.

There’s no way industry in the very short term to provide much more ammunition to Ukraine. It is not a problem of money but of industrial capacity. According to the best forecasts, a maximum of 1.5 million howitzers could be sent this year, so Ukraine could fire just over 4,000 a day when it takes more than double to control a front that already exceeds 1,000 kilometers in length.

What would Putin’s next goals be?

Considering this situation, diplomats from the EU and NATO institutions say, there is a fear of a collapse of the Ukrainian front Russia advances towards Odessa and Kiev, that Moscow will be able to win the war by the end of the year and that then, with its military industry operating at full capacity, Putin decides to attack Moldova (he has Transnistria, a de facto independent Moldovan region, to more than 10,000 soldiers). And above all decide to try, if Donald Trump wins the November elections, the commitment of the United States to the mutual defense promised by NATO membership, attacking one of the Baltic republics, probably Estonia.

Europeans repeat advertisements because They know they don’t have time that must be formed hundreds of thousands of soldiers (some countries, such as Poland, announce plans to train thousands of civilians in survival, civil protection and even the use of weapons, as well as to build thousands of air raid shelters for fear of bombing) and increase military production.

But in the short term there is no military capacity in Europe convention to prevent Russia from doing so, if Putin wishes, with Estonia or Moldova or other countries in the area. I am militarily poor and in the case of Moldova It is not even a member of NATO and the EU.

Beyond the short term, consensus on Putin is growing in Europe does not intend to negotiate anything and he just wants to recover for Russia a sphere of influence and territory that was already Russian, due to weaponsduring the tsarist empire and during the period of the Soviet Union: Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus (although it already controls it through the dictator Lukashenko) and to the Baltic republics. And that Europe must be ready to give a conventional military response if the United States ignores European securitywhich is very likely if Trump returns.