If the Ukrainian president can’t get the continent to listen to him, no one can
The Ukrainian president has criticised the continent’s defence Credit: Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP via Getty Images
23 January 2026
For the first time yesterday, Europe heard what Volodymyr Zelensky really thought of it.
In his speech at the World Economic Forum, the Ukrainian president delivered a brutal take-down of the continent. “Last year here in Davos, I ended my speech with the words: ‘Europe must know how to defend itself.’ A year has passed – and nothing has changed.”
What followed was withering. The target for Zelensky’s ire was the quality of support Europe has provided to Ukraine in the nearly four years since Vladimir Putin’s forces first invaded. The continent, he said, “loves to discuss the future, but avoids taking action today”. “Too often in Europe something else is always more urgent than justice.”
The president took aim at Europe’s propensity to talk tough on defence, on Ukraine, on Putin and Russian sanctions – and then to achieve very little at all. “You cannot build a new world order out of words only,” Zelensky said.
Perhaps most painful of all were Zelensky’s comparisons of Europe’s actions with those of Donald Trump’s administration in America. He pointed out how America had successfully started seizing oil tankers, part of Russia’s shadow fleet and a vital source of funding for Putin’s war machine, while “Russian oil [was] being transported right along European shores”. Meanwhile, Maduro was on trial, sitting in a New York jail, but “Putin is not”.
For all the bluster, Ukraine’s European allies have never quite done enough to help meaningfully alleviate the pain Putin has inflicted on the country since 2022.
In a week when Trump’s demands to take control of Greenland has threatened the future of the Nato alliance, Zelensky had little sympathy for the crisis Europe found itself in. “Right now, Nato exists thanks to the belief that the United States will act, that it will not stand aside and will help. But what if it doesn’t?” he asked. I’d wager that few of the European leaders in his audience have much of an answer to that question as yet.
Some will say that Zelensky’s scathing speech was uncalled for, given all the financial, diplomatic and military aid Europe’s leaders have given Ukraine since February 2022. But after nearly four years of near-constant begging and having to pull meaningful support from Europe like teeth, frankly his words were fair enough.
Ukraine’s continental allies have had plenty of chances to tighten the screws on Russia over the years – be that to bring in harsher sanctions or provide weapons such as Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets. When European help has come, it has often been too little, too late.
Zelensky’s assessment of the state of the continent was brutal but totally correct. Even before Putin invaded, Europe had been promising Ukraine membership of Nato and the EU – pledges which have quietly kicked down the road (in the case of the EU) or outright shot down (in the case of Nato). All this despite the many promises of European leaders – including Britain’s Keir Starmer – to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes”.
The tumult of politics on the continent has also clearly not passed Zelensky by. He correctly boiled down the European mindset to a shortsightedness that sees leaders promise anything that will see them victorious in their next elections – Starmer, Merz and Macron’s pledges to grow their economies and bring down migration are just two of the issues he may well have been referring to.
The points Zelensky raised in his speech are not new. They have been the subject of whispered conversations across the continent for some time – but this is the first time a friend, or dependent, of Europe has said it out loud.
The Ukrainian president isn’t saying this to hurt his European allies, but to jolt them out of the sleepwalk towards further danger and crisis that they are currently locked into. If Zelensky can’t get Europe to listen to him, no one can.
Lisa Haseldine is an online commissioning editor for foreign affairs at The Spectator
Zel gave Europe some home truths about their fecklessness.
But of course he had to remain silent; for obvious reasons, about his most implacable enemy outside ruZZia. The one who ambushed him in the Oval Office, called him a dictator and repeatedly accused him of starting the war.
And if that wasn’t enough, the same person appointed a cheap little putler-rimming crook to negotiate with Putler and inflict yet more damage on Ukraine.
Pentagon: We will reduce support for Europe: And China is no more an enemy of America. We will only concentrate on North and South America. Regime changes, coups, stuff like that.
The new policy yesterday announced!
Of course Zelensky was right about what he said. I’m sure he would love to use much stronger language, but had to reign himself in. So, I will do it.
Europe by and large is made up of spineless, dickless, sackless cowards, who can be compared to slimy cold worms writhing around underneath moist rocks. They have no courage, no brains, and no foresight.
Taco is a fascist and child rapist, whose only interest, besides screwing children, is to steal as much money as possible and to have his stormtroopers terrorize our country. He stands on the side of evil, so he will never do what’s necessary to the other terrorist in moscovia.