EU’S ROUTE TO STRATEGIC AUTONOMY:

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FROM YALTA TO CRIMEA: EUROPE’S CONFRONTATION WITH RUSSIAN BLOCKADES:

Yalta Agreement of February 1945 laid the groundwork for the division of Europe between East and West. While the partition allowed Moscow to install puppet governments in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and elsewhere, western Europe aligned with the US and developed democratic systems.

Shortly after Yalta, the Soviet blockade of Berlin in June 1948 marked the most pivotal political events leading directly to the formation of NATO in 1949. The Soviets were concerned that West Berlin, a city located deep inside the Soviet controlled communist territory in Germany, with its capitalist and democratic system would become a propaganda tool to undermine Soviet system in Germany and beyond.

A war torn Europe without unified military forces could do little to resist an intimidating and victorious Soviet army, which had quickly tapped into additional manpower from Eastern European countries. Through the blockade of Berlin, Stalin’s primary aim was to block Western access to the heart of Germany. If the Western Allies did not respond with the airlifts, the Soviets might have pushed further west and set the stage to take over all of Germany.

Unlike what Stalin had hoped for, western alliance did not abandon West Berlin. Rather than risk losing entire Germany to the Soviets, and potentially facing regime changes at home, the West consolidated militarily under NATO. Within a month the Soviets ended the blockade.

• Russian Annexations Of Crimea & Donbas: Geopolitical Chokehold on EU:

Much like the situation in Berlin at the start of Cold War, Russia’s annexations of Crimea in 2014 and parts of Donbas in 2022 have effectively served as de facto blockades against the EU. Prior to the annexations, the EU had been seriously considering the full integration of Ukraine into the Union. Brussels’s first major move in that direction was the proposed “EU Association Agreement (EUAA)”, scheduled to be signed in late 2013, which aimed to deepen Ukraine’s partnership with the EU.

Had Yanukovich not rejected the agreement under pressure from Moscow, the agreement would have allowed the EU to expand its influence across Ukraine, and to establish “Common Security and Defense Policy” missions, including counterterrorism and cybersecurity operations. EU’s push for EUAA may have accelerated the annexation of Crimea in a sense, as Kyiv government signed the agreement in March 2014, only three days before Putin signed annexation treaty with Crimean leaders.

Through the annexations, Russia secured key regions and effectively blocked the EU’s access to strategic resources. This also created a barrier for Ukrainian exports of critical agri-products, minerals and other raw materials to the EU from those regions.

One of the significant resemblances between the consequences of the Soviet blockade of Berlin and Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukraine is both pushed Europe into military consolidation under NATO. Within just months, previously neutral Finland and Sweden submitted NATO membership bids, which were unthinkable just a year prior. In both cases, Moscow’s aggressions prompted European armament and unification; not under a sovereign and unified European military force, but underneath a greater umbrella led by the United States.

• Who is the primary beneficiary of European consolidation?

The US military-industrial complex is the massive winner of what Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought for European security. US firms like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and others are making billions from European states buying US arms and weapons like F-35s, Patriots, HIMARS, and more.

After the invasion, European orders for weapons spiked by over 50% in 2022–2024. The US supplied 64% of these arms. Pieter Wezeman, Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme says “the European NATO states have almost 500 combat aircraft and many other weapons still on order from the US”.

As of 2025 more than ten European countries either fly or are buying F-35s. They are replacing their Typhoons, Gripens, Tornados, and F-16s with American made F-35. This may create technological, military, and political dependencies for the EU, which would be restraining “European strategic autonomy”.

Beyond the aforementioned disadvantages, the chances are that the US F-35s may function as tools of strategic control of the EU via “interoperability”. All F-35 user countries will have to rely on common software updates from the US. The mission data packages are going to be centralized, which means Washington can influence what a country can do with their planes, especially in war-like situations. Aside from these, logistics, training and engagement doctrines are precisely designed to serve interoperability.

EU’S STRATEGIC AUTONOMY:

The EU is among the world’s richest regions in terms of Human Development and Innovation (HDI), as well as civilizational quality of life. However, as a multinational socioeconomic union, rather than a centralized political or military power, sustaining high living standards depends on stability of the flow of vital resources and supply-chains, including fossil fuels, critical raw materials(CRMs), rare earth minerals (REMs), and agricultural commodities.

In an increasingly competitive global order, where China, Russia and the US are clearly racing for global dominance in trade, tech, and resource control, the EU’s survival relies heavily on its capacity to secure strategic inputs it needs in the decades to come, and develop sovereign supply-chains.

