The outcome of the war in Ukraine might shape not just the future of Ukraine, but of European liberal democracy itself. This may seem an excessive claim, but it is not.
First and most obviously, Ukraine is fighting for the right of a people to choose their own fate. Russia is an autocracy, as it has always been, ruled by a president whose will is law. Ukrainians are fighting with great skill and courage for freedom from such tyranny and so to make their own choice of direction.
Second, as Fiona Hill and Angela Stent put it in an article in Foreign Affairs in 2022, Vladimir Putin “ordered his ‘special military operation’ because he believes that it is Russia’s divine right to rule Ukraine, to wipe out the country’s national identity, and to integrate its people into a Greater Russia”. Europeans must remember that their continent is criss-crossed with similarly contested borders. Once that Pandora’s box is opened, who will close it, especially as Putin’s political fifth column comes ever closer to power across the continent?