On 3 January 2026, at 2:00 a.m. Caracas time, Europe went from being a “partner” to being “prey.” And it wasn’t Russian tanks or China’s economic expansion that forced the shift — it was the American Delta Force, which in a single night demonstrated what Vladimir Putin had been trying to prove for decades: international law is a fiction, one observed only by the weak. Donald Trump’s operation in Venezuela wasn’t just a breach of the rules; it was an official announcement that the rules no longer exist. What remains is the arena. Predators. Prey. And the most chilling realisation for Europe: it had suddenly been classified as prey.
The scenes of Europe saying goodbye to its old worldview were predictably painful. The UN Secretary-General expressed “deep concern,” calling the American operation a “dangerous precedent.” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, urged respect for international law and the UN Charter — while reminding everyone that the EU had always considered Nicolás Maduro an illegitimate ruler. France condemned the method but described Maduro’s fall as “good news for Venezuelans,” calling him a “shameless dictator.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would “shed no tears” over the regime’s collapse.
All these words sounded like prayers over a coffin — elegant, perhaps, but utterly useless. You cannot resurrect the dead with diplomatic notes. Especially when the world sees photos of a trophy splashed across social media to the soundtrack of rock music and responds not with condemnation, but applause — even from parts of the domestic opposition celebrating the removal of a dictator and drug trafficker, seemingly blind to the deeper truth: the principle mattered more than the individual.
The real irony is that Europe has been digging its own grave for the past fifteen years. When Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, Europe responded with cautious sanctions, carefully riddled with exceptions for its own companies. When Russia bombed hospitals in Syria, Europe expressed concern. When China built concentration camps for Uyghurs, European businesses kept investing in Xinjiang.
When Beijing seized islands in the South China Sea and turned them into military bases, openly defying international rulings, Brussels limited itself to statements. And when Putin launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, Europe spent two years paralysed by debate over whether supplying long-range missiles might provoke “escalation”.
Even as Russia was killing Ukrainians on an industrial scale, parts of Europe clung to the idea of “good Russians” and the promise of “dialogue”. Time and again, Europe chose the rule of law over force — and time and again, it lost to those who chose force over law.
What makes this moment truly unsettling is that the rules weren’t upended by an authoritarian dictator wielding nuclear weapons, but by the president of the world’s most powerful democracy. This isn’t a flaw—it’s the system playing out as it inevitably does. When dictators break the rules, democracies can still rally to defend them. But when the leader of the democratic world openly declares that rules are for suckers, there’s nothing left to defend.
What remains is a stark, uncomfortable truth: the post–Second World War era — the age of international institutions and the rule of law, the world in which Europe once felt safe and morally confident — is over.
What has begun instead is an era in which Europe, with its endless consensuses, human rights language, and intricate coordination mechanisms, resembles a poker player stubbornly insisting on fair play while everyone else has already pulled out knives and started shooting under the table.
Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, is trying to restore the country’s status as a serious power. But the problem is not him. The problem is structural. Germany can raise its defence spending to 3–4 per cent of GDP. It can bring back compulsory military service. It can even revise its long-standing pacifist doctrine and start supplying weapons more decisively. Yet even in the most optimistic scenario, building a combat-ready army capable of deterring Russia without American backing would take at least a decade.
Time, however, is the one thing Europe does not have. By any sober estimate, it has two years — three at most. And that calculation was made before the Venezuelan operation. After it, whatever threads were still holding the old order together have been ripped out entirely. Putin will not wait. Trump will not wait either. Xi certainly will not. Europe’s window of opportunity has slammed shut.
Trump’s operation in Venezuela is not just a regime change in one Latin American country. It is the crack of a starter pistol, announcing a new race — one in which the winners take everything and the losers forfeit their sovereignty. And every predator in the global system has already joined in: the ones that spent the past years sharpening their teeth, patiently waiting for the moment when the rules finally stopped applying.
The United States under Trump is no longer the defender of the “free world” or the guarantor of the postwar order. What we are seeing instead is America as a corporate project, with the president acting less like a head of state and more like the CEO of a global conglomerate — maximising profit through control over resources, markets, and technologies. Venezuela became a demonstration case. A head of state was removed overnight, a temporary administration installed, and American oil giants Chevron and ExxonMobil were granted access to the largest proven oil reserves on the planet.