The absence of sovereign and unified military force capable of projecting hard power or securing the EU’s critical resource corridors without relying on NATO is a foundational vulnerability addressed also in the EU’s 2016 Global Strategy report. This restricts the Union’s secure access to critical global resources beyond the continent and defend supply routes autonomously, especially in regions like MENA, the Arctic, and key maritime chokepoints.

Although Russia and the US are rivals in many areas, one of their aligned strategic interests is in the prevention of the EU from establishing a unified European military force, with which Europe’s dependencies on both powers could come to an end. Whether through diplomatic signaling, or backdoor agreements, both US and Russia benefit from a militarily consolidated EU; the US through NATO dominance, and Russia through playing the role of constant common enemy that threatens EU’s security, which often involves in large scale land grabs in EU’s much-needed alternative resource deposits like Syria, Ukraine, Libya, and South Caucasus.

For this reason, the EU’s path to “Strategic Autonomy” needs to be rooted not only in regulatory and soft power but in building economic, industrial and defense sovereignty.

“If Europe doesn’t decide to be a power, it will become a playground for others.” –- Emmanuel Macron, 2023

REGIONALISM FOR GREATER EUROPE: EUROPEAN SECURITY AND UKRAINE’S STRATEGIC ROLE:

Although some believe the world is de-globalizing and fragmenting, there are actually signs that globalization is still valid, but merely in a transitional period before setting the ground as new global order. This transitional period we are currently in can be referred to as “regionalism”, which in broader aspect -as political scientist Matthias Scantamburlo observed in a recent abstract presented at Universidad de Deusto- may be regarded as “loose federations or confederations”, serving functional integration, rather than ideology.

The fact of the matter is, the EU is adapting quickly to what regionalism offers in this post-COVID world: taking steps to access areas within the ‘Greater Europe’ region where strategic inputs like Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) and Rare Earth Minerals (REMs) are located. The EU acknowledges that strengthening the already-established political and security links with neighboring regions like Middle East, Caucasus, and Eastern Europe (particularly Ukraine and Moldova) is crucial for the Union’s economic and military security.

Without a doubt Europe’s core interest lies in identifying optimized integration levels for one or more of these regions to make them part of the Greater Europe. This would not only secure Europe’s stable access to strategic resources, but help fend off rival global powers seeking to dominate the very supply chains Europe depends on, and profit from selling those resources back to the Union.

EUROPE'S EASTERN KEYSTONE: UKRAINE

Ukraine is now emerging as the cornerstone of Europe’s survival strategy in this century. Its fertile soils, mineral wealth, and nuclear capacity are indispensable to the EU’s energy, food, and resource sovereignty. Besides strategies concerning the security of supply chains, the war also reshaped Europe’s demographics. Ukrainian migration brought in younger and more dynamic labor force into the EU, helping to some extent to offset EUs aging population.
Following sections explore Ukraine’s strategic value in detail: its energy importance as a nuclear and grid partner, mineral importance as a source of critical raw materials (CRMs), and agricultural importance as the breadbasket of Europe. Ukraine is not simply another neighbor, but the eastern cornerstone of Europe’s strategic autonomy.

1) ENERGY IMPORTANCE:

Before the war in Ukraine, much of Europe had been in transition to nuclear power under The European Green Deal. Several member states decommissioned reactors, while many others pledged full phase-outs. Even the US under Democratic administrations aligned with this deal in transatlantic climate forums.

The war in Ukraine, however, changed this perception. Ukraine’s CRM and REM supply necessary for green energy (wind, solar, EV batteries) technology came under great risk. While even a full Ukrainian EU membership would not mean a guaranteed European access to these resources, Russia’s advances in key areas and the US signing mineral deals with Kyiv have significantly reduced the share of CRM/REM supply the EU had hoped to secure. An even more concerning scenario may be unfolding as of the writing of this report (August 2025), with the Trump–Putin meeting in Alaska likely to further erode the EU’s influence in the ongoing partition of Ukraine, as the meeting is held without Ukraine’s (Zelensky’s) participation, which will likely result in deals between the US and Russia, only to force the EU to accept the terms agreed upon by Washington and Moscow. (This summit is explored in the next section on Ukraine’s mineral importance)

In addition to the challenges the EU has been facing with raw material supply the green energy requires, Moscow’s strategy to weaponize energy against Brussels played a role in shifting the Union’s approach to energy autonomy. Brussels quickly came to realization that some significant adjustments had to be made in the European Green Deal to include nuclear power; at least for as long as instability in Ukraine persists. But because the reactivation of many decommissioned reactors would be costly and slow, the EU turned to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, which were already operational, and modern enough to be integrated quickly.

