Three moves to stop Putin immediately

Sir William Browder, Non-Resident Fellow of IEP Bocconi, will moderate the panel on defense and security at the IEP Bocconi Annual Event, on 18 November in Milan. Andrea Gilli, François-Marie Gougeon and Marina Henke will speak with him.

Whenever European leaders talk about defense, the conversation ends up on money. How much should we spend? How many more bullets should we produce? How can we stop depending on America?

These are legitimate questions. Europe really needs to spend more. But I've been fighting Vladimir Putin for twenty-six years and I've learned one thing about him. He is not afraid of budgets. Fears determination. Europe's greatest weakness is not its lack of weapons. It's the reluctance to face it.

Putin has been testing the West for years. Issue a threat. Observe how we react. Then adjust accordingly.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, we have seen this pattern repeat itself. He warned that there would be dire consequences if the West sent in tanks. Then fighter planes. Then long-range missiles. Eventually, all these weapons were handed over. Nothing happened. His were empty threats.

But they worked. While European capitals debated whether helping Ukraine could provoke it, Ukrainian soldiers died and Russian forces consolidated their positions. Putin learned that the threat of escalation could not stop the West. He could only slow it down. For him it was enough.

I fear that the same thing is about to happen with the debate on European strategic autonomy. We could spend years designing new defense structures, without making the decisions that would make Europe safer today.

Ukraine is the place to start. Its soldiers are containing the Russian army at a huge cost. Every Russian tank destroyed in Ukraine is a tank that will never advance towards Warsaw or Vilnius. Every month that Ukraine resists is another month that Europe has to rebuild its defenses. There is no cheaper or more effective way for Europe to protect itself than to make sure Ukraine can keep fighting.

This means sending weapons in the quantities that Ukraine really needs. It means giving it the ability to strike the military airfields, depots and refineries that Russia uses to wage this war. It means getting air defense into Ukrainian cities before the next wave of missiles, not after the funerals. Each of these decisions should be judged on just one question: Does it help Ukraine win? What Putin might think should not enter into the assessment.

There is another aspect of the question that I know particularly well. Europe has enormous financial power over Russia. She was painfully slow to use it.

In the European Union, around 210 billion euros from the Russian central bank are frozen. Most are located in Belgium. I have been arguing for years that this money should be confiscated and used to pay for the defense and reconstruction of Ukraine. The logic is simple. Russia invaded its neighbor. Russia caused the damage. Russia must pay them.

European leaders instead chose to borrow 90 billion euros to support Ukraine in 2026 and 2027, leaving Russia's money untouched. It's not a solution. It's a postponement. Ukraine already reports a $27 billion hole in this year's defense budget.

If the war reaches until 2028, Europe will find itself faced with the same question again. How do we pay for the defense of Ukraine? And hundreds of billions of Russian money will still be held in European vaults. How many times will European governments ask their taxpayers to foot the bill before making Russia pay? The money is there. Every year that Europe refuses to touch them is another year that Putin can wage war at a discount.

The same timidity runs through the politics of sanctions.

My campaign began with a personal tragedy. My lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, had uncovered a $230 million fraud committed by Russian officials. He was arrested, tortured and killed in a Russian prison in 2009. I gave myself the mission to prevent those responsible from hiding their money or traveling freely to the West. That battle taught me a simple lesson. Sanctions only matter if they really hit.

European sanctions against Russia do not hit hard enough. Package after package has been announced, yet Moscow continues to sell its oil. Western governments have spent years chasing shadow fleet tankers around the world. Every time one is sanctioned, another takes its place. It's the game of mole whack, and Putin is winning.

There is a much simpler approach. About 80 percent of Russian oil is purchased by just eight companies in China, India and Türkiye. They are big businesses. They have banks, business partners and customers in the West. They need access to our financial system much more than they need discounted Russian crude.

Europe should sanction all eight. Force them to choose between Russian oil and the Western economy. I have no doubt what they would choose. By blocking those buyers, the money that pays for the missiles falling on Kiev would run out. Another sanctions package means little if the money keeps coming.

All this does not mean that Europe can do without a real military force. It has to produce a lot more ammunition. It needs better air defense. His armies must be able to fight together. NATO remains essential. But European governments must be prepared to act alone when American support is uncertain. Substantial industrial investments and some politically painful choices will be needed.

What worries me is that strategic autonomy becomes a way of talking about what Europe might be able to do in ten years' time, avoiding addressing what it could do today. Confiscating Russian assets does not require a European army. Sanctioning eight oil buyers doesn't even require it. And not even send weapons to Ukraine that are already in our warehouses.

Putin understands one thing more than anything else: weakness. It feeds on divisions and hesitations. As long as they continue to work to his advantage, he will have no reason to stop.