{"id":1032922,"date":"2026-06-17T18:35:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T18:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1032922\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T18:35:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T18:35:55","slug":"russian-greatness-unrestored-ukraine-is-europes-new-rising-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1032922\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian greatness unrestored, Ukraine is Europe’s new rising power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia\u2019s ongoing war against Ukraine is often, and misleadingly, characterized as a great power conflict<\/a>. The narrative goes like this:<\/p>\n

Russia went to war against Ukraine because it felt threatened by NATO\u2019s enlargement into eastern Europe after 1991; the real enemy is the United States, which is, at the very least, \u201cprincipally responsible<\/a>\u201d for the war.<\/p>\n

This interpretation follows Kremlin talking points. It takes the logic of the Cold War and drops it into a fundamentally different present-day world. It has been debunked both by political scientists<\/a> and by historians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In reality, Russia\u2019s war is the opposite of a great power conflict. It is a confrontation between middle powers. The great powers \u2013 the United States and China \u2013 are acting from the sidelines.<\/p>\n

A great power no more<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Simon & Schuster, FAL<\/a><\/p>\n

Russia has not been a great power since the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1989\u20131991. As I discuss in my newly updated book, Russia\u2019s War Against Ukraine<\/a>, Russia is a middle power with a great power complex.<\/p>\n

It has successfully usurped Soviet great-power legacies, including its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and one of the world\u2019s largest nuclear arsenals. It has also projected<\/a> a vision of itself as a world leader, which has gained some traction with conservatives in the global north and critics of US hegemony in the global south<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it can no longer back up these claims. Russia\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP)<\/a> is only slightly bigger than South Korea\u2019s, and it is smaller than Canada\u2019s or Brazil\u2019s.<\/p>\n

It still has one of the world\u2019s largest<\/a> militaries, with an estimated 1.1 million<\/a> active-duty personnel. But in order to maintain it, Russia had to devote 7.5% of its economy \u2013 or US$190 billion \u2013 to military spending<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the oft-decried underspending of Europe\u2019s NATO members, none of which spends more than 4.5%<\/a> of GDP, added up<\/a> to nearly three times as much: US$559 billion.<\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin went to war to reverse this reality and make Russia great again. But Russia\u2019s army failed to overwhelm Ukraine\u2019s army in the war, even though Kyiv has just 880,000 active-duty personnel<\/a>. (other estimates vary<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Four and a half years after the full-scale invasion, Russia has suffered a functional defeat<\/a> in Ukraine. About 80% of Ukraine remains in Ukrainian hands<\/a> behind a largely static front line. Moscow has now been reduced to conducting an air assault against civilians, a criminal strategy of desperation with few historical examples<\/a> of success.<\/p>\n

Its international influence is also waning. Since 2022, Russia has lost carefully cultivated allies in Syria, Venezuela and Hungary. Europe, once a lucrative market for Russian hydrocarbons<\/a>, has turned hostile for the long term.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ukraine has risen from a minor power on the outskirts of Europe to a diplomatic and military middle power at the continent\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n

While still financially dependent on Europe, it is now a world leader<\/a> in the production of drones. President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s recent \u201cdrone diplomacy<\/a>\u201d in the Middle East \u2013 which culminated in ten-year deals with three countries \u2013 further demonstrated a country punching well above its weight.<\/p>\n

Ukraine is also playing a central role in Europe\u2019s ongoing self-assertion \u2013 and this week, took an important step<\/a> forward toward joining the European Union.<\/p>\n

Why the great powers have distanced themselves<\/p>\n

This war, then, is a war between middle powers, not a proxy conflict between great powers. It cannot be construed as some great game over \u201cEurasia<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither China nor the US wanted a war in Europe this century. China remains focused on Taiwan, while the US has been trying to come to terms with a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and its concerns over China\u2019s rise in the Indo-Pacific. Throughout the escalating crisis that Russia manufactured in the second half of 2021, the Biden administration tried to deescalate, create diplomatic off-ramps and spoil Russian war plans by making them public.<\/p>\n

After the full-scale invasion in early 2022, China and the US remained wary of elevating Putin\u2019s war to a great power conflict.<\/p>\n

China took advantage of incredibly cheap Russian energy supplies and markets now deserted by European or US exports. It became \u201cthe decisive enabler<\/a>\u201d of Russia\u2019s war, hoping to distract the US from Asia.<\/p>\n

But Beijing was careful not to deliver weapons to Russia. It also took a public stance<\/a> against nuclear escalation and affirmed<\/a> \u201cthe sovereignty and territorial integrity\u201d of all countries involved.<\/p>\n

More importantly, China never sanctioned Ukraine, which is dependent on Chinese-produced<\/a> parts and materials for its growing drone industry.<\/p>\n

The United States, meanwhile, has hesitated in its support of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Originally, US intelligence officials assumed Russia would win the war within days<\/a>. As Ukraine survived, mostly because of its own arsenals<\/a>, the Biden administration began supporting it, albeit with caveats. The weapons it sent came with strings attached<\/a> and deliveries were often delayed for fear of crossing some Russian red line or other.<\/p>\n

This war was even more inconvenient for the United States than it was for China. That sentiment has only intensified under the Trump administration. As the US has pulled back, a flexible coalition of democratic middle powers<\/a> has stepped up to help Ukraine.<\/p>\n

What we see happening in Ukraine, then, is the realignment of the world system from a US-dominated global order after 1991 to a multi-polar world. In this world, middle powers are playing a much larger role than during either the Cold War or its aftermath.<\/p>\n

The leaders of middle powers including Australia<\/a> and Canada<\/a> are in the process of waking up to this reality.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump, by contrast, has not yet understood this state of affairs. Even if he might now return his attention<\/a> to this war, he will find he has fewer cards to play than he thought.<\/p>\n

Mark Edele<\/a> is the Hansen professor in history, The University of Melbourne<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s ongoing war against Ukraine is often, and misleadingly, characterized as a great power conflict. The narrative goes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1032923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[41516,2000,299,5187,284976,284977,332,657],"class_list":["post-1032922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-block-2","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-great-powers","tag-middle-powers","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116766900378421238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1032922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1032922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1032922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}