The coming war with Russia: a European road to ruin — SkimNews
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- E3 leaders Macron, Merz and successors plan to supply Ukraine with long-range precision drones and cruise missiles capable of striking deep into Russia; Moscow has publicly warned it may directly target European production facilities if deliveries continue.
- Russia strikes E3 production sites in Britain's Midlands, the Ruhr, and outside Bordeaux with conventional ballistic and hypersonic missiles in late 2026; NATO Article 5 is invoked but the US — citing a recent war loss in Iran, depleted stockpiles, and upcoming midterms — declines to join.
- European cruise missiles are largely destroyed by Russia's layered S-400 and S-500 networks, inflicting unsustainable losses on pilots and aircraft; without American suppression of enemy air defenses, Europe achieves neither air superiority nor any effective counterattack.
- Russia systematically dismantles Europe's energy infrastructure — gas terminals, power stations, grid interconnectors, storage facilities — mirroring strikes on Ukraine's grid since 2022, while submarine deployments in the North Sea and Atlantic trigger a wartime blockade that halts Europe's 12.8 million barrels-per-day hydrocarbon imports.
- E3 governments sue for peace on Russia's terms within three months; UK and French nuclear deterrents exist to protect their own territories and cannot rescue a failing conventional campaign.
- Europe faces an economic contraction greater than the Great Depression — Ukraine's contraction is cited as exceeding 30%, well past the 10% depression threshold — without a Marshall Plan, while NATO and the EU fracture irreparably and populist movements surge.
- The article traces the crisis to post-1989 NATO expansion eastward, citing Kennan, Matlock, Burns, Kissinger and Mearsheimer as ignored voices of caution, and argues Russia intervened in Ukraine because it concluded NATO enlargement represented an existential threat.
Why it matters: The article makes the case that E3 governments' plan to arm Ukraine with long-range strike weapons — not NATO posture broadly — is what would pull a NATO-Russia war forward from a planned 2030 timeline to a Russian first strike in late 2026, leaving Europe to absorb a 3-month conventional defeat, dismantled energy infrastructure, and an economic contraction exceeding the Great Depression without a Marshall Plan.
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