• Ukraine’s integration to European grid system:

Ukraine’s grid was part of the Russian-Belarus system, aka IPS/UPS system, before March 2022, and was controlled from Moscow, just like the Baltic states, which were integrated into the European grid as recently as February 2025. All necessary technical and infrastructural support that these states needed had been provided by Belarus and Russia. Moscow used this for years as a strategic control mechanism to maintain leverage over these countries.

The integration of Ukraine’s power grid into that of Continental Europe through synchronization with the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), was actually scheduled for 2024. However, due to growing risks posed by Russia’s invasion to the security of energy infrastructure, the synchronization had to be rescheduled and was eventually completed two years earlier, in March 2022. This was a strategic step forward for the EU because Europe has now secured a significant portion of Ukraine’s energy supply and export capacity from crucial Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs).

• Ukraine’s Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) and Their Role in Powering the EU Grid:

Ukraine is heavily reliant on nuclear energy. According to the International Energy Agency, prior to Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s nuclear power plants generated 50% of the country’s electricity, followed by coal (23%) and gas (9%). There are currently 4 NPPs in Ukraine: Zaporizhzhia, Rivne, South Ukraine and Khmelnytskyi. Rivne, South Ukraine and Khmelnytskyi NPPs are all fully operational and are controlled by Kyiv government. Rivne, South Ukraine and Khmelnytskyi NPPs are currently supplying European grid, particularly for countries like Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and Poland.

• Zaporizhzhia NPP and its strategic importance:

Although the other three NPPs are generating excess power to feed in the European grid now, they may not be enough for the needs of post-war Ukraine. Zaporizhzhia NPP is the largest in Europe with six reactors generating ~6 GW (20% of Ukraine’s electricity before the war) when it was in full capacity. Before its seizure by invading Russian forces in 2022, who later shut it down, Zaporizhzhia alone was generating more than 2.5 times Estonia’s national power production capacity; roughly 2.3 GW. It could power multiple small EU countries just by itself.

Western projects in Ukraine depend on stable and high capacity electricity because they are mostly in energy intensive sectors like mining or agricultural production. That is why for Brussels Zaporizhzhia NPP is a strategically important energy source that might be both stabilizing Ukraine’s grid and utilizing it for the EU’s future energy demands to sustain strategic interests of the western partners regarding operations inside Ukrainian territory.

From a strategic standpoint, Russia’s seizure of the plant can be seen as preemptive energy denial strategy. By shutting down the largest NPP in Ukraine Moscow managed to disrupt Kyiv’s potential energy supply lines, and in turn, limit Europe’s operational footprint in the regions controlled by Zelensky. This gave Russia a strategic leverage to pressure Brussels toward concessions, as well as making it clear that the EU’s dependence on centralized, vulnerable energy sources outside its borders carries geopolitical risks.

As a result, Brussels has begun rethinking its post-war energy strategy not only through ENTSO-E integration, but by introducing decentralized nuclear solutions like Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). These reactors are faster to build and deploy, without dealing much of the usual constrains and logistical risks the traditional plants have. SMRs can reinforce Europe’s energy independence in the East, and help sustain energy intensive operations in Ukraine’s mines and agricultural centers, both of which are crucial to the EU’s future supply chains.

2) MINERAL IMPORTANCE:

In a post-COVID world, where deep political fragmentations are forcing political and military consolidations around larger powers in the same region, the EU neighboring a global power like Russia, is facing the dilemma of being “the world’s industrial giant with no resource sovereignty”. With rising global competition over critical raw materials (CRMs) and rare earth minerals (REMs), Brussels is aware that access to strategic inputs is as vital as innovation or capital. In this sense, Ukraine becomes one of the EU’s last remaining chance to stay in the global race for supply-chain security, and gain resource sovereignty to a certain extent.

• Ukraine’s Mineral Wealth:

Recognizing this, the EU took a serious step forward and laid out its CRM Action Plan in 2020. This plan revealed two strategic goals aligned with Brussels’ broader plans to get Ukraine closer to the Union: first, to “strengthen domestic sourcing of raw materials”; second, to “diversify sourcing from third countries”. Obviously, a full Ukrainian membership would fulfill both objectives naturally. In line with the action plan, the EU also signed Mineral Cooperation Agreement with Ukraine in 2021, formalizing its intention to integrate Ukraine into supply chains. The agreement aims to promote joint projects in CRM and REM mining, battery production, and hydrogen technologies.

