Europe is grappling with its identity as well as Russian aggression

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, European Union and NATO leaders have rallied their members to condemn Russian aggression and strengthen defence of European territory, as well as Western values and democratic rights.

Now Russia’s expanding hybrid warfare across the continent, including sabotage, disinformation and border incursions, has sparked fears of greater conflict. In December, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that Russia could attack Europe within five years. And Baltic and Eastern European leaders jointly declared at the Eastern Flank Summit in Helsinki that: “Russia is the most significant, direct and long-term threat to our security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.”

But mounting a unified defence of what Europe stands for today against autocratic Russian President Vladimir Putin is challenged by, among other factors, weakening of the Western ideology that prevailed during the Cold War. Then the United States, Western Europe and the Soviet Union had clear positions to defend. “During the Cold War, it was easy. You protected your Western identity against communism, against dictatorship, against totalitarianism. But now authoritarianism is already in the West. Democracy is still a norm, but there are very strong challenges,” Dr Anton Shekhovtsov at the Central European University’s Department of International Relations in Vienna told me.

After communism collapsed in 1989, Europeans faced growing uncertainty well before Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The long era of post-Second World War affluence was facing hurdles and the discontent towards globalisation was rising. Anti-establishment anger was fuelled by global financial chaos in 2008, and public trust in mainstream politics plunged further after Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015.

Political and social identities began to change. “Gone was an understanding of freedom as a form of collective emancipation” to be replaced by an “individualised form of freedom,” argues Cambridge academic Christopher Bickerton. Far-right political parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which won the Thuringia state election in 2024, and the National Rally, now leading polls in France, sought to capture grievances, portraying themselves as the national “resistance” to foreigners and the power of Brussels. Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s illiberal prime minister for the past 15 years, is an example of how right-wing rhetoric overlaps with sympathies for Putin (the four consecutive election victories for Orbán’s Fidesz Party in Hungary have been aided by manipulation of the electoral system and erosion of democratic rights, rather than overwhelming voter support). US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has emboldened these elements.

On a winter morning last January, I trudged along the snow-laden streets of Budapest to meet with Gelencsér Ferenc of the Hungarian opposition party, Momentum Movement. Orbán’s vice-like hold on power has incensed him for years. “Hungary is no longer a democracy, not just according to me, to the opposition or the EU, but according to most of the voters,” Ferenc railed. “What our government is doing is copy-catting Russia.”

Orbán’s efforts to block Ukraine’s EU accession and EU military aid has supported Putin’s goals of halting democracy’s march towards Russia’s borders, and potential larger geopolitical objectives. “The war against Ukraine is an end in itself … but the bigger picture [for Putin] is the revision of the Cold War results,” Shekhovtsov claimed, and rewriting the loss of the Soviet Union.

He believes Europe is not doing enough to address Russia’s tactics, but admitted that it is “difficult to counter that [Russian] psychological war because, in the end, it is not only about countering, it is strengthening your own societies. It is dealing with your problems.” Showing democracy can work and offer legitimate solutions to voters is one imperative. But Leiden University academic Tom Theuns also claims the EU has allowed too much democratic backsliding within its borders. Ferenc agrees: “My generation, we are really disappointed in the EU. I am a huge EU fan. I am an EU citizen. But I just cannot comprehend how they can be so slow in realising that they are being played by Mr Orbán.”

Yet democratic resilience is demonstrated in some of the newer EU members. Last year, there was the resounding popular election of centrist President Nicuşor Dan in Romania, and pro-EU President Maia Sandu by voters in Moldova, a state seeking EU accession. While Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are among the Baltic nations most vocal about addressing Putin’s aggression. The latest Eurobarometer survey suggests optimism, with 67% of respondents believing the EU to be a place of stability in a troubled world.

But EU institutions, known for their technocratic tone, could also do more to create a “hearts and minds” connection to citizens. In September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address was a start: “Europe is in a fight: a fight for a continent that is whole and at peace … A fight for our values and our democracies … Make no mistake, this is a fight for our future.”