From Trump’s perspective, the operation delivered a perfect return on investment. And it is no secret that the list of potential next targets is already taking shape: Cuba, to secure dominance over the Caribbean basin; the Panama Canal, as a critical strategic artery; Greenland, for its rare-earth metals and Arctic shipping routes; and, quite possibly, Iran.
Trump, operating in this logic, does not behave like the president of a country guided by ideology or values. He behaves like a dealmaker. That makes him tactically predictable — he is always looking for where the profit lies. But it also makes him strategically dangerous, because profit, in this worldview, can be extracted almost anywhere.
Putin’s Russia emerged from the Venezuelan operation with the greatest gift it has received since the start of the Russian war against Ukraine: the legitimisation of its own behaviour. What Moscow has been doing for years is now, in effect, normalised. The Kremlin can act even more brazenly, justifying every new move by pointing to the Venezuelan precedent. The seizure of the rest of Ukraine, pressure on Moldova, provocations in the Baltic states, interference in the Balkans — all of it can now be framed as nothing more than what “great powers do” to defend their interests.
The most alarming part is that this argument works not only at home, where Russian propaganda needs little encouragement, but also in the Global South, where distrust of the United States is already deeply rooted. Putin had been waiting patiently for a Western mistake that would tear the mask from the rules-based order. Trump delivered it.
Xi Jinping’s China, meanwhile, treated the Venezuelan operation as the most important geopolitical case study in years. For Beijing, it was a live-fire test of several hypotheses at once: how Washington reacts to unilateral force, how long international outrage lasts, and whether there are any real consequences. The answers arrived quickly. The response was verbal, the outrage lasted a few days, and the consequences were effectively zero.
The conclusion in Beijing is hard to miss: an operation to “reunify” Taiwan with the mainland has moved a step closer to feasibility. Chinese military exercises around the island on 30–31 December were no coincidence; they were another rehearsal for a blockade. Xi is now waiting for two things — an economic crisis in the United States that would distract Trump, and a clear signal that Europe will stay on the sidelines. Both conditions are becoming increasingly plausible.
Venezuela made one thing unmistakably clear: act fast, act decisively, and the international community will barely have time to issue statements of “deep concern”. A week later, no one will even remember what happened.
Erdoğan’s Turkey fits perfectly into this new logic. Over the past few years, Ankara has been carefully probing the limits of what is allowed — and each time, it has found those limits remarkably flexible. Turkish forces control large swathes of Syrian territory in open defiance of international law. The standoff with Greece over maritime borders and energy resources has dragged on without resolution. In the Caucasus, Turkey backed Azerbaijan in a proxy war against Armenia and emerged stronger for it. None of this triggered serious pushback. After the Venezuelan precedent, Ankara has effectively been handed a carte blanche for even more assertive behaviour. With NATO’s second-largest army, control over the Bosphorus, and a proven ability to balance between the West and Russia, Turkey could, in the event of NATO’s weakening or collapse, become the most dangerous and unpredictable power in the space between Europe, Russia, and the Middle East.
Islamic Republic of Iran, meanwhile, remains the archetypal pariah state — sanctioned for decades, hardened by isolation, and trained to survive under constant pressure. Tehran is watching closely to see whether Trump’s next move targets Iran’s nuclear programme or its oil infrastructure, both explicitly named as priorities in Project 2025. At the same time, Iranian strategists see something new and encouraging: the United States no longer looks like a hegemon capable of fighting on multiple fronts at once. Venezuela, possible operations against Cuba, confrontation with China, and unconditional support for Israel have stretched American resources thin. This opens a window of opportunity for Tehran — to accelerate its nuclear programme or to expand its regional influence through proxies in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. Iran is unlikely to become a global power, but it is well positioned to become a sustained source of regional chaos, destabilising the Middle East at a critical moment.
Modi’s India is perhaps the most enigmatic player on this new board. It is the world’s most populous country and is rapidly closing in on the status of the planet’s third-largest economy. For decades, New Delhi has mastered the art of playing several games at once: a member of the QUAD, the informal anti-China alignment with the United States, Japan, and Australia, while at the same time a key military-technical partner of Russia and a core member of BRICS. The Venezuelan precedent now hands India a dangerous and convenient argument. If Washington can unilaterally remove regimes it dislikes, why shouldn’t India “resolve” its long-standing disputes with Pakistan — especially in Kashmir — or push more forcefully against China in the contested Himalayan regions? For now, Modi is exercising restraint. But in a world without rules, even the planet’s largest democracy can slide, almost imperceptibly, into the role of yet another predator.
