# EDITORIAL: The West Must Remain the Center of the World: Lesson from Kyiv's Night

> On June 25, 2026, shortly before 9 p.m., ballistic missile alert sirens wailed across the sky of Kyiv. Russian Iskander-M missiles were streaking toward the Ukrainian capital. Fragments struck a warehouse in the Darnytskyi district, triggering a fire. Two people were wounded. An hour later, another alert — another wave. In Kremenchuk, in Poltava oblast, more explosions. And to

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Editorial
- Published: 2026-06-28
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/editorial-l-occident-doit-rester-le-centre-du-monde-lecon-de-la-nuit-de-kyiv

## Key takeaways

- On June 25, 2026, Russian Iskander-M missiles struck a warehouse in Kyiv's Darnytskyi district, wounding two people, with further alerts and explosions in Kremenchuk and as far west as Rivne.
- The author defines "the center of the world" as a system of values such as representative democracy, the rule of law and international law, not geographic or cultural domination.
- He identifies Russia, China and Iran as authoritarian challengers to the Western order, and treats Ukraine as the key test of the post-1945 legacy.
- He describes Trump as a "necessary evil" whose support for Ukraine is useful under conditions, and calls on Europe to move toward strategic autonomy and a 5 percent of GDP defense target.
- The author frames the NATO Ankara summit (July 7-8, 2026) as a moment to show Western credibility, and states that he is writing a deliberately partial opinion piece.

## Introduction: In Kyiv's sky, at 9 p.m., the fundamental question

### June 25, 2026, evening: the sirens that ask an existential question

On **June 25, 2026**, shortly before **9 p.m.**, ballistic missile alert sirens wailed across the sky of **Kyiv**. Russian **Iskander-M missiles** were streaking toward the Ukrainian capital. Fragments struck a warehouse in the **Darnytskyi** district, triggering a fire. Two people were wounded. An hour later, another alert — another wave. In **Kremenchuk**, in **Poltava** oblast, more explosions. And to the **west**, as far as **Rivne**, alerts activated in regions that seemed, only a few years ago, safely beyond the reach of the threat.

That night, while Ukrainians descended into shelters, while firefighters battled the flames in Darnytskyi, while **Patriot** missile crews activated their systems to intercept Russian ballistics — that night, one question crossed Kyiv's sky: **Will the West still be there tomorrow? The day after? In ten years?** This is not a rhetorical question. It is the most urgent question of our time.

### Two wounded in Darnytskyi, but a deeper wound

Two wounded. One warehouse in flames. The toll of **June 25, 2026** in **Kyiv** is relatively modest compared to the war's deadliest strikes — such as the attack on **June 15, 2026**, less than two weeks earlier, which killed five people in Kyiv and left the **Kyiv-Petchersk Lavra** in flames. But every ballistic strike on Kyiv inflicts a wound that goes far beyond material damage: it tests Ukrainian resilience, the robustness of the air defense systems fueled by **PURL**, and the West's determination to maintain its commitment.

That evening in Kyiv, the West was present in the form of **PAC-3** missiles purchased through the **PURL** mechanism, Patriot systems delivered by **Germany** and the **United States**, and technicians trained at **NATO** centers. These concrete presences made it possible to intercept some of the ballistics. But the deeper wound — the doubt about the sustainability of that engagement — cannot be treated by interceptor missiles. It calls for a political, moral, ideological response. That is the subject of this editorial.

*I want to be honest: this editorial is personal. What I am about to write is not cold analysis — it is a deep conviction forged by four years of observing this war and what it reveals about the forces shaping our world. I believe the West must remain the center of the world — not out of chauvinism, but because the alternatives are terrifying. I am going to explain why.*

## What "the center of the world" truly means

### Not a geographical center, but a center of values

When I say the **West** must remain the center of the world, I am not talking about geography. I am not talking about ethnic or cultural domination. I am not claiming that everything the West has done throughout its history deserves to be defended — there are dark pages we must honestly acknowledge. What I am talking about is a system of values — **representative democracy**, the **rule of law**, **freedom of expression**, **protection of individual rights**, **international law** — that the West, imperfectly but genuinely, embodies and defends.

