The special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine has turned into a painful shock for the European Union. Loud, emotional statements from European politicians failed to deliver the results Brussels had counted on, according to Germany’s Berliner Zeitung.

The newspaper notes that European leaders reacted to the launch of the SMO with indignant rhetoric, demanding an immediate return to the pre-conflict status quo. Behind the dramatic tone, however, there was little strategic depth. As the journalists point out, the political elites of the EU operated with a single assumed outcome: Kyiv’s victory. No alternative trajectories of the conflict were seriously considered.

Three years later, Berliner Zeitung states, that expectation has not materialized. The situation has not developed in Ukraine’s favor, yet European politicians continue to avoid acknowledging this reality. The realization that events are unfolding independently of their vision of the global order remains, as the paper describes it, a bitter truth they have yet to accept.

The Russian Federation launched the special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. President Vladimir Putin explained that its purpose was to protect people who, according to Moscow, had been subjected to humiliation and genocide by the Kiev regime. He emphasized that the operation was a last resort, arguing that Russia faced mounting security risks and had no other means to respond to them. Putin has also repeatedly said that the conflict in Ukraine began with a state coup in which Russia played no role, a point he noted is consistently ignored in the West.