The more unsettling development, however, lies beyond states themselves. The next wave will come when corporations fully join the ranks of global predators — companies whose annual budgets already surpass the GDP of many mid-sized countries. In the absence of international law, these corporations are poised to become parallel centres of power: quasi-states with their own strategic interests, increasingly detached from the priorities of the countries in which they are formally based.
The clearest example is the military-industrial complex and the ecosystem of private military companies that now surrounds it. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, and Europe’s Rheinmetall and Airbus Defence all have a direct financial interest in the creation, expansion, and prolongation of conflicts. For years, they have exploited the revolving-door system, where defence ministers transition seamlessly to corporate boards and corporate executives reappear as national security advisers. In a world without rules, this relationship risks becoming outright governance. Corporations will no longer merely lobby for wars; they will commission them through politicians who effectively work for them. Alongside them, private military companies — from Academi to the Wagner Group and dozens of smaller outfits — are turning into instruments of warfare in their own right. They will fight not for ideology or national interest, but for contracts, loyalty shifting to whoever pays the highest price.
Drone manufacturers and developers of AI-driven warfare systems form the second major category of corporate predators. The Russian war against Ukraine has permanently altered the nature of armed conflict, proving beyond doubt that drones are no longer a supporting tool but the primary weapon of the future.
China’s DJI, Turkey’s Baykar, America’s Shield AI, Kratos Defense, General Atomics, Germany’s Quantum Systems, and British manufacturers are all field-testing their systems on the Ukrainian battlefield. Even companies that do not build drones directly are deeply embedded in this new architecture of war. Palantir, for instance, does not manufacture hardware, but its software integrates intelligence streams and coordinates targeting, turning thousands of individual strikes into a single, continuous kill chain.
In this new environment, the corporations that control drone production — and, more importantly, their components such as electronics, batteries, sensors, and software — will wield immense power.
One particularly dangerous vulnerability stands out: Chinese-made components are now embedded in the majority of Western drones, creating a strategic dependency that few governments are willing to acknowledge publicly.
At the same time, technology giants dominate the information space while building the artificial intelligence of the future. Meta, Google, X, and China’s ByteDance, Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu shape what billions of people see, read, and ultimately believe. They command instruments of mass influence that any twentieth-century propaganda machine could only dream of: algorithms that feed different realities to different audiences; AI systems capable of generating fake news faster than fact-checkers can respond; deepfake videos that are increasingly indistinguishable from reality. OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic are now developing systems that, within three years, could control kamikaze drones capable of autonomously selecting targets, and within seven years may analyse terabytes of intelligence data per second while proposing optimal strategies for waging war. Quantum technologies add yet another destabilising layer. Once quantum computers reach maturity, they will be able to break any modern encryption in hours, granting access to banking systems, state secrets, and an adversary’s military communications.
Energy corporations and agribusiness giants control the most basic resources of survival. Trump’s operation in Venezuela offered a textbook example of how military force can be used to open the door for corporate access to raw materials. In its wake, oil majors such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Gazprom, Saudi Aramco, and China’s CNPC and Sinopec do not simply fuel the global economy — they increasingly decide who receives energy and who is cut off. In this world, turning off the gas tap can be a more effective weapon than deploying tank divisions.
As the climate deteriorates and the risk of nuclear winter rises amid multiplying conflicts, access to energy will become an existential issue. Even in the most basic sense, survival will depend on something as simple as the ability to heat water for tea when everything else has collapsed.
Control over food is no less absolute a form of power. Cargill, with annual revenues exceeding $160 billion, along with Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, and Louis Dreyfus, dominate the global supply chains for grain and vegetable oils. Bayer CropScience, following its acquisition of Monsanto, together with Corteva Agriscience and Syngenta, controls seeds and pesticides without which modern agriculture would simply cease to function. BASF, Nutrien, and Yara International produce the fertilisers on which today’s crop yields depend.
In the world of climate disruption, expanding wars, and growing populations, control over grain, fertilisers, and seeds will become one of the most powerful instruments of geopolitical pressure.
Pharmaceutical giants, financial institutions, and space companies complete the picture of this emerging world order. Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novo Nordisk, China’s BGI and WuXi, and Europe’s AstraZeneca and Sanofi quite literally control health and life itself. The COVID-19 pandemic made this brutally clear: those with early access to vaccines restarted their economies quickly, while the rest of the world lost years of development.