This system of values is not a Western monopoly — democracies like **South Korea**, **Japan**, **Taiwan**, **India**, and **Botswana** embody it in their own way. But the institutional core of this system — military alliances, economic institutions, international courts, norms of conduct between states — was built, maintained, and defended primarily by **America** and **Europe** since **1945**. It is this order that is now being challenged, and it is the defense of this order that I advocate.

### The challengers of the Western order: who they are, what they want

The challengers of the Western order are multiple and different, but they share one essential characteristic: they are authoritarian regimes that see the liberal international order as an obstacle to their internal power and regional ambitions. **Putin's Russia** rejects the idea that Ukraine has the right to exist as a sovereign state freely choosing its geopolitical orientation. **Xi's China** rejects the idea that Taiwan — a functioning democracy of **23 million** people — can exist outside Beijing's control. **The ayatollahs' Iran** rejects the idea of a Middle East where neighboring states coexist without being under Iranian influence.

These regimes do not want to modify the Western order — they want to destroy it, or at minimum free themselves from it entirely. A world in which Russia reconquers Ukraine, China absorbs Taiwan, and Iran dominates the Middle East would be a radically different world — one in which billions of people would live under forms of authoritarianism that the West had, until now, managed to contain. This prospect is not hypothetical — it is explicitly declared in **Putin**'s speeches, in **Xi**'s published strategies, and in **Khamenei**'s rhetoric.

*I know that this framing — Russia, China, Iran as an "axis of authoritarianism" — can seem Manichean. I prefer honesty over sophistication. These three regimes actively support Russia's war against Ukraine, are developing military cooperation, and share a vision of the world in which force takes precedence over law. If that is not an alliance, it is at minimum a convergence of interests directed against the same order I am defending. That needs to be named.*

## Kyiv's night as a test of Western determination

### The PAC-3 missiles: Western solidarity made concrete

Every **PAC-3** missile that intercepts an **Iskander** over **Kyiv** is a physical demonstration of Western solidarity. Behind that missile: **Raytheon** engineers in Tucson, German taxpayers who funded its purchase through **PURL**, Ukrainian technicians trained at **NATO** bases, diplomats who negotiated the transfers, governments that maintained their commitments despite domestic pressure. This chain of solidarity is real. It saves lives every night.

But this chain is fragile. It depends on governments that can change course with every election. It depends on institutional mechanisms like **PURL** that can be dismantled if political will erodes. It depends on a Western public sufficiently informed and mobilized to maintain pressure on its elected representatives. And it depends on a coherent narrative about why Ukraine deserves to be defended — not just out of abstract generosity, but out of a real strategic interest and an uncompromising moral principle.

### The June 25 strike in context: a calculated escalation

The **June 25, 2026** strike on **Kyiv** was not random. It fits a pattern of escalation that **Moscow** deliberately maintains: keeping pressure on Kyiv to exhaust Ukrainian interceptor missiles, testing Western reactions, and sending the signal that Russia can strike the Ukrainian capital at will. Less than two weeks before, on **June 15, 2026**, a far deadlier strike had killed five people in Kyiv and damaged the **Kyiv-Petchersk Lavra** — a millennial Orthodox monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Striking Ukrainian religious and cultural heritage is also striking national identity — telling Ukrainians that their culture, their history, their collective life do not deserve to exist. This is a dimension of the war that statistics do not capture but that weighs heavily on the population's determination to resist. And it is an additional reason why the West cannot look upon these strikes as mere military events — they are attacks on civilization as such.

*The Kyiv-Petchersk Lavra in flames. That 11th-century monastery, a World Heritage site, burning because of a Russian strike. If that image is not enough to convince that something important is happening — something that transcends cold geopolitical calculations — I do not know what to add. There are moments when civilizations must choose their side. That moment was one of them.*

## The legacy of 1945: why the liberal international order deserves to be defended

### The pre-1945 world and its horrors

To understand the value of the international order built after **1945**, we must remember what the world was like before. A world where great powers freely attacked one another, where borders could be redrawn by force, where national minorities could be expelled or exterminated without any international mechanism to stop it. That world produced two world wars and **100 million deaths** in the **twentieth century** alone.

