MUNICH — European leaders should start to create a European army in response to Russia’s military build-up, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday.
“I really believe that the time has come that the armed forces of Europe must be created,” Zelenskyy said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference. “Let’s be honest, now we can’t rule out that America might say no to Europe on issues that might threaten it.”
As the third anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion nears on Feb. 24, Zelenskyy said Europe needed to coalesce behind a single foreign and defense policy that would show America that the bloc is serious about its own security.
Despite steep losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin is adding 150,000 troops to his armed forces, larger than most European armies, Zelenskyy said, and is opening army recruitment offices each week. “Oil prices are still high enough for him to ignore the world,” he said.
The bells of war are ringing. It’s like the 30s (or perhaps even the 1910s would be more appropriate considering we are in the first part of the information age); it’s the time to be prepared for the worst case scenario.
You’re right. It’s more like the 1910s in Europe. The US loves nothing more than being first, so we’ll wait for you here in the 1930s.
More than anything, I hope the leaders of NATO work out a way to grease Ukraine’s admittance against the inevitable protest from the tangerine tyrant. It’s the only real solution. Ukraine has held up their end of the Budapest Memorandum for the last thirty years. It’s absurd that NATO even allowed Putin to repeatedly pull them out of eligibility for that long. Exceptions must be made.