One of Europe’s largest security conferences, GLOBSEC Forum 2026, has concluded in Prague. This year, the forum brought together more than 2,000 participants from dozens of countries, including presidents, defence ministers, military officials, diplomats, representatives of NATO and the EU, the defence industry, and civil society.
Among the key speakers were Czech President Petr Pavel, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, as well as former NATO and US military commanders and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
“The main conclusion I drew from this conference and from conversations within the expert community sounds paradoxical: Ukraine is now respected in Europe much more than before, but there is also a dangerous side to this,” wrote NAKO Executive Director Olena Tregub in her column for Ukrainska Pravda.
On the one hand, Ukraine has become a security actor in its own right. On the other hand, when Europe starts believing that “Ukraine can manage on its own,” there is a risk that the sense of urgency will fade. What Ukraine needs today is not recognition or gratitude, but practical results: large-scale joint weapons production with partners, confiscation of Russian assets, and real mechanisms to weaken Russia’s war machine.
“Together with colleagues from civil society and the public sector, I tried to advance a key message that deserves much stronger advocacy: Europe must remember what it can already do now to increase pressure on Russia and force it to stop the war. This includes scaling up sanctions and providing Ukraine with strategic weapons,” Olena Tregub wrote.
Today, it is critically important to find the right advocacy message and speak with one voice on behalf of Ukraine: yes, Ukraine has become Europe’s leader in defence technologies, it has the continent’s largest and most experienced army, and it can indeed become a guarantor of European security as part of the EU and NATO. But, Tregub stressed, Ukraine will only be able to fulfil this role if Europe helps it gain a strategic advantage over Russia.