The meeting of her allies Ukrainian at the US base in Ramstein, Germany, on Friday is likely to be a turning point not only in the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war, but also for Europe’s place on the global geopolitical map of the next day. The most important development was the adoption of large packages of additional military aid to Ukraine, including purely offensive weapons and even heavy tanks. The British have already announced they will send the Challenger ship, while several of the 13 European countries with German Leopard tanks are preparing for similar moves. And this despite the fact that Germany resisted intense pressure from the Americans and other allies, as a result of which no clear decision was reached at the meeting in Ramstein.

The increase in Ukraine’s offensive capabilities threatens to blow up the last bridges of a possible Western compromise with the Kremlin, bringing matters to a point of no return. However, this will not be a bolt from the blue. Over the 11 months of the Russian invasion, the Westerners gradually overcame all their initial taboos about equipping Ukraine, trampling almost all of Moscow’s alleged “red lines” one by one (funny terminology: the “red lines” they define each one are based on the corresponding balance of forces and are not carved on the stone of Moses but on the sand of the sea, ready to be carried away by the unpredictable waves of History). At first, the West gave the Ukrainians purely defensive weapons, such as Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which allowed them to put up strong resistance but not seek to defeat the Russians. The prevailing opinion at the time, or at least what was said publicly, was that direct conflict between NATO and Russia should be avoided at all costs.

We are light years away from that time. The Americans were the first to cross the Rubicon, supplying the Ukrainians with HIMARS missiles with a range of 80 kilometers, which played a catalytic role in pushing the Russians out of Kharkov and recapturing Kherson. This was followed by the delivery to Kyiv of promising Patriot air defense systems and light armored vehicles of the ground forces – the American Bradley, the French AMX and the German Marder. But the delivery of heavy tanks, such as the German “Leopard” and the British “Challenger” (and maybe tomorrow the French “Leclerc” and the American “Abrams”), will be a qualitative leap. In fact, it is possible that we are only at the beginning of the journey. The Ukrainians are already urgently asking for fighter jets, the German Tornado being the first in line, and even more powerful artillery systems, such as American ATACMS missiles with a range of 300 kilometers, with which they could attack even in the Crimea.

Since the beginning of the war, Westerners have been divided over the timing of its end. Part of the Europeans, led by the Germans and the French, was looking for a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv (until recently, Emmanuel Macron emphasized that “we must not humiliate Russia”), which would ultimately allow normalization of relations between Europe and Moscow. This, of course, was not because they sympathized with Putin, but because they championed the special interests of their countries and shared the assessment that the Europeans would pay the price and the Americans would reap the profits for the permanent rivalry between the West and Russia. However, the US, the UK and their allies in Northern and Eastern Europe pursued an absolutely uncompromising line from the very beginning, pushing the Ukrainians to fight to the end for the humiliating defeat of the Russian military, in order to overthrow Putin and discipline Russia. The meeting at Rammstein showed which way the plastiga would go.

The official US rationale for the need to strengthen Ukraine with offensive weapons is that Vladimir Putin is preparing for a risky flight forward, for a new, large-scale attack, possibly on Kyiv next spring. Of course, this implies large-scale movements of Russian troops (such as large Belarusian universities took place last year), which certainly will not go unnoticed by American satellites. In any case, despite the many failures in the Russian military campaign, its capabilities cannot be underestimated.

An additional military aid package that includes purely offensive weapons threatens to blow up the last bridges to a possible Western compromise with the Kremlin.

As American professor Barry Rosen notes in Foreign Affairs, after the painful blows received in Kharkov and Kherson, the Russian army is successfully regrouping. His retreat from the two cities was organized and without great losses, his defensive lines were thickened, as the line of contact was reduced from 1000 to 500 miles, and the losses of the two belligerents are on the order of 1 to 1, which favors the stronger. Despite adverse winter conditions, the Russian army is making limited progress in the Donbass, capturing the small town of Soledar and several villages, and is on the doorstep of the larger town of Bakhmut.

In this way, the Russians pin down the most elite Ukrainian forces in the eastern provinces, putting a stop to their plans to continue their counter-offensive on the southern front, mainly in Zaporozhye. As Der Spiegel magazine reported yesterday, the German intelligence service BND, at a closed meeting of the parliamentary committee, expressed concern about the heavy losses of Ukrainians in the battle for Bakhmut, which are daily triple-digit numbers. Moreover, contrary to Ukrainian and American media literature that downplays the importance of this particular battle, the BND believes that the eventual fall of Bakhmut could open the way for the Russians to move faster into other, larger cities of Donetsk.

In the meantime, although Europe is in an energy crisis because General Winter did not play into Putin’s hands, the uncontrolled wave of precision, reinforced by the war, will continue to undermine the stability of powerful Western governments for the foreseeable future. Unrelated to all of this should be the Washington Post’s revelation that CIA director William Burns recently visited Kyiv, where he stressed to Zelensky that American aid should not be taken for granted indefinitely, especially since the House of Representatives is now controlled by the most inconvenient Republicans.

At the same time, Vladimir Putin opened a window for possible reconciliation by hinting in a speech on the anniversary of the lifting of the blockade of Leningrad that Russia’s goals were limited to control of the Russian-speaking Donbas. The landscape in the fog, with the next few months faded decisive.