Ukraine vs Europe?
Hungary, the EU, Britain.
The war enters its fifth year, and the list of enemies expands. In recent weeks, the Ukrainian government has ramped up rhetoric against Hungary. But things also haven’t been well in relations with its pan-European friends. In his March 7 daily address, Zelensky criticized the EU for its lack of progress in sending the promised 90 billion euros in credit, as well as its failure to finalize the 20th sanctions packet against Russia.
It’s reasonable for him to worry, given that his top tax official Danylo Hetmantsev stated on February 23 that Ukraine may experience a ‘financial tragedy’ in April, a situation in which ‘there won’t be enough to finance expenses.
EU officials keep on reiterating the need for Ukraine to continue fighting for Europe’s security. On February 7, director of the Munich Security Conference Wolfgang Ishinger stated that ‘As long as Ukraine defends Europe, the danger isn't that great’. He worried that a ceasefire with Russia would allow it to rearm. His colleague Kaja Kallas also continues to emphasize the need to avoid compromises with Russia.
Meanwhile, the financial aid to Kyiv remains frozen. The EU seems more fixed on the idea of deporting Ukrainian men back home, straight into the front lines. The UK and northern Europe, which advertise themselves as Ukraine’s greatest friends, are the most aggressive in this campaign. The UK has even been sending vulnerable Ukrainian children back home against their family’s will.
Today, we’ll examine why exactly the EU has once again rebuffed Kyiv’s demands to be let into the alliance. Next, we’ll take a look at the warming cold war between Hungary and Ukraine, and how both official EU structures and EU-funded forces in Ukraine have been criticizing Zelensky’s reckless antagonization of president Orban. Finally, we’ll see how London’s promises of a 100 years of friendship with Ukraine play out in practice.
European values
We’ll begin with the Europeans. After all, this is a war for Europe. Ever since 2014, the Ukrainian government and its western-funded ‘civil society’ has declared that economic decoupling from and politico-military provocations against Russia are justifiable, for one simple reason — imminent EU membership.
Once Ukraine joins the EU, the great mission of the 2014 Euromaidan revolution/coup d’etat, Ukraine will no longer be the poorest country north of Africa and west of Turkmenistan. Instead, pensions and wages will skyrocket, if not immediately to German levels, then at least to Polish ones.
That was, anyway, the promise made in 2013 by Ukrainian opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk. He lasted about a year as prime minister (2014-16) until he was forced to resign. His grand European reforms (slash pensions, raise prices, devalue the currency, open markets) pushed his approval rating into the low single digits.
It’s always somewhat baffling to try and understand how exactly television audiences applauded Yatsenyuk’s promises back in late 2013. His opponent, then prime minister Nikolai Azarov, argued that almost $300 billion euros in aid was necessary in order to modernize Ukrainian industry to a level that would make it competitive with the EU. He was laughed at. Just a few years of free trade with the EU later, Ukrainian economic journalists concluded that Azarov’s estimates were right, albeit a bit low.
EU membership was never promised to Ukraine. What was promised and happily granted by the EU was a free trade agreement (FTA). The EU enjoys the same FTA arrangement with more than 70 countries around the world, along with other flourishing economic powerhouses like Tunisia and El Salvador.
As with the EU’s other beloved economic partners, Ukraine had to open its markets to European imports. Meanwhile, Ukrainian industrial imports to the EU were effectively blocked by Europe’s ecological and consumer regulations.
This led to massive deindustrialization. Ukraine’s vast soviet-era automobile factories were shuttered. Tractors from Belarus, a country not lucky enough to enjoy an FTA with the EU, are ubiquitous in Ukraine.
As for Ukraine’s agricultural exports, the only item Europe had some interest in, they were always limited within harsh quotas. Once they exceeded these quotas — and all of Ukraine’s export items did — back to the usual tariffs. One Ukrainian chicken mogul disdainfully likened it to ‘a spoke nipple’, a mechanism in a wheel that ‘allows something to pass in one direction, but not to pass in the other direction’. These quotas were temporarily removed in 2022, but returned amidst protests from European farmers in 2025.
