Amid appeals for new sense of urgency, EU leaders to talk Ukraine aid

BRUSSELS — There is a new sense of urgency in the European Union over the war in Ukraine.

As the 27-nation bloc’s leaders prepare to gather Thursday, Ukraine’s munition stocks are desperately low. Russia has more troops. They are better provisioned and making slow, although costly, battlefield gains. Russian President Vladimir Putin appears ready to wait out the year to see whether U.S. elections return Donald Trump to the White House.

Even if President Joe Biden stays in office, EU leaders worry the long, slow U.S. pivot to Asia — to focus on an ever-more assertive China — will pick up speed and increasingly leave Europe to take care of its own security. U.S. efforts to get new funds to arm Ukraine have stalled in Congress.

At the same time, the campaign is heating up for Europe-wide elections in June. The biggest political group in the European Parliament — the center-right European People’s Party — has made security a top issue. It’s getting harder to separate the campaign rhetoric from real concern about Ukraine.

“Into the third year of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, we face a pivotal moment. Urgency, intensity and unwavering determination are imperative,” EU Council President Charles Michel wrote in a letter inviting presidents and prime ministers to the two-day summit in Brussels.

“The swift provision of military aid to Ukraine” is top priority, Michel wrote. The other, to shore up Europe’s defenses. “Now that we are facing the biggest security threat since the Second World War, it is high time we take radical and concrete steps to be defense-ready and put the EU’s economy on a ‘war footing’,” he said.

It’s unlikely that all 27 leaders would accept the shift to a war economy that might help produce the weapons and ammunition needed. Hungary for one, Russia’s closest ally inside the EU, is suing for peace and refuses to arm Ukraine.

Still, the realization that Russia under Putin would pose an existential threat should Ukraine fall has galvanized most of Europe.

“If the Russian president thinks he just has to sit out this war and we will weaken in our support, then he has miscalculated,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday. “Russia is not strong, and it cannot speculate on us letting off in our support. We will continue it for as long as necessary.”

Support is growing among some leaders for defense bonds to finance military spending through common debt issuance; the same way the EU raised money for its pandemic recovery fund.

Other old red lines are being tested too. French President Emmanuel Macron has refused to rule out that Western troops might be sent to Ukraine, even though he concedes there is no consensus to do so now.

Macron’s stance has riled some allies, and been rejected, notably by Germany. Others welcomed the “strategic ambiguity” of his remarks — the importance of never announcing your intentions to an adversary.