re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Europe had been lulled into a post-Cold War/Soviet complacency, which also changed their internal political paradigms: the enemy was thought to be "immigrants inside their countries," rather than anything external, and that led to a rise of far-right nationalists (Le Pen in France, Kaczynski in Poland...) they've been shaken out of that...

Though, as if Poland's hatred of Russia was not enough to fire them up about this, millions of Ukrainian refugees would be an extra bit of Putin screwing their economy.

For years, though, people have projected that with Germany's demographic decline zapping their power Poland would take their place in Central Europe as the leading country, and when the UK exited the EU France would take even more of a leadership role.