The order built after **1945** — with the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, international humanitarian law, the International Criminal Court — is not perfect. It has been violated many times, including by Western democracies. But it has produced **80 years** without direct war between great powers. It contributed to decolonization, the spread of democracy, and the spectacular reduction of global poverty. This imperfect record is incomparably superior to any alternative proposed by the authoritarian regimes contesting it.

### Ukraine as the test of this legacy

The war in **Ukraine** is the most serious test of this legacy since the end of the Cold War. If Russia manages to seize by force a territory of **50,000 km²** from a sovereign country and keep it, the message is clear: Article 2(4) of the UN Charter — the prohibition on the use of force to settle territorial disputes — is no longer an effective rule. It becomes nothing more than wishful thinking.

This precedent would have immediate global consequences. **Beijing** would observe that forcibly taking **Taiwan** produces a manageable level of international resistance. Countries with territorial claims on smaller neighbors would draw their own conclusions. The international order does not collapse all at once — it erodes, precedent by precedent, until it exists only on paper. Defending Ukraine is therefore not merely an act of humanitarian solidarity — it is a defense of the legal and political architecture of the world we all inhabit.

*I will say something unpopular: defending Ukraine is not just philanthropy. It is pure enlightened self-interest. A world in which Russia wins would be a less safe world for every one of us — for the French, the Canadians, the Japanese, the Brazilians. The altruistic argument is true, but the self-interest argument is even more powerful. Putin will not offer us any gifts if we abandon Ukraine.*

## Trump, the necessary evil, and the conditions of his usefulness

### Why America remains indispensable

I maintain my position on **Trump**: he is a necessary evil for the West. His brutal and unpredictable approach to international politics is uncomfortable, sometimes outright dangerous. But facing the Russia-China-Iran triumvirate, an imperfectly led America under Trump is incomparably preferable to an absent America or an America retreating into isolationism that would cede the field to the adversaries of the liberal order.

The evidence is in the facts: despite all its ambivalences, the **Trump** administration maintained the **PURL** mechanism, which provides **90 percent** of Ukrainian air defense missiles. It maintained sanctions against Russia, even if their enforcement is sometimes patchy. It did not abandon American commitments to NATO, even if it conditioned some of them on increased financial contributions from allies. These imperfect actions are better than total inaction.

### The conditions under which Trump is useful

But **Trump**'s usefulness has conditions. He is useful when European pressure is sufficient to keep him within the boundaries of necessary engagement. He is useful when his most capable advisors manage to steer him toward strategically coherent decisions. He is useful when his "deals" rhetoric produces real concessions from adversaries rather than real capitulations from allies.

He becomes dangerous when his indulgence toward **Putin** — visible in some of his statements — translates into concrete policies of reduced support for Ukraine. He becomes dangerous when his obsession with reducing the American military presence in **Europe** sends Moscow signals of opportunity. He becomes dangerous when his ambiguity on **Taiwan** encourages **Beijing** to test the limits of the American response. Keeping Trump in the camp of defending the Western order, while compensating for his excesses, is the most delicate task of current European diplomacy.

*Trump is the political equivalent of a fire lit in the dining room: necessary for warmth, but extremely dangerous if you do not pay close attention. Europe must be the adult in the room — maintaining the useful flames, extinguishing the fires, and never falling asleep. It is exhausting. But the alternative — abandoning the room and leaving the fire unattended — is far worse.*

## Europe must wake up: from dependence to strategic autonomy

### Dependence as existential vulnerability

The most important lesson of these four years of war in Ukraine for **Europe** may be the hardest to admit: **Europe** has been dangerously dependent on America for its own security, and that dependence was a risky bet that could have proved fatal. When **Trump** signaled, upon his return to power in **2025**, that American contributions to European defense might become conditional, the entire European security architecture built since **1945** suddenly seemed far less solid than it had been.

Fortunately, **Europe** has begun — only begun — to react. The commitment to spend **5 percent of GDP** on defense by **2035** (with a minimum of **3.5 percent** for strictly military spending) is a radical departure from the years of peace dividends. The **PURL** mechanism demonstrated that Europeans can fund collective defense in a coordinated manner. The permanent German brigade in **Lithuania**, the massive Nordic and Baltic investments — all of this represents a genuine strategic awakening, even if it is still insufficient.

