Ukraine shows that the international security order, which is supposed to provide protection, does not protect a state when it is in real danger. It is militarily and, in nuclear terms, dependent on powers that follow their own interests: Russia attacks militarily while the United States pushes in Geneva for a quick deal that includes territorial concessions, and Europe slides into the role of main financier. At the same time, one EU member state, Hungary, uses its veto to block or delay that support. This configuration exposes how fragile Europe’s security order has become at its edges—and how unequal the distribution of power in the international system actually is
A front‑line state on life support
Ukraine cannot sustain this war on its own, let alone end it on its own terms. Estimates show that since 2022, more than half of its modern air defense, artillery and rocket systems have come from US and European stockpiles. In nuclear terms, Ukraine has been disarmed since 1994: under the Budapest Memorandum, it gave up what had been the world’s third‑largest nuclear arsenal—over 1,800 strategic warheads—and joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non‑nuclear state. In exchange, it received security “assurances” from the US, UK and Russia, but no hard treaty obligation to provide military defence. When Russia launched its full‑scale invasion in 2022, those assurances were broken; what remains is a non‑nuclear, non‑veto state on the front line of a European war.
The US: from arsenal to deal‑maker
In 2022–23 the US was by far Ukraine’s largest military supporter, pledging more than $70 billion in military and financial aid. Since 2024, however, new US packages have shrunk or been delayed; domestic gridlock and “America First” politics have weakened Washington’s willingness to bankroll a long war. At the same time, US influence has shifted toward diplomacy: in mid‑February 2026, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met for two days of US‑brokered talks in Geneva, led by Trump‑aligned envoys. The focus was on land questions in eastern and southern Ukraine—including areas under Russian control or claim in the Donbas and along the land bridge to Crimea—and on possible post‑war security guarantees. Reporting from those talks suggests the Trump team signaled that any “durable peace” would likely require Kyiv to accept some form of territorial compromise, with pressure to move toward a deal by the summer of 2026.
Europe: reluctant sponsor turned main financier
As US support stalls, Europe has stepped in. According to EU and Kiel Institute data, European assistance—taken together across military, financial, and humanitarian pledges—now matches or exceeds that of the United States in the current phase of the war. In December 2025 EU leaders agreed on a multiyear package worth about $97 billion for 2026–27, including a €90 billion loan facility to keep Ukraine’s budget, social spending, and basic defense capacity afloat. Key member states have also launched additional national schemes—from German air defense initiatives to Nordic artillery and ammunition funds. Europe has thus moved from hesitant supporter to de facto main sponsor of Ukraine’s war effort, in a conflict that is directly tied to the EU’s own security architecture.
Hungary: a mini‑veto inside the EU
Exactly at the moment when Ukraine is most dependent on European money and weapons, Hungary has been wielding its veto to block key decisions. In February 2026 Budapest issued a “double veto”: it blocked the formal adoption of the €90 billion loan and a new sanctions package against Russia. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán explicitly linked his stance to the Druzhba oil pipeline dispute, accusing Ukraine of disrupting Russian oil transit and demanding a “restoration of normal flows” before approving EU measures—framed as protecting Hungarian families from high energy costs. Formally this is allowed: in foreign and security policy, EU sanctions and such financial decisions still require unanimity in the Council. Substantively it functions like a mini‑veto à la UN Security Council: one member state can freeze measures that an overwhelming majority judges necessary.
Unanimity: protection turned structural flaw
Unanimity in EU foreign policy was originally designed as a shield: no member state should be dragged into war‑related or sanctions decisions against its will. In practice, the Ukraine war shows how this rule behaves under real pressure: not as protection, but as a structural weakness. When 26 capitals supply weapons, pledge tens of billions, and absorb refugees, while one government can hold up funding and sanctions for weeks over domestic political battles, the EU looks weak outwardly and fractured inwardly. That is why several governments and EU institutions now argue to extend qualified majority voting (QMV) to parts of foreign and sanctions policy, so that future “Hungary moments” no longer paralyze European security decisions.
In reality, this kind of veto power protects no one: Europe has watched in the UN Security Council for years how a single state can block decisions and thereby entrench, not resolve, wars. As long as one EU member can hold Ukraine policy hostage, Brussels is reproducing the same design error on a smaller scale.
The UN: “special responsibility” without accountability
At the global level, the same pattern plays out in a larger format. The UN Charter gives the five permanent members of the Security Council—the US, Russia, China, France and the UK—“primary responsibility” for the maintenance of international peace and security, while Article 27 grants them a veto over all substantive decisions. Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly vetoed resolutions condemning its invasion and attempted annexation of Ukrainian territory or enabling stronger measures in response. A belligerent state can thus shield itself from collective action—an open contradiction between the Charter’s peace mandate and its institutional design. Legally, the Charter remains in force; politically, its legitimacy erodes every time a permanent member uses the veto to protect its own war
Ukraine as a case study of an order that does not protect
Ukraine concentrates all these contradictions in one case. A state that gave up its nuclear arsenal and signed onto the nuclear order as a non‑weapon state is now asked to negotiate over its sovereignty and territory in Geneva, under pressure from a veto power aggressor and a US leadership focused on a quick, low‑cost deal. Its military and fiscal survival depends on two actors that pursue their own agendas: a United States that wants “peace by summer,” and a European Union that wants to pay but finds itself blocked by one of its own members. In the moment when enough states say “this order does not protect us,” the veto loses real weight—not because it is formally abolished, but because political acceptance collapses. Ukraine is the clearest warning sign that this point is getting closer: a Security Council that cannot stop aggression and an EU trapped in its unanimity rule undermine the credibility of the very rules they claim to defend.