The latest study on Critical Raw Materials for the EU in 2023 identified a list of 34 CRMs as “high economic importance” for the security of the Union’s industrial value chains. According to another report published by the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine in 2024, Ukraine hosts 22 out of the EU’s list of 34 CRMs. This same report also notes that the EU aims to incorporate Ukraine’s raw materials into its battery value chains, while US considers a strategic partnership with titanium production.

• EU’s Strategic Mineral Vulnerability:

It is clear that Brussels sees Ukraine not just as a neighbor, but as a “strategic resource base”, critical for reducing Europe’s mineral dependencies on adversarial states like Russia and China. While part of the Kremlin’s destabilization efforts in Ukraine aims at controlling the country’s mineral supply, on which the EU is heavily dependent, China’s dominance in processing extracted minerals adds up on Europe’s existing strategic vulnerability.

Scotland-based credible data analytics and research firm Wood Mackenzie reports that China accounts for 85% of global REM production through its six state-owned enterprises, giving Beijing enormous control over both the supply and pricing of REMs worldwide. Another report by Polish Economic Institute states 98% of the REMs imported by the EU come from China. The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen pointed out the exact same REM supply dependency rate on Chinese REM supply, while also alluding to Senkaku dispute to highlight how China becomes unhesitant in using such dependencies as bargaining chips or to gain concessions.

Many reports from various different reputable sources state that global demand for REMs is expected to grow by sevenfold by the end of the next decade. Considering Europe’s current rate of reliance on Chinese REM supply will also likely continue to grow for at least a while, there is a significant risk for the EU ending up like Japan during a potentially serious foreign policy dispute with China sometime in the future. Nevertheless, there are already news reports about how Beijing has pressured European firms operating in China to transfer tech to local firms, a practice that has been widespread, and ongoing for more than six years.

• Ukraine’s Lithium Deposits and Global Players:

Lithium is an ultralight metal primarily used in lithium-ion batteries, which power electric vehicles (EVs) and various devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, power tools, medical equipments, and home solar systems. Therefore the metal has a rapidly growing global demand. In May 2024, Conflict and Environmental Observatory published a report on Ukraine’s minerals mentioned lithium among beryllium, zirconium, scandium and vanadium, as a CRM deposit that is specifically in great demand on the European market, with a strong potential for large scale development. Significant portion of the EU’s mineral vulnerability stems from its limited access to strategic lithium reserves. This fact is also underscored by Fastmarkets, who projects that by 2032, Europe will represent 25% of lithium demand, but contribute only 4% of global lithium supply.

Ukraine’s lithium reserves are located primarily in central and eastern regions. In the central region of Kirovohrad, two deposits are under Ukrainian control; Polokhivske and Dobra. However, the key ones like Shevchenko in Donetsk, and Kruta Balka in Zaporizhzhia regions are now under Russian occupation since early 2025. Shevchenko site is considered as the most valuable and the largest confirmed lithium deposit in Ukraine. It is also among one of the biggest lithium deposits in Europe along with the ones in Serbia and Portugal.

Another noteworthy development regarding the importance of Ukraine’s strategic mineral deposits for global powers is, China’s attempt to seriously involve in direct extraction of lithium from the aforementioned two lithium sites. In November 2021, just prior to the war, Chinese state-owned enterprise Chengxin Lithium Group made bids for obtaining licenses at both Polokhivske and Shevchenko to seek a foothold in Ukraine’s mineral reserves. But the war disrupted review processes and Shevchenko fell into the war zone, then eventually Russian control. Although Polokhivske is still under Ukrainian control, Kyiv’s alignment with the EU automatically prioritized European interests, and killed the foreign bids on strategic assets from China and Australia.

Yet, in a broader picture China’s overturned bids in Ukraine did little to harm its overall interests. Russia’s control over key mineral-rich oblasts is still denying the EU’s access to alternative “non-China supply”, which Brussels had long been hoping to tap into to diversify away from Beijing. Thus, the interests of global powers once again aligned in Ukraine.