And now, to the present. Despite requiring much more, the EU agreed to a 90 billion euro credit to Ukraine in early 2026, to be spread out over the course of two years. But now Hungary is blocking even this from reaching Ukraine. Though Hungary has its reasons, I find it hard to believe the narrative that it is merely Budapest preventing the European bureaucracy from aiding its dear friend Ukraine.
After all, is the German political class really so enthusiastic about sending credits to poor countries on the fringes of Europe? Sure, fighting Russia titillates the Teutons. But surely a number of northern European bureaucrats find their protestant financial conservativism overcomes all other instincts.
Is it not plausible that other, more powerful countries in the EU are happy for Hungary to act as their proxy? After all, the Germans certainly don’t want to be publicly rebuffing the Ukrainians. But why not let the Hungarians do that for them? After all, Hungary is much more economically integrated into German industrial value chains than Ukraine is. Hungary is quite explicit about its enthusiasm for cheap Russian energy, but there are certainly significant — though quite shy — sections of the German elite that feel the same way.
Anyway, the EU commission has already come out with a condemnation of Zelensky’s March 5 threat of physical violence against Orban. Here’s Politico, March 6:
“Specifically in relation to the comments made by President Zelenskyy, we are very clear as the European Commission that that type of language is not acceptable. There must not be threats against EU member states,” Commission deputy chief spokesperson Olof Gill told reporters Friday, in a rare condemnation of the leader in Kyiv.
It should be clear that the Hungarian question isn’t the only thing on the mind of Brussels. Zelensky has been pushing for Ukraine to be given ‘fast-tracked’ accession to the EU by 2027. Many speculate that he hopes such a ‘win’ would allow the patriotic Ukrainian public to accept a ‘betrayal’ in talks with Russia, such as giving up the Donbass.
However, earlier this week it became clear that this would not happen:
European Union countries have largely rebuffed the idea of granting so-called “reversed” membership to Ukraine as part of the ongoing peace negotiations, fearing the reform would undermine the credibility of the accession process.
The lack of appetite was laid bare on Wednesday evening during an informal dinner of ambassadors with the European Commission, several diplomats told Euronews.
Europe also claims to be pushing back against both the US and Russia, who apparently would be happy with just such a fast-tracked entry of Ukraine to the EU. I’ve also heard rumours that Moscow would be quite happy for Ukraine to enter the EU and be thereby even further deindustrialized. And I’m sure that the economic and political strains that Ukraine would place on the EU would also overjoy both Trump and Putin.
And anyway, as Reuters reported on March 3, the richest — and supposedly most ‘pro-Ukrainian’ — members of the EU have other reasons to worry about letting Ukraine in prematurely:
But EU governments - including heavyweights France and Germany - have privately voiced scepticism about a mooted reform of the accession process that would shorten Ukraine’s path to membership, diplomats say. Reuters spoke with eight European diplomats and officials, and many pointed to unease among EU capitals about the idea.
Among their concerns is that Ukraine and others would not press on with reforms, such as cracking down on corruption, if it has already been granted EU membership.
In short, letting Ukraine in would remove the leverage pushing Ukraine to maintain the ‘independent anti-corruption infrastructure’ that Brussels forces Zelensky to tolerate. If Ukraine joined the EU, it could simply abolish this colonial infrastructure, just as the Polish government did for its anti-corruption organs last year.
Once in the EU, the Ukrainian government could become just as hot-headed and ‘proudly independent’ as, say, Hungary, Slovakia, or Poland. This could open all sorts of issues.
What if a more pro-Russian candidate won in Ukrainian elections again? This a prospect that Ukrainian pro-european liberals are terrified will take place if the war ever ends.
What if Ukrainian nationalists gain even more power and realize their stated goal of fracturing the EU by creating a new east-central European alliance of white nationalist states, opposed to both Moscow and the ‘degenerate cultural marxists’ in north/central Europe?
That’s why a November 4 2025 ‘Enlargement Package’ document regarding Ukraine contained clauses on ‘court reform’ and ‘maintaining the independence of the anti-corruption organs’. There were a great deal of other similar demands, all with the same aim — to make sure that Ukrainian government infrastructure is under control of the Europeans.
