Do you have any numbers or analysis to back this up, please?
A few counterpoints:
- Russia failed to 'take' a relatively unprepared Ukraine, and arguably has only managed the gains it has made because the support (from Biden US and EU) was drip-fed according to the Biden team's strategy.
- Russia is haemorraging fighters and modern fighting machinery in the current war in Ukraine. It's unknown how much longer the loss of life can be sustained without internal unrest. The absence of modern machinery would obviously make an invasion of Europe less likely to succeed.
- While Russia might now be a "war economy" I've seen reports that they can't economically sustain the war for too much longer.
- While the EU certainty needs to invest in defence, some countries are already strong, and would likely fight to protect the collective.
Overall, this suggests that Russia would fail against a united Europe, were they to extend beyond a defeated Ukraine.
Russia's economy is teetering and looks very weak now, but much of that is due to sanctions. Sanctions that trump will probably remove soon, for zero concessions. I'm not sure how effective EU sanctions will be on their own. Soon we will be seeing a much stronger Russia, already on a heavy war footing, start swallowing up a much weaker Ukraine. I don't like what might happen after that plays out.
But the western support was very small compared to actual western military capability.
Wouldn't freeing up Russia through removal of sanctions and a refusal to engage militarily resulting in an escalation in Ukraine and potentially beyond into Europe be seen as a big failure of his position?
If UA goes down, then EU goes down, because RU will attack before EU is ready.
This is why I think we see EU direct involvement in UA fighting; needed to keep UA up, and needed to get up to speed with drones.