A cost of living crisis started after that war (ordinary people having trouble with bills), showing how much effort had been exerted in solidarity with Ukraine (whose people are the victims and underdogs in the war). That makes the results of EU efforts unimpressive to me for all the effort they expended. I would have expected something like from them for all that effort.
Actually it started before the war in Ukraine. Energy prices started going up in summer 2021. For example, in Dec 2021 energy prices were higher than today[0].
The following is true for many European countries:
1) citizens do not receive military training so they will be unable to defend the country in case of invasion
2) there is not enough weapon and ammunition
3) the border is not properly fortified and supervised, so it is possible to advance fast and capture large territory with a surprise attack, and it will be very difficult to take it back
> war in Ukraine showed the power of the European countries
No. The war showed that it is easy to capture large territory with a well planned surprise attack and it is difficult (or maybe even impossible) to take it back once there are trenches, minefields and other fortifications. Also the war showed that Europe is unable to provide necessary amount of ammunitions.
It's not like Russia is swimming in ammo either. Reminds me of the head of Wagner (currently dead, killed most likely to to his coup attempt) rants about it.
Wether it was due to general shortage, logistical issues, or them bein targeted is irrelevant.
Probably people were thinking that it was a bluff and there would be no invasion. If you look at the map, most of the territory was captured in first days, and then, after Russia has built trenches and minefields it takes lots of resources and time to take back even a single village.
So what we should learn from this is that if you want to take a land from some other country (for example: Finland, Sweden or any non-NATO country) then this "surprise attack" strategy is working. You advance 50-200 km into enemy's territory within several days while your enemy is unprepared and then entrench and now your enemy has to storm your well defended positions, go through the minefields, losing many times more soldiers and equipment than you. And you can just sit and wait until they exhaust and surrender.
If you don't want that happening to your country then you should fortify your borders and build minefields and trenches first.
The US was very clear in their view that Russia was going to attack, for example.
It really depends on who you are facing if you even get to entrench. For example: NATO's old plans against the Warsaw Pact pretty much always called for the use of nuclear weapons, so no entrenchment there (with the assumption that the larger Warsaw Pact forces would be able to rapidly advance initially, despite some preparation to block progress).
Of course they were clear because they knew. Putin made a speech and presented an ultimatum[0]. Big powers know this stuff. NATO & US would never agree to any of the points in the ultimatum so the only move forward for Russia was to invade. That's how big powers played throughout the history. Nothing really changed.