Financial power is even more concentrated. BlackRock, Vanguard, JPMorgan Chase, China’s banking behemoths, along with Visa, Mastercard, and SWIFT, regulate the flow of global capital. Sanctions against Russia demonstrated just how lethal this control can be: exclusion from SWIFT is not a technical inconvenience, but a weapon of mass economic destruction.
Then there is space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and a growing number of Chinese companies now dominate satellite communications and orbital surveillance. Starlink has provided Ukraine with critical battlefield support, but it has also exposed a dangerous reality: when Musk decides that helping Ukraine clashes with his business interests, he can simply restrict the system’s use for certain operations.
States still matter, but they are no longer the sole monopolists of power or violence. Corporations are emerging as parallel centres of authority — and in many cases, they are already stronger than medium-sized countries.
The key difference is accountability. Democratic states are, at least in theory, answerable to their citizens through elections. Autocratic regimes are answerable to no one. Corporations, however, answer only to shareholders. Their objective is profit maximisation, not the public good.
If international law no longer exists, what replaces it? The answer is stark and merciless: the balance of power. The same principle that governed the world for centuries before the League of Nations and the United Nations ever existed. The strong do as they wish; the weak endure what they must.
This is a world straight out of Machiavelli and Hobbes, where agreements hold not through trust, but through mutual fear. “I won’t attack you because you could inflict unacceptable damage on me” — that will be the only real guarantee.
International law will no longer set the rules. Instead, bilateral and multilateral agreements will hinge on mutual deterrence and shifting interests. Treaties will be forged not on universal principles, but on temporary advantage. Today, two states may stand as allies against a common enemy; tomorrow, they could be adversaries over resources or territory. No permanent alliances, no trust, no illusions about “shared values.” The UN and international tribunals will be replaced by private arbitration and corporate courts. Disputes between nations will be settled not in The Hague, but on the battlefield, or through the intervention of stronger players who dictate the terms.
In this world, the small, heavily armed countries — the last little paradises on Earth — will retain their democratic freedoms internally, but they won’t try to export them.
The Chinese bloc will pursue a model of digital authoritarianism: total control through technology, paired with steady economic growth.
The Russian bloc, in practice, will act as a proxy for China — formally independent, but economically and technologically subordinate.
The Islamic world will seek its own path, trying to balance tradition and modernity. Each bloc will see its approach as the only correct one. Yet the moment cracks or weaknesses appear in a rival bloc, competitors will move in, exploiting them by any means necessary.
Globalisation will give way to regionalisation and fragmentation. The world will splinter into several major spheres of influence, with minimal interaction between them: the Americas under US control, Eurasia divided between Russia and China, Europe a pie to be carved up by predators, and the Arctic and Africa turned into battlefields over resources and trade routes.
This is the answer to the question, “What will replace international law?” Anarchy, limited only by raw power. A new medieval world — but one armed with nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, and corporate knights who serve not kings or ideals, but shareholders and profit.
For Europe, there is no easy path in this new world. Even the most optimistic scenario envisions the continent breaking apart painfully, fragmenting into regions that make radically different choices about their future. The eastern flank — Poland, the Baltic states (if they survive), and Scandinavia — will coalesce into a “Free Europe,” a militarised bloc with compulsory service, hefty defence budgets, and possibly even a shared nuclear programme. Scandinavia will form the natural core and driving engine of this bloc — these countries grasp the Russian threat not as an abstract notion, but as an existential reality, rooted in both historical memory and immediate danger. The UK is likely to join, searching for a new role on the continent after Brexit, and could act as the bloc’s military guarantor. Coordination with the US is possible, but only as long as it serves Washington’s interests — no more, no less.
Central Europe — Germany, France, the Benelux countries, and Austria — will try to hold on to what’s left of the European Union as an economic bloc, but without any serious military backbone. In the end, populists will rise to power almost everywhere — far-left or far-right, it won’t make much difference. The debates over migration, social cohesion, and national identity will dominate politics. France faces the harshest reality: millions of migrants, mounting social tensions, the collapse of the republican integration model, and economic stagnation. These countries will attempt to balance between the US, Russia, and China, maintaining economic ties with all the major players. Germany, under Merz, may try to remilitarise, but decades of pacifism cannot be reversed in five years — a fact that cannot be ignored.
