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The Ukraine War is a confrontation between Putin and the West. We know what Putin is — but what is “the West”? It includes the nations of western, and now central Europe, as well as the

United States and Canada. But it also includes Australia and New Zealand, countries of the far southeast, as well as Japan and South Korea. The “West” then is not a point on the compass but

a collection of views and principles — belief in the rule of law, in the importance of co-operation and most significantly in the moderating power of international institutions. Those

moderating institutions are particularly objectionable for despots such as Putin. Authoritarians do not like the idea of smaller nations coalescing into groups. Not only does a group pose a

challenge to a monolithic big bully state such as Putin’s Russia, it also suggests something subversive to the entire despotic worldview: that the lone nation state doesn’t cut it any more.

No matter how big and powerful you are, you still need alliances. That’s the lesson of Nato, the West’s great military alliance. It’s also why Putin hates Nato so much. Not only is it the

entity that won the Cold War and dumped Putin and his colleagues at the KGB firmly on the losing side of history, it also offered a lesson in the power of alliances. But a power-hoarder like

Putin doesn’t do alliances, not on equal terms at least. Aggressive despots like him need a political atmosphere that combines heroic national self-determination with a sense of embittered

victimhood. The conciliatory diplomatic activity required to reach agreements with foreign states would pop that paranoid bubble. Which makes the European Union, a huge group of countries

joined in agreement, especially antagonising for a grim nationalist like Putin. With its trade agreements, free movement of people and open societies, it represents everything that he is

against. It is notable that, immediately after the invasion started, Ukraine applied to join the EU. It is also notable that three EU heads of state — the Slovenian, Polish and Czech leaders

— announced plans to travel to Kyiv for talks with President Zelensky. That the three of them agreed to this while the city was being attacked by Russian forces was an extraordinary act of

bravery. The EU is now the political western bloc that immediately confronts Putin. War is pressing on its borders and Russian missile strikes have landed dangerously close to the

Ukraine-Poland line. The EU is taking in almost all of the refugees who are currently escaping the war zone. Institutions such as the EU and Nato, along with others including the World Bank

and UN are the central pillars of “the West”. To be a part of “the West” is to accept the idea that international institutions strengthen the values on which “western” society and culture

are based. That is why President Zelensky is so urgently seeking EU membership. He sees, perhaps more clearly than any world leader, the power of the transnational institution and the

protection it affords. Putin also recognises the EU’s power, but in the negative. That’s why his negotiators insist that, before any ceasefire can be agreed, Ukraine must give up its

ambitions to join not only Nato but also the EU. Other world leaders have been more naïve when it comes to the EU’s strategic significance. In a speech given in 2016, Boris Johnson blamed

Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 not on Vladimir Putin, but on the EU itself. “If you want an example of EU foreign policy making on the hoof,” he said, “and the EU’s

pretensions to running a defence policy that have caused real trouble, then look at what has happened in Ukraine.” “All the EU can do in this question, in my view, is cause confusion and, as

we’ve seen in the Balkans, I’m afraid a tragic incident, and in the Ukraine things went wrong as well.” For these remarks, Johnson was accused of being a “Putin apologist” by Jack Straw,

the former Foreign Secretary. It is hard to disagree with that judgement. Now that Johnson’s links with wealthy Russian donors, and his several holidays with Evgeny Lebedev have come to

light, it is reasonable to ask how the now-Prime Minister came to hold such pro-Kremlin views. The point that British Europhobes — Johnson included — always missed was that the EU was

created to end the threat of war in Europe. That made it the West’s single most significant political institution. The guiding logic was that if nations could develop shared economic and

diplomatic interests then they would stop trying to destroy one another. Twice during the 20th Century, European and western civilisation was almost annihilated. The EU project was meant to

end all that. The idea that weakening the EU might undermine the continent’s stability was put to Johnson back in 2016, during his campaign to leave the union. He did not accept the

suggestion — perhaps he did not understand it. In his view, the argument was little more than “scare stories about World War Three, or bubonic plague, or whatever”. It seems those remarks

have not aged well. This is Putin’s war, and one day, unless circumstances intervene, he will answer for his crimes at The Hague. And yet we cannot escape two conclusions: first, that a

generation of British politicians campaigned to weaken the West’s most important political institution in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea; and second, that Vladimir

Putin would have welcomed their success. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one

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