### 5 percent of GDP on defense: necessary but not sufficient

The **5 percent of GDP** defense target is necessary, but it will not alone create the European strategic autonomy Europe needs. It also requires a rationalization of European defense industries — too fragmented, too duplicated, too poorly integrated to produce economies of scale. It requires joint development programs for next-generation equipment — air defense systems, drones, electronic warfare — to reduce dependence on American technologies. And it requires a shared strategic culture — a common understanding of threats, priorities, and red lines — that is still sorely lacking in a Europe divided between Eastern hawks and Western advocates of good-neighbor policies.

**Ukraine** itself, when the war is over, will be a major strategic asset for Europe — with a battle-hardened army, an innovative defense industry, and an understanding of modern warfare that few other European countries possess. Integrating Ukraine into European structures — economic and security — is not only an act of solidarity toward a country that has suffered: it is a strategic investment in Europe's collective capacity to face future threats.

*A strategically autonomous Europe — capable of defending itself without total dependence on Washington — has remained an unfinished project since de Gaulle proposed it 60 years ago. Russia's aggression in Ukraine has finally created the conditions of urgency that could make it a reality. Let us seize this moment. It may not present itself twice.*

## Putin's Russia: understanding without excusing

### The deep causes of Russian aggression

To effectively defend the West against **Putin**'s Russia, we must understand it without ever excusing it. Contemporary Russia is a regime that needs an external enemy to legitimize its internal concentration of power. **Putin** transformed Russia's nascent post-Soviet democracy into a personalized autocracy by constantly projecting external threats — NATO "encircling" Russia, the West "wanting to destroy" Russia. These narratives are not genuinely believed — they are deliberately constructed and maintained.

The real reason for the aggression against **Ukraine** is not the NATO threat — it is that a free and democratic Ukraine was an existential demonstration that the Russian model is not inevitable. A Slavic, Orthodox, partly Russian-speaking people could choose democracy and freedom. That demonstration was intolerable to Putin — it meant that Russians too might one day make that choice. It is to suppress that demonstration that he launched his invasion — not to protect Russia from a phantom military threat.

### Why a free Ukraine is a threat to Putin — and a chance for Russia

A **free Ukraine** is not a threat to the Russian people — it is a chance. A flourishing democracy on Russia's doorstep could, one day, inspire enough Russians to demand the same rights. This scenario is precisely what **Putin** fears most — not a **NATO** military invasion, but democratic contagion through the Ukrainian example.

That is why defending Ukraine is not only in the interest of Ukrainians and Westerners — it is also in the long-term interest of the Russian people. A Russia freed from **Putin**, reconciled with its neighbors, integrated into global economic and diplomatic structures, would be a more prosperous, freer, and less dangerous country for its own citizens. This is a horizon that seems distant today — but it is not impossible if the West maintains its values and determination.

*I still nurture the hope of a democratic Russia. Not tomorrow — the conditions are not there. But in a generation, if Ukrainians succeed in defending their democracy, if Putin disappears from the political scene, if economic sanctions continue to dig their furrow, perhaps Russians will find their own path toward freedom. That is not naive — it is historically documented. Look at what happened in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989.*

## China and the Taiwan question: the next test

### The Chinese challenge: different but analogous

The challenge **China** poses to the Western order is different from Russia's in its forms, but analogous in its fundamental ambitions. China is not a declining state nostalgically seeking to restore lost greatness — it is a rising power that wants to reshape the world order in favor of its own vision. And that vision is incompatible with democratic principles and the freedom of peoples to choose their own government.

The question of **Taiwan** is the most direct test of this ambition. If **Beijing** manages to absorb Taiwan — by force or by progressive coercion — it will demonstrate that democracies of twenty million inhabitants can be crushed by authoritarian regimes if those regimes are sufficiently determined and the West is sufficiently ambiguous in its response. The **CCG** patrols east of Taiwan in June **2026** are precisely this type of test — and the Western response must be equal to the challenge.

