Between New “Empires”

It begins with a claim no one in the West wants to hear: the idea that NATO and the EU might collapse is no longer a Russian fantasy. It is a tangible possibility — articulated not only by Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, but attributed also to former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov. This is no coincidence. In Budanov, Ukraine’s cybernetic general, and in Surkov, the Kremlin’s cynic, we encounter two visionaries of the post-liberal age.

This war may not be fought solely between ideologies — but is instead giving birth to two opposing state models, both markedly different from Brussels’ conception of order.

The emerging world order is no order at all — it is a jungle, as even former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described it. And that jungle threatens to encroach upon Europe’s “garden”. Yet the Old Continent still clings to the belief that rules can tame violence, that procedure can suspend history. But outside, beyond the façades of Brussels and Berlin, a new era has dawned — one that asks no permission.

Two Forces are Rising

Caught between a crumbling alliance with the United States and a systemic abdication of power within the EU, two forces are rising: more determined, more ruthless, more focused. On one side, a Ukrainian model fusing militarism with markets. On the other, a Russia that has made digital authoritarianism its doctrine of state control — now eyeing a new form of Soviet-style ideology.

Ukraine, long hailed in the West as the frontline of freedom, is transforming — not into a liberal republic, but into a new kind of ethno-national state, led by a war-forged elite. Lacking a solidaristic welfare state, deregulated, with a military increasingly resembling a start-up. All in the name of victory, of national and popular sovereignty. The investors in this transformation came from the West — with handshake deals and business plans — backed by governments that soon revealed themselves to be unreliable. What has emerged is a disguised neoliberalism: swift, efficient, merciless — evident in forced conscription for the army.

This Ukraine is already exerting influence. In Warsaw, Berlin and Riga, politicians speak openly about the necessity of “military capability” — more unity, less debate. War as the catalyst of order. But in truth, what is at stake is the end of the West — the emergence of a new form of nation-state: technologically modern, combat-ready. Absent the ethical universalism once exported as “freedom and democracy”.

A Digital Leviathan

In the East, Russia could present a different vision. Not a nostalgic Soviet Union. Not an Orthodox Tsardom. But something third: a digital Leviathan. Moscow, too, has understood that power functions differently in the digital age — and is now exploring how to export its corresponding state ideology. Not through gulags, but through faces on screens. The citizen is not oppressed — he is managed. Surveillance as a service: algorithms replacing the labour camp.

Moscow’s strategists call it “civilisational sovereignty”. What is meant: the “collective West”, with its liberal reverence for the individual and for freedom, is obsolete. Russia wants to rewrite the rules. In Belgrade, Yerevan, even parts of Romania, one already senses a readiness to follow this model — because it offers order. Belonging. Homeland. And because it knows no guilty conscience.

Memes, Bots, and Data Streams

In the EU, meanwhile, “strategic autonomy” is being invoked — a term that looks good in white papers. But he who controls the cables controls sovereignty. And Europe’s cables run through American clouds, Asian supply chains, and global platforms where today’s wars are fought — not with soldiers, but with memes, bots, and data streams.

What Budanov and Surkov offer is no conspiracy — it could be a diagnosis. The order from which Europe once derived its confidence is history. What replaces it could be not more humane, but more efficient. In Kyiv, war becomes the path to statehood. In Moscow, control becomes normal. And both models work — not because they are just, but because they promise certainty.

Bayraktar Drones, Server Farms, Control Centres

Europe — once the world’s centre — has become a spectator, as drones circle overhead and new borders are drawn. It administers the status quo, blind to the fact that it has already passed. In place of the now-faded triad of Golgotha, the Capitol, and the Acropolis — the archetypes of Europe in the minds of its founding fathers — we now face: Bayraktar drones, server farms, control centres.

The promises of the EU — deeper integration, NATO-backed security, a social welfare state — increasingly ring hollow in the face of internal fractures, American disengagement, and economic frailty, especially in Germany. These realities will force a fundamental reappraisal of the EU’s future. Europe lags behind. In conference rooms. With directives. And with the hope that things will somehow work themselves out. But nothing works itself out anymore. The world now works differently.

Statement

EU-Europe might not be facing war, but rather it could be overtaken. While Kyiv and Moscow shape post-liberal models of statehood — Ukraine as a militarised market state, Russia as a digital autocracy — the EU clings to obsolete norms, mistaking procedure for power. NATO is wavering, the EU adrift, and the call for “strategic autonomy” echoes in American clouds and Chinese supply chains. Kyiv cultivates sovereignty of the nation, Moscow organises obedience. Neither rejects Western liberalism out of ideology, but out of efficiency. This is not the return of empires in the old sense — it is the rise of technopolitical states without conscience. Europe, ensnared in its procedures, watches as history is rewritten — without asking for permission.