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Russia’s Involvement:

The Kremlin… the country to make things complicated for the EU, as well as for the UK which cannot be separated from the geopolitical reality of Europe . the beginning of the EU’s deeper commitment to resource sovereignty through Ukraine.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and Ukraine on a Strategic Partnership on Raw Materials (hereinafter "the MoU") was signed on 13 July 2021

The EU doesn’t want to be a market colony for global powers that control the physical means of production. Ukraine is one of the last cards on the table that could reverse that balance.

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3) AGRICULTURAL IMPORTANCE:

• Ukraine’s Fertile Farmlands and EU’s Food Security:

Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe, and home to 33 million hectares of arable land, nearly 70% of its total land area. The central and southern regions of the country contain large concentrations of a soil type rich in humus, phosphorus and ammonia, known as Chernozem (Black Soil), which is widely regarded as the most fertile soil on Earth. Besides Chernozem, Ukraine’s vast river network supports excellent agricultural conditions.

In 2024, the EU imported over €15 billion farm products from Ukraine, including sunflower oil, soybean oil, and maize. This accounted for almost 36% of total agricultural exports of the country, making Ukraine an essential supplier to the EU’s livestock sector.

Kyiv’s EU membership would definitely help reduce the union’s strategic dependency for agri-products, like soybean. Studies suggest that with Ukraine’s membership, the EU would surpass Russian wheat production by producing a third of global supply. Russian occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson are actually parts of the “fertile corridor” in Ukraine, with arable lands that are at least 45-50% rich in black soil, making up nearly half of total black soil deposits of Ukraine.

• Grain Logistics problem:

When Kyiv signed EUAA, which also included “Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area” (DCFTA), the EU has finally achieved partial liberalization of Ukrainian agri-products, and their exports. However, Russia’s blockade of Black Sea ports disrupted European plans to establish a seamless crop supply-chain, which is an indispensable component of EU’s “strategic autonomy”.

As much as export security for Ukrainian agri-products, accessing the Black Sea has also critical logistical importance for the EU. The Russian occupation of Crimea locked in the Sea of Azov, making the shorelines of the oblasts rich in black soil like Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk inaccessible.

(Map source: macpixxel for GIS Reports Online)

Therefore, the oblasts under Russian occupation in southeastern Ukraine (east of Dniper river) are particularly valuable to Brussels, not just because they lie within the fertile corridor, but because they provide access to strategically vital seaports.

The EU commission, in response to a Belgian parliament member’s written question in 2024 on US and Saudi corporations investing heavily in Ukraine’s arable lands, realizes the importance of Ukraine maintaining and improving the Black Sea ports to continue being a crucial source for the EU’s strategic food-supply dependence.

The parliament member’s concerns stated in her enquiry however, aren’t completely unfounded. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in Ukraine is more significant than most people would think. The United Farmers Holding Company of KSA controls 195,000 ha of Ukrainian farmland through a subsidiary called Continental Farmers, which is operating in Western Ukraine, in regions like Ternopil, Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk.

(Map source: https://cfg.com.ua/activity/)

Considering an important portion of the fertile corridor in is now under Russian blockade (southwest of the river Dnipro), the rest of arable lands in Ukraine become vital for the food security of the EU.

Although China’s license bids for key mineral deposits disrupted by the Russian occupation, EU’s denial of access to those regions benefits not just Russia but China, and indirectly the US as well. By occupying these key mineral sites, Russia actually denied Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s key mineral-rich oblasts is favoring

Some of the EU members lack arable lands. which ones?

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“Demographic Dimensions of the War”

Main source of the idea that the war in Ukraine had direct positive impact on the broken demographical balance (gender imbalance) in the EU after Syrian civil war, which brought in more than a million Syrian refugees, whose vast majority were male, because Ukrainian refugees, some 8 million are largely women and children, is here:

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/focus/2022/html/ecb.ebbox202204_03~c9ddc08308.en.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Before the war (2021) baseline:

• EU median age (~44.5 years)

• Gender balance (close to 50/50 but slightly more women)

• Ukrainian diaspora smaller (~1.4M legally in EU pre-2022)
  
  After/during war (2022–2024):

• 8–10M Ukrainians displaced into EU, ~4–5M staying long-term

• Majority women + children (since men 18–60 were barred from leaving) → this shifted local demographics in Poland, Germany, Czechia, etc.

• Effect: slight lowering of median age in migrant-receiving states, small but real correction to EU’s demographic pyramid (more working-age women, more kids).

