Double Task
Lenka Vikh (Prague)
During the Czech delegation’s most recent working trip to Ukraine, its members asked a Ukrainian officer when, in his view, this war would end. He answered with a single word: NEVER! Czechs love black humor. But he wasn’t joking.
The War Mode We Are Not Yet Ready For
Our problem, the problem of that part of Europe which has not yet experienced kinetic war, is that we have not yet switched into WAR mode. We are behaving childishly when we hope that what began on February 20, 2014 (the date the russians themselves marked on their medal for the “return” of Crimea) will end with a ceasefire.
We are behaving irresponsibly when we believe that a change of power in russia will resolve the question of the war and of russia’s domestic politics. We hope we’ll be spared, and we try to avoid discussions about the future.
Depopulation and the burning of forests in the past expanded the steppe and not only shifted borders but became staging grounds for further, deeper incursions. Today we see these same processes with our own eyes. The depopulation and burning of cities not only shifts borders but turns the rear into a battlefield. That is why it matters whether Kramatorsk and Sloviansk remain under Ukraine’s control. If they do not, and these cities cease to be defensive strongholds, then hundreds of kilometers of undefended steppe will cease to be our rear and will become a field for further conquest by russian forces.
Ukraine’s Double Struggle — For Itself and For Europe
For twelve years now we have left the entire burden of the fight on the shoulders of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Central Europe has chosen to parasitize the EU and NATO, and it parasitizes even on the war in Ukraine. I feel uncomfortable when I hear that we are helping Ukraine. Today voices from Poland are saying that Ukraine is fighting first and foremost for itself. No, Ukraine is fighting for itself and for Europe. Ukraine is shaping its own borders and the borders of Europe. This is a double task.
We need to adapt to current conditions.
Yet we are not fulfilling our own task, and we are not winning our own fight in the rear. We are losing Central Europe, handing it over to marginal forces. To be frank, neither our politicians, nor our media, nor our academic circles managed to rise to the challenge we faced in the winter of 2014. But Ukraine gave us time. It would now be appropriate to reject the opening of a western anti-Ukrainian front and to state clearly that the anti-Ukrainian card, which is winning elections across the whole belt of Central European countries, is criminal, and that the EU and NATO are not historical societies in which certain member states can claim the right to open or close the doors of the EU and NATO based on criteria tied purely to their own interpretation of history.
Ukraine must meet certain criteria if it wants to join the EU and NATO. And the European Union must change if it wants to survive and remain viable, not only economically and politically, but also in terms of security.
July 11, 2026
This material contains information used from a publication on the Zbruch website: zbruc.eu.