### The axis of aggressors: a strategic reality

Analysts at the **Foundation for Defense of Democracies** published in June **2026** a book titled **Axis of Aggressors** on Russia-North Korea cooperation. This title captures something true: it is not only Russia that the West confronts in Ukraine — it is a group of authoritarian regimes that mutually support each other in their resistance to the liberal international order. Russia receives North Korean ammunition and Iranian components. North Korea receives Russian military technologies. China diplomatically and economically supports all members of this axis.

Against this axis, the West must maintain and strengthen its own alliances — not only military but political, economic, and technological. **NATO**, the **G7**, the Indo-Pacific partnerships with **Japan**, **Australia**, and **South Korea** — these structures are the foundations on which the response to the axis of aggressors must be built. The **Ankara** summit on **July 7-8, 2026** is an opportunity to demonstrate that this broader West is capable of mobilizing at the necessary level.

*The Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis is not an invention of Western paranoia. It is documented: North Korean weapons in Ukraine, Iranian drones likewise, China circumventing sanctions, regular Putin-Xi dialogue on "multipolarity" — meaning a world in which the West no longer leads. Against this coalition, the response cannot be ambiguous or conditional. It must be firm, consistent, and long-term.*

## Kyiv's night and us: a question of the mirror

### What would we see if we were in Kyiv that night?

I want to return to the night of **June 25, 2026**. Imagine yourself in an apartment in **Darnytskyi** at 9 p.m. The sirens sound. You know that ballistic missiles are incoming — missiles capable of destroying an entire building. You descend into the shelter with your children. Outside, the **Patriot** systems activate — funded in part by Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, and Germans who collectively decided that your life is worth defending. One missile is intercepted. Another gets through — its debris ignites a fire a few streets away.

This scenario is not a metaphor — it is a daily reality for millions of Ukrainians for more than four years. They live in a permanent uncertainty that few Westerners can truly imagine. And they continue — working, educating their children, resisting, asking the West for reinforcements. Their determination is a mirror in which we should look: are we equal to what they show us?

### What Kyiv's night tells us about who we are

The way **the West** responds to Kyiv's nights says something essential about who we are — not who we claim to be, but who we truly are. If we maintain our commitment with constancy and generosity, we demonstrate that our values are not drawing-room rhetoric but principles for which we are prepared to pay a real price. If we hedge, if we seek compromises that sacrifice Ukrainian sovereignty for short-term comfort, we reveal that our values stop where our immediate interest begins.

This is not an accusation — it is a question. Every democracy, every government, every citizen can ask it honestly. The **West**'s collective response to this war will be one of the most significant markers of our era. It will tell future generations what we chose when the order our parents built after **1945** was put to the test.

*I have no definitive answer to the question: is the West equal to the challenge? Some days, when I see the contributions to the PURL mechanism and the billions mobilized, I think yes. Other days, when I see the hesitations, the American ambivalences, the European equivocations, I am no longer sure. What I know is that we cannot afford to fail this test. Kyiv's nights depend on the answer.*

## Reconstruction: after the war, an even deeper commitment

### Ukraine's reconstruction as a civilizational project

Defending Ukraine also means committing to rebuild it. The **World Bank** estimated at the end of **2025** that reconstruction would require more than **$500 billion** over several decades. That is a colossal investment — but also a historic opportunity. Rebuilding Ukraine to European standards, integrating its industries into European value chains, developing its technological and defensive capabilities: all of this would transform Ukraine into a major actor in European security and economics.

This long-term vision is inseparable from short-term defense. We cannot defend Ukraine without intending to rebuild it. We cannot ask it to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives for its freedom without committing to guarantee it a worthy peace after victory. The West, if it wants to remain the center of the world — a center of values, not domination — must assume this long-term responsibility.

### The lesson of Kyiv's night for the future

The night of **June 25, 2026** in **Kyiv** will be forgotten by most of us within a few weeks. There will be other nights, other strikes, other tallies. But what this night represents — the determination of a people to defend its freedom, supported by the imperfect but real solidarity of the West — is something we must keep present in our collective consciousness.

