Four years ago I wrote, on other pages, a column called Spacibo, Mr. Putin.
It was March 2022, five days after the invasion, and the irony still fit into a list of thanks: NATO had woken up, Europe was rearming, the Russian military myth was crumbling in front of Kiev. Four years later, the rhetorical device remains. Irony, no. There is much less to be thankful for. And what there is costs infinitely more than any calculation anticipated.
We are grateful for the confirmation that Putin is not the cold decision-maker that his marketing sold, but a leader consumed by ego and mythomania. By persisting in a blunder, he achieved what he feared most: the largest NATO enlargement in history, with Finland adding 1,300 kilometers of border and Sweden closing the Baltic to Russian naval projection.
Even Trump worked like a ricochet: by threatening allies, he accelerated European strategic autonomy. Putin wanted to divide the West and forced it to grow. It was the Ukrainians who paid the price.
It is to be grateful for putting an end to the European slumber. Twenty-three countries currently meet 2% of GDP in Defense. But the gratitude is bitter: it took the biggest carnage since 1945 for us to buy fire extinguishers. The same goes for energy, achieved at the cost of higher bills for the most vulnerable consumers.
It is to be grateful for having exposed Russia’s strategic shrinkage. Syria is no longer a showcase for power; In Venezuela, Cuba and Africa, Moscow has less and less to offer beyond rhetoric. The military’s reputation, fueled by surgical interventions in Georgia and Crimea, collapsed in the face of failed logistics, non-existent doctrine and structural corruption. War schools will study this campaign for decades, not as a model, but as a warning.
We should also be grateful for having transformed China into the arbiter of a peace that no one asked for and for having reduced Russia to existential vassalage. Putin went to Beijing to ask for support and left as a subordinate partner. Non-ally: subordinate. What remains is the nuclear arsenal, enough to guarantee a place at the table, but insufficient to define the menu. Putin played to restore an empire. He ended up mortgaging what was left of it.
I never believed in a total military defeat of Russia. Whoever promised it gave in to the pressure of the moment. What disturbs me is that, despite being on the threshold of strategic defeat, Russia could be in a much worse position today. If it weren’t for Trump’s inflection and European hesitations, the negotiating map would be more favorable to Ukraine. Europe gave you enough not to lose; never enough for him to win.
The numbers don’t lie: nearly two million combined casualties, the vast majority of which are Russian soldiers, more than 15,000 confirmed civilians, six to seven million refugees, half of Ukraine’s electrical capacity destroyed. Each number is a life interrupted, a family scattered, a city amputated.
We reach 2026 with more than two million casualties and peace tables in Abu Dhabi and Geneva. There remains a bitter gratitude for the blunder that Putin committed, out of pure ego, in February 2022. Putin forced us to choose between the peace of cemeteries and the fatigue of democracies. He bet on our tiredness; we responded with the rearmament of a century. Whether Europe and Kiev will reject this script or give in to the weight of time is the question that 2026 has not yet answered.
Thank you, Mr Putin: today we all know that, with you, peace is just the interval for the next war.
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