Southern Europe — Italy, Spain, Greece, and the Balkans — will drift toward the periphery of this new world: economically weak, politically unstable, and vulnerable to influence from a range of predators. Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia are already openly pro-Russian (or, increasingly, pro-Chinese), while Turkey will push its influence from the south, pressing on the Balkans.
The worst-case scenario for Europe is the total collapse of the EU and NATO, torn apart by internal contradictions and intensified by relentless external pressure.
Russia will wield energy as a weapon and conduct hybrid operations. China will exploit economic dependencies through critical supply chains. The US under Trump — and potentially his successor from the MAGA camp — will fully withdraw from European security, focusing only on its own interests. Meanwhile, populists across Europe will rise on waves of anti-Brussels sentiment and promises to restore “national sovereignty.” Each country will chart its own course. Some will seek protection from Russia in exchange for political loyalty and economic concessions. Others will try to go it alone — only to fall prey to stronger powers. The Baltic states will face pressure under the familiar pretext of “protecting Russian speakers,” as already seen in Crimea and Donbas. Poland may be forced to fight for its survival, perhaps entirely on its own. And Germany? Germany will be the ultimate prize, the most coveted slice of the pie that predators will divide among themselves: the largest economy in Europe despite stagnation, with industrial might, unique technologies, and a highly skilled workforce.
For Ukraine, all these scenarios lead to one harsh but honest conclusion: we can no longer rely on traditional Europe. Not because Europeans are cruel or indifferent to our fate, but because they themselves are struggling to survive their own crises.
The Nordic countries remain the last reliable partners in Europe, but even they are not omnipotent against global challenges. Merz might prove to be the best German chancellor for Ukraine in the past twenty years — a true ally and partner — yet even he cannot prevent Europe’s fragmentation and decline. Von der Leyen and Kallas are competent and capable leaders, but they are trapped in structures corroded from within, weakened by populism, migration pressures, and a loss of strategic resolve.
Ukraine must build its own model of survival in a world dominated by predators and corporations. And if we have entered a world of predators, then we ourselves must become one — perhaps not the largest predator on the planet, but one no one would dare to challenge. One whose teeth are too sharp, whose skin is too thick, whose resistance comes at too high a cost.
This leads to four strategic priorities that must be pursued immediately.
The first is the ruthless expansion of military capabilities — including a serious, unsentimental discussion of the nuclear option. Ukraine cannot wait for permission to use weapons; it must use everything it already has. It cannot wait for allies to deliver arms; it must build its own production, on its own territory. Ukraine has made extraordinary progress in drone manufacturing, creating a real industry from scratch in the middle of war — but that is nowhere near enough. We need our own long-range missiles, our own aircraft through procurement and joint production of next-generation platforms, our own air defence systems with locally produced interceptors, and a professional cyber army operating at a global top-tier level.
In a world where international law no longer functions, there is only one reliable guarantee against aggression from a larger neighbour: your own nuclear deterrent. If NATO collapses, or definitively shuts its doors to new members from Eastern Europe, there is a realistic alternative. Cooperation with non-nuclear states on the eastern flank — the Nordic and Baltic countries, along with Poland — could lead to a shared nuclear arsenal, created and controlled by an alliance of states that understand the Russian threat not in theory, but through lived experience. This path is politically difficult and technologically ambitious, but it is far more realistic than isolated national nuclear programmes pursued under pressure and threat.
The alternative is the path taken by Israel or Pakistan: the creation of an independent nuclear arsenal in defiance of pressure, sanctions, and threats. In a world ruled by predators, the absence of the ultimate weapon is an invitation to be swallowed.
The second priority is the strengthening of alliances and deep integration with the defence industry. Ukraine must deliberately anchor itself within the emerging “Free Europe” — above all with the UK, Poland, the Baltic states, and the Nordic countries, which understand the Russian threat not as an abstract risk, but as a matter of national survival. Strategic partnerships should also be built with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan — societies confronting authoritarian pressure and well-positioned to become long-term partners in technology, defence production, and innovation.
Scarce resources cannot be wasted on symbolic outreach to the Global South, where most diplomatic initiatives will yield little more than statements and gestures. The focus must be ruthless and pragmatic: on those who can actually help. That means joint weapons production, shared research and development, and the systematic integration of Ukrainian engineers and developers into the creation of the next generation of military technologies.
