Serge Labbé: Don’t forget Ukraine — victim of the West’s weakness and indecision

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the audience during a session at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. Photo by Michael Probst /AP

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Having failed to resolve the Ukrainian-Russian stand-off in the first 24 hours of his second presidency as promised, Donald Trump has not only thrown the world economic system into tariff turmoil, but also plunged the planet into a Middle East quagmire from which he will fail to successfully extract himself, the American people and what allies he still has.

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Through this strategic miscalculation, Trump has precipitated damage to Gulf infrastructure which will take years to remedy, and with little impact on a régime strictly controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Further, in attempting to maintain at least some flow of oil, he is actually financing Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine by temporarily lifting its sanctions on Russian oil, generating some $150 million USD per day for the Kremlin. He has done what he does best — draw temporary attention away from his failings through yet another misguided venture.

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As a result, five years into the Russian war on Ukraine, the West has, up until this point, largely allowed the beleaguered nation to continue to go it alone.

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Vladimir Putin has been preying on the West’s weakness, indecision and desire to compromise. Factored in, has been European dependence on Russian oil and natural gas, and the Trump-Putin bromance, he has consistently failed to confront Putin from a position of strength.

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My engagements with senior Russian diplomatic and military officials in both Kosovo and Afghanistan have taught me that the only way to exact results is to threaten the use of strong, immediate and credible punitive measures from the outset, thereby ensuring unconditional compliance — not rolling out the red carpet in Alaska.

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Putin, his political cronies, the billionaire oligarchs and certain members of the Russian military and security high command — are disdainful of indecision, procrastination and weakness, both in speech and action. And yet, it is precisely what Western allies have repeatedly practiced: indecision, procrastination and weakness — pontificating about what they cannot do rather than what must be done now to save a nation with which the North Atlantic Alliance has a long history.

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But why has the West and NATO done so little to curb, contain and remove the threat to world peace and security by this autocrat?

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In 2014, Putin managed to annex Crimea and establish the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. The result: he watched the West’s and NATO’s action in the face of adversity: indecision. Our subsequent track record in Afghanistan and Syria proved him right. In the weeks immediately following the Feb. 24, 2022 Russian invasion, the West finally managed to strap together at the last minute a comprehensive regime of sanctions and asset freezes against the Russian Federation, as well as key leaders, oligarchs, the energy sector, banks and businesses. The process has been reactive and ad hoc. We were making it up as we went along.