On Sunday I was in the square in Milan for the pro-Ukraine demonstration. It was not one of those ideological squares, full of prefabricated buzzwords. There was something simpler and more serious in the air.

There were Ukrainian families with children on their shoulders. Boys a little older than me with the blue and yellow flag tied like a cape. People who live here, work here, but who look at their phones every day anxiously for news from home. I spoke to those who have friends at the front. With those who have lost relatives under the bombs. With those who do not know if their city still exists as it was.

Yet I saw no hatred. I saw a calm determination. A very un-European thing, after all: an awareness that freedom is not free.

The war called by its name

There is one thing that always strikes me: the difficulty we have in calling this war what it is. It is not a ‘crisis’, it is not a ‘tension’, it is not a ‘complex situation’.

It is aninvasion. It is an authoritarian regime that has decided to erase the independence of a sovereign state. It is Vladimir Putin trying to redefine borders by force, in the heart of Europe.

And within this invasion there is everything: cities destroyed, civilian infrastructure systematically hit, children kidnapped and deported to Russia. Not as an accident, but as a strategy. This is the reality.

Continuing to sweeten it to feel more balanced does not make it any less brutal.

The European temptation of moral neutrality

In Italy and Europe I often see a position that presents itself as ‘moderate’ but which in reality is a form of comfortable distance. ‘Peace is needed’, they say. Of course peace is needed. But peace under what conditions?

If peace means that Ukraine must accept losing territory under military occupation, then we are not talking about peace. We are talking about surrender.

Those who call themselves liberals cannot pretend that freedom and sovereignty are negotiable concepts when they become inconvenient. We cannot be Atlanticists when it suits us and suddenly equidistant when the pressure mounts.

Aid yes. But not only

It is right to talk about humanitarian aid. It is right to support reconstruction. It is right to welcome those fleeing war. But it would be hypocritical to stop there.

A country under attack first of all needs to defend itself. Weapons, defence systems, logistical support, coordination with allies. It is not taboo to say this. It is the minimum condition for diplomacy to make sense.

20th century European history should have taught us something: when aggression meets no resistance, it expands.

The West in front of the mirror

The feeling I had coming home on Sunday was that this war is also a test for us. To see if the West is still a political community or just an economic space.

The United States remains, like it or not, the lynchpin of the free world’s security. NATO is not a relic, it is a concrete guarantee. Europe must decide whether it wants to be a serious actor or a concerned observer.

This is not about romanticising war. It is about recognising that democracy does not defend itself.

In the square in Milan I saw a people that does not give up. The least we can do is not give up first, in public debate, in political choices, in strategic decisions.

Supporting Ukraine today is not a symbolic gesture. It is a field choice. And field choices, in history, have always had a price.