The **West** must remain the center of the world — not because we are superior to others, but because the values we carry — freedom, democracy, rule of law, human dignity — are universal and worth defending wherever they are threatened. Kyiv's night is our night too. And if we stop hearing it as such, we will have lost something essential — well before Putin prevails.

*I end this editorial as I began it: with a conviction, not a certainty. We do not know whether the West will remain the center of the world. We only know that if we do not make the necessary choices now — defending Ukraine, investing in our own defense, resisting the temptation to compromise with authoritarian regimes — we will have no one but ourselves to blame for what comes next.*

## The NATO Ankara summit: the rendez-vous of determination

### What the summit must produce

The **NATO summit in Ankara** on **July 7 and 8, 2026** is the next moment when words must turn into action. This summit must produce substantial financial commitments through **PURL** for the missiles Ukraine needs. It must lay concrete milestones toward the **5 percent of GDP** defense target — with timelines, verification mechanisms, and consequences for laggards. It must send a clear message to **Moscow** that Western determination is intact and intensifying, and to **Beijing** that provocations in the Taiwan Strait will not go unnoticed.

It must also — and this may be the hardest — engage in an honest conversation about long-term security guarantees for Ukraine. What a potential ceasefire will mean for Ukrainian security. What NATO is prepared to promise — and deliver. These conversations are uncomfortable because they require making concrete commitments that bind future governments. But they are indispensable if any eventual peace is to be lasting.

### NATO in 20 years: projection of a present choice

In **20 years**, **NATO** will be either a militarily stronger, more coherent alliance capable of deterring and defending its members and partners against high-intensity threats — or an institutional shell whose credibility will have been definitively eroded by decades of conditional engagement and insufficient contributions. The choice between these two trajectories is being made now, in defense budget decisions, in PURL commitments, in firm and consistent political declarations in the face of Russian and Chinese provocations.

Kyiv's night is part of that trajectory. Every missile intercepted over the Darnytskyi district is a choice — the choice of an Alliance that decides to keep its promises. Every refusal to increase PURL contributions, every delay in delivering air defense systems, every signal of ambivalence sent to Moscow is the other choice — that of letting the Alliance hollow out from the inside. **NATO** will be what we make of it. And we will make of it what we choose to be.

*The Alliance is only as strong as the political will of its least determined members. Every summit, every commitment, every weapons delivery is a vote for collective credibility. I vote for credibility. I think most Europeans do too, when the stakes are truly explained to them. The problem is that politicians rarely explain the stakes with enough clarity — and voters can only choose what they understand.*

## Ukraine as a demonstration of values: what Zelensky embodies

### Zelensky, symbol of democratic resistance

**Volodymyr Zelensky** has become, since February 24, 2022, the most powerful face of democratic resistance in the contemporary world. His decision to remain in Kyiv when everyone expected him to flee — his **video message** filmed from the streets of the capital under the threat of **Russian tanks** — changed the course of the war. He demonstrated that **political will** can be a real force multiplier. And that demonstration galvanized Western support that, without his presence, might have hesitated even longer.

What Zelensky embodies goes beyond his person. He represents the living demonstration that a **democracy under attack** can choose to defend itself rather than capitulate, that a leader can choose truth over flight, and that a people can find in its freedom a reason to resist a **power incomparably greater than itself**. This message extends far beyond Ukraine's borders — it is universal, and peoples around the world, from Taiwan to **Estonia**, have taken its measure.

### Kyiv's voice in international diplomacy

Zelensky also reinvented wartime diplomacy. His speeches before the **US Congress**, before the **European Parliament**, before the Israeli **Knesset** — adapted to each audience with rare political intelligence — maintained pressure on Western leaders at moments when war fatigue threatened to take hold. In June **2026**, his proposal of a **negotiating window open until winter** and his **40-day influence operation** demonstrate that his diplomatic sophistication has continued to sharpen through years of war.

This Ukrainian voice in international diplomacy is precious far beyond the conflict itself. It demonstrates to peoples under authoritarian regimes that democracy is not a weakness — it is a strength. It proves to regimes banking on Western fatigue and compromise that democracies can maintain their determination. And it reminds Western allies that every decision to reduce or delay their support has concrete human consequences in the streets of **Darnytskyi** and **Kremenchuk**.

