(CN) — The conflict in Ukraine veered toward another major escalation on Friday after the Kremlin for the first time said it was at “war” with the West and European Union leaders pushed ahead with proposals to turn the bloc into a military superpower.
The bellicose rhetoric coming from Russia and European capitals has grown more fierce — and candid — in recent weeks as Washington's support for Kyiv falters and Ukrainian forces get pushed back on the front lines in eastern Ukraine, raising the specter that Ukraine's defensive lines may be collapsing.
Ukraine's dire state — and Russia's growing military superiority — was made clear Friday after large areas of the country, including most of Kharkiv, its second-largest city, were plunged into darkness following a massive overnight barrage of Russian missiles and drones. The strikes hit the Dnipro hydroelectric dam, a critical power source, and other power stations, leaving more than 1 million people without power. It was called the biggest attack yet on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
On Friday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told Argumenty i Fakty, a Russian newspaper, the country was at war with the West. Until now, the Kremlin had characterized the conflict in Ukraine as a “special military operation” and the State Duma, Russia's parliament, even passed a law forbidding Russians from calling it a war, a tool to crack down on anti-war protests.
“We are at war. Indeed, it started as a special military operation but as soon as a clique was formed and the collective West joined in on Ukraine's side, it turned into war for us,” Peskov was quoted as saying. “I am convinced of that. Everyone should understand this to summon up inner strength.”
He added: “This is a special operation de jure, but de facto for us it turned into a war after the collective West increasingly increased the level of its involvement in the conflict.”
Peskov's comments came amid a push by EU leaders — led by French President Emmanuel Macron, who's not ruled out sending French ground troops to Ukraine — to supercharge the bloc's military industrial capacity by combining resources to create a kind of EU army, raise billions of dollars for military spending through borrowing and ramp up military production.
Since the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine little more than two years ago, the prospect of a great power war breaking out in Europe once again has come to dominate EU politics, sparking fierce debates about whether the EU is turning away from its conception as a “peace project” after the destruction of World War II.
The grinding conflict in Ukraine has shown that winning such a war might rely on deep troves of industrial capacity and personnel, what experts call a “war of attrition” where victorious armies rely on sheer military mass over long periods of time as opposed to quick and efficient operations, the kind of conflict that NATO specializes in.
Russia, with its Soviet-era military industrial base and defensive-minded and artillery-reliant military doctrine, is surpassing its Western rivals in the production of ammunition, tanks, missiles, drones and other hardware as the war in Ukraine drags on.
EU leaders hold Ukraine summit
Warning Russian President Vladimir Putin may be tempted to attack even NATO countries, some European leaders, especially many in Central Europe and the Baltic nations, say the bloc must quickly build up its military strength in preparation for war with Russia.
How to do just that was the focus of a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, where the bloc's 27 national leaders and EU chiefs, meeting as the European Council, debated the union's military future.
At the meeting, the EU also adopted several measures to counter Russia, including imposing tariffs on Russian grain and moving ahead with plans to give Ukraine windfall profits from more than $200 billion in frozen Russian assets held in European financial institutions.
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