Analysts have long documented the use of “weaponized” or “engineered” migration as a tool of statecraft, most notably in the 2021 Belarus–EU border crisis, which EU officials described as a hybrid operation to pressure the Union. Army University Press+2Wikipedia+2 In contrast to the largely male refugee profile of the 2015–16 influx (about 73% men), the Ukraine war has produced refugee flows composed mainly of women and children, owing to Kyiv’s martial-law restrictions on men leaving the country. Pew Research Center+1 These contrasting profiles have different demographic and labor-market implications for receiving EU states; the ECB has noted that Ukrainian arrivals could temporarily ease labor shortages if integration proceeds. European Central Bank

While it is reasonable to treat migration pressure as an instrument in regional coercion, there is no public evidencethat the duration of the war in Ukraine is being calibrated to engineer EU demographic balances. Any such claim would require proof of intent beyond current open-source reporting.

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What do Nordic countries do in Ukraine:
https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/articles/2024/july/5/nordic-support-for-ukraine-unified-commitment-to-ukraine-recovery

Ukrainian farmland increasingly US-owned:

According to several disquieting reports, mainly US but also Saudi agro-industrial and investment businesses are purchasing Ukrainian farmland on a massive scale.

Cargill, ADM, Blackrock, Oaktree Capital Management and Bunge Limited, for instance, have reportedly gained control over much of Ukraine’s farmland.

This strongly suggests that the United States is seeking to recoup its military support for Ukraine, and ensure a geopolitical presence there in a post-war scenario, through control over Ukrainian farmland and the profits it generates.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2024-002526_EN.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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• EU’s PROBLEM:

• EU is industrial giant with no resource sovereignty.

• EU wants to gain sovereignty over resources it needs.

• EU took action in North Africa:

• Libya: Involvements of Italy, France, Russia, Turkey

• EU took action in Subsahara:

• EUTM Mali

• EUTM CAR

• EU took action in Middle East

• EU took action in Ukraine:

• EUAM Ukraine pre2022 (softer than EUTMs in subsahara)

• Other means?

  • Funding or training of certain groups like activist or armed paramilitaries?

• Global powers want to dominate EU markets for REMs, CRMs, and Hydrocarbons

• US actions,

• US took actions to dominate hydrocarbon markets for EU

• Nord Stream sabotage

• Consolidation of EU under NATO showing Russian Threat

• LNG supply to EU

• US took actions to dominate REM/CRM markets for EU:

• Trump’s Greenland remarks when Greenland’s potential is crucial for EU

• US actions in Ukraine

• Bad treatment to Zelensky

• Zelensky is strongly support by the EU for obvious reasons; military and economic security. EU wants a military buffer zone in Ukraine to serve between Russia and Europe. EU wants this buffer to safely exploit the parts Zelensky is controlling (CRMs, oil, gas, arable lands). US under Biden administration helped EU to achieve both goals by supporting Ukraine in many ways. Trump and Vance’s treatment of Zelensky was done in a public-shaming format to signal the EU that what Biden administration did for the EU was yet to be appreciated, meaning Trump administration wanted US contributions in Ukraine to be recognized -paid- by the EU. As a result, the US cut mineral deals with Zelensky.

• Mineral agreement

• Russia wanted to achieve two things:

• to test the US commitment possibly to the mineral agreement’s support/protection clauses by a limited attack on Zelensky controlled parts of Ukraine instigated with a potential false-flag (Putin’s chopper was going to be targeted).

• and to gain upper-hand prior to the peace talks in Istanbul

• May 16, 2025: First of round Istanbul peace talks

• May 20, 2025: Supposed Assassination Attempt on Putin

• May 24, 2025: Russian Drone Attacks on Kyiv

• June 1, 2025: Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia

• June 2, 2025: Second round of Istanbul peace talks

• The US response was harsh. Trump said Putin played with fire. Then came the Ukraine’s attack to strategic bombers deep inside Russia.

• Russian actions,

• Russia wants to have partial or limited control over almost all alternative resources the EU thinks it could use to provide certain level of resources sovereignty it needs.

• Russian actions in:

• Libya:

• Russia sent in Wagner to support Hafter and to fight over control of the oil fields in the GNA controlled areas. EU (Italy in the first place) supported GNA. France also formally supported GNA but covertly supported Hafter.   

• Mozambique:

• Mozambique hired Wagner to counter Al-Shabab. France-backed Rwanda army secured gas fields protected French corporate (Total) interests

• CAR:

• Wagner supplanted France initiated Operation Sangaris, protected government in exchange for mining rights

•    

• Chinese actions