*I admit it: Zelensky surprised me. I did not expect a former comedian to have the stature of a historic leader. That surprise reminds me of a lesson in humility: crises reveal men, they do not manufacture them. He was already there, within him. The war simply made that potential visible. And we have all benefited from it.*

## The human cost: what the numbers do not say

### The **civilian toll** and **Ukrainian resistance**

Behind the strategic analyses, technological assessments, and diplomatic discussions lie human beings living this war daily. The **two wounded in Darnytskyi** on June 25, 2026 are two among tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians wounded since the start of the full-scale invasion. Every Russian ballistic strike on **Kyiv**, every missile that hits **Zaporizhzhia** or **Kremenchuk**, every drone that crashes into a residential neighborhood represents a human trauma that statistics do not fully capture.

This human cost is the primary reality of this war — before geopolitical calculations, before air defense analyses, before discussions about **Flamingo drones** and **Pantsir systems**. Families separated, children growing up in shelters, cities that have lost their cultural heritage, men and women who have been fighting far from home for more than four years. **Ukraine** is paying a price that few other Western nations have had to pay since **1945**. That price deserves to be named every time someone speaks of "war fatigue" in the West.

### Psychological resilience as a strategic factor

And yet, despite this immense human cost, Ukrainian resilience indicators remain remarkably high. Regular polls show that the majority of Ukrainians want to keep fighting rather than accept a peace that cedes territory to Russia. This collective will — forged in suffering but genuine — is a real strategic factor. A people fighting for its **survival** and its **freedom** is an **incomparably more formidable adversary** than an army fighting for the **ambitions of a dictator**.

**Putin** committed a fundamental analytical error in believing Ukraine would fold quickly. He had not measured the depth of **Ukrainian national identity** — forged precisely by centuries of resistance to Russian domination. That identity is Ukraine's most inexhaustible resource in this war. Defending it — recognizing it, supporting it, providing the tools for it to survive — is the most fundamental responsibility of the **West** in this conflict.

*I do not want to forget the human cost behind the strategic analyses. Every strike on Kyiv is a devastated family, a traumatized child, a life interrupted. That real cost, invisible in the Excel spreadsheets of military aid, is the fundamental reason why this struggle deserves to be supported. Not out of sentimentality — out of basic human justice.*

## The war's legacy for global democracy: what will history remember?

### The present moment in the long arc of history

In a century, historians will analyze the Russo-Ukrainian war as we analyze the **First World War** or the **Second** today — with the hindsight that allows us to see the deep dynamics that contemporaries do not always perceive clearly. That hindsight is not available to us. We live within the thickness of events, with their uncertainties, contradictions, and contingencies. But some deep trends already seem sufficiently clear to deserve naming.

This war has demonstrated that **democracy** can resist authoritarian aggression when it has the will and the means. It has demonstrated that international solidarity between democracies can be stronger and more durable than autocrats calculate. It has produced a military **drone** revolution whose implications will transform the defense of all democracies in the decades ahead. And it has brutally recalled that peace does not maintain itself — it requires a constant effort, permanent vigilance, and a willingness to pay a real cost to defend the values that underpin it.

### What the West must retain for future challenges

The challenges the **West** will face after the Ukrainian war will likely be more numerous, not fewer. **China** is testing its coercive capabilities against **Taiwan**. **North Korea**'s **Kim Jong-un** is accelerating his nuclear program and developing increasingly sophisticated ballistic capabilities with Russian assistance. **Iran**, even in a context of negotiations with the United States, is not abandoning its regional ambitions. The threat is not diminishing — it is shifting and growing more complex.

The core lesson is simple: **deterrence works** when it is **credible**, **consistent**, and **collective**. **NATO** at the **Ankara** summit on **July 7-8, 2026** has the opportunity to demonstrate that this credibility is intact. The **5 percent of GDP** defense commitments, the deliveries of systems to Ukraine, the reinforced military presence on the Eastern flank — all of this sends a message that the adversaries of the liberal Western order must hear clearly: the West is not in decline, it is in **strategic renaissance**.