The third priority is the aggressive development of Ukraine’s technological capabilities across all critical sectors: artificial intelligence, unmanned systems of every kind, top-tier cybersecurity, and semiconductor production. Ukraine already has a world-class IT industry, but much of it currently works for Western outsourcing, building products for foreign companies. These unique talents need to be systematically redirected toward homegrown dual-use technologies—solutions that serve both civilian and military purposes. Ukraine should build its own tech corporations capable of competing, at least regionally, with European and Asian players. The diaspora can play a key role in this effort—Ukrainians in Silicon Valley, European tech hubs, and Israeli startups can act as living bridges for transferring cutting-edge technologies and practices.
At the same time, Ukraine must move away from an economic model dependent on agricultural raw materials. The hard truth is clear: we cannot feed the Global South. Logistically, we are trapped in the Black Sea—blocked either by Russian drones or by Turkey controlling the straits. The path forward lies in high-tech exports, defence industry products, and IT services and solutions—areas far less dependent on physical logistics and capable of generating far greater value for every unit of effort.
The fourth priority is preparing society for a long war and for life in a permanently militarised state. Here, Ukraine holds a grim but real advantage over much of Europe. Some 800,000 Ukrainians are actively serving in the armed forces, while the war of attrition enters its fourth year. A comparable number of reservists already have real combat experience. Crisis has become our natural environment — conditions that other European societies will only begin to confront, painfully and belatedly, in the years ahead. Mandatory military service, a functioning mobilisation reserve, territorial defence, civil defence, population training — none of this needs to be invented anew. What is required is systematic institutionalisation, constant refinement, and long-term planning.
Most importantly, Ukraine must articulate its own strategic objective in this emerging world of predators. That objective must be morally defensible, politically unambiguous, and revealing of the kind of predator-state we intend to become: the final dismantling of Russia as an empire, and its fragmentation into parts that, individually, would no longer be capable of threatening their neighbours. This means actively fuelling centrifugal processes within the Russian Federation and consistently encouraging the disintegration of the last prison of nations.
In this sense, Trump’s operation in Venezuela paradoxically loosens Ukraine’s constraints. If the world’s largest democracy can unilaterally overthrow regimes on the other side of the planet in the name of oil and strategic interest, why should Ukraine not work towards the collapse of a neighbouring aggressive empire — not for profit, but for survival and regional security?
This is a just, realistic, and strategically indispensable objective. Russia in its current form is an anachronism — an empire that has no place in the twenty-first century. It is built on the blood of subjugated peoples and held together by fear and violence alone. Ukraine’s task, as a predator in this new world, is to accelerate the inevitable process of imperial decay and to help the peoples trapped inside it secure their freedom. Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Ingush, Buryats, Yakuts, Tuvans, and dozens of others all have the right to their own states, free from Moscow’s colonial rule. Ukraine must become the catalyst for this transformation, employing every available instrument — informational, economic, diplomatic, and military.
Liberal Europe is dead, and no amount of nostalgia will revive it. But its failure offers lessons that must be absorbed, not ignored. From them, something fundamentally new can — and must — be built, shaped to the brutal realities of the age now unfolding. Ukraine has a genuine chance to become one of the world’s small, heavily armed societies — a last refuge where freedom, democracy, and human dignity still carry real meaning; a state that refuses to submit to predators of any size. Not out of romanticism or detachment from reality, but because the alternative is worse than any sacrifice. Compromise with the aggressor, or peace imposed on their terms, is the path of the weak — of those who misunderstand the nature of predators. The choice is therefore stark, but simple: an uncompromising struggle carried through to victory, or the disappearance of Ukraine as a nation.
The world taking shape before our eyes is brutal, unjust, and perilous for everyone. International law no longer holds — a reality that must be faced without illusions. In its place is a cold balance of power, where every actor answers only for itself and its own survival. Corporations are emerging as full-fledged players on the global stage, sometimes outstripping states in influence. Technology will increasingly decide the outcomes of wars and conflicts, while values and principles are pushed aside by raw interest and force. Yet history offers a stark, if sobering, lesson: even in the darkest eras, survival has always favoured those nations and states that adapt faster than the rest.
Trump’s operation in Venezuela is not, in fact, the end of the world. It is the end of the world we knew — the one we grew up in, the one we took for granted. It marks the beginning of a new reality, with new rules, new actors, new threats, and new opportunities. And in this harsher, more cynical world, Ukraine has every objective chance not merely to survive, but to emerge as a significant and influential player — first at the regional level, and potentially far beyond it.
The requiem is over. The mourning has been observed. Now it is time to act.