*I am a columnist, not a prophet. I do not know if the West will succeed in this challenge. I know that the conditions for success exist: the technologies, the economic resources, the alliances, the democratic will. What is sometimes lacking is the **clarity of diagnosis** and the **political will** to act. This editorial is a modest contribution to clarity. The rest belongs to decision-makers — and to the citizens who elect them.*

## Conclusion: Kyiv's night is not their night — it is ours too

### The lesson that Kyiv's night teaches us

The night of **June 25, 2026** in Kyiv teaches us several things. It teaches us that Putin's Russia will not stop on its own — it will stop when the costs become unacceptable, whether militarily, economically, or politically. It teaches us that defending freedom is not an acquired state — it requires constant effort, real financial commitment, and political will that resists pressures and the temptations of short-term compromise. And it teaches us that Ukraine is not fighting alone — that a coalition of democracies has decided, imperfectly but resolutely, to stand by its side.

What we decide to do with these lessons — to retain them, act on them, or forget them the moment the next crisis diverts our attention — will determine the future of the international order. That is not an exaggeration. It is the bare truth, without diplomatic ornament. The **West** must remain the center of the world — not out of arrogance, but out of responsibility toward the values it has built and that it alone, today, is positioned to defend on a global scale.

### The conviction that guides this editorial

I end this editorial with the same conviction that opened it: the **West** must remain the center of the world. Not eternally dominant — the world changes, and that is good. Not without self-criticism — we have our own demons to combat. But as **guardian of an international order** founded on universal values rather than the law of the strongest. The night of **Kyiv** on June 25, 2026 was an ordinary night in an extraordinary war. And yet it crystallizes everything: Ukrainian determination, imperfect but real Western solidarity, and the immensity of what is at stake. I choose to be on Kyiv's side. Not because it is easy — because it is right.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

*This editorial is a personal conviction I fully own. I do not know how this war will end. I know that a West that abandons its values for the convenience of a compromise with authoritarian regimes no longer deserves to be called the center of anything. I choose the difficulty of the rule of law over the ease of brute force.*

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Kyiv Independent — Russia launches fresh ballistic missile attack against Kyiv — June 25, 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/russia-launches-fresh-ballistic-missile-attack-against-kyiv/)

- [UNN — Missile debris in Darnytskyi district, Kyiv — June 25, 2026](https://unn.ua/en/news/in-the-darnytskyi-district-of-the-capital-rocket-debris-fell-on-an-open-area-klitschko)

- [NATO.int — NATO support for Ukraine: PURL, NSATU, security guarantees — June 2026](https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/partnerships-and-cooperation/natos-support-for-ukraine)

- [Simon Gros — NATO 3.0: rebalancing transatlantic defense — June 21, 2026](https://simongros.org/2026/06/21/nato-3-0-and-the-rebalancing-of-transatlantic-defence-europe-american-force-posture-and-the-return-of-hard-deterrence/)

### Secondary sources

- The Guardian — NATO leaders fear US unreliability if Russia attacks — June 27, 2026

- [Euromaidan Press — Rutte at Ramstein: NATO allies need $60 billion more for Ukraine in 2026 — April 15, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/04/15/rutte-at-ramstein-nato-allies-need-60-billion-more-for-ukraine-in-2026/)

- [UA.News — New funding for Ukrainian air defense through PURL — May 23, 2026](https://ua.news/en/ukraine/u-nato-znaishli-nove-finansuvannia-dlia-ukrayinskoyi-ppo)

- [FDD — Kim accelerates North Korean armament with Russian help: "Axis of Aggressors" — June 25, 2026](https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/06/25/kim-pushes-for-faster-north-korean-defense-buildup-with-russias-help/)

- [UA.News — Zelensky explains how air defense downed a ballistic missile during the Kyiv attack — June 15, 2026](https://ua.news/en/war-vs-rf/zelenskii-poiasniv-iak-ppo-zmogla-zbiti-balistiku-pid-chas-ataki-na-kiyiv)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/editorial-l-occident-doit-rester-le-centre-du-monde-lecon-de-la-nuit-de-kyiv