Reports of talks in Abu Dhabi on 11 and 12 November 2026 gave three strongly pro-Russian European outlets a common target: the European Union. Their articles cast Europe as a powerless bystander, accused it of prolonging the war in Ukraine and reduced its role to paying for the consequences.
The arguments appeared in L’AntiDiplomatico in Italy, Zem A Vek in Slovakia and Pogled in Bulgaria. Their language differed, but the structure was strikingly similar. European support for Ukraine was presented as the cause of continued fighting; Russia’s demand for a privileged say in Europe’s security was treated as a reasonable interest; and the absence of EU representatives from a particular diplomatic setting became evidence of the bloc’s supposed irrelevance.
When an empty chair becomes a political verdict
L’AntiDiplomatico described the reported absence of the EU and Italy from the Abu Dhabi discussions as a “diplomatic defeat”. It blamed years of “strategic subordination”, support for Kyiv’s rearmament and the abandonment of an independent foreign policy for pushing Europe to the margins.
The Italian site also revived the claim that a stable European security system cannot be built “against Russia and without Russia”. In its account, the war had altered energy, trade and strategic balances while exposing the West’s failure to accept that Moscow must be part of any future settlement.
Read the L’AntiDiplomatico article.
That formulation turns Russia’s demand for influence over the security choices of neighbouring states into an ordinary diplomatic position. It leaves out the event that made Europe’s security debate urgent: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the resulting violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. A government or institution may be absent from one meeting without being absent from the wider diplomatic process.
Zem A Vek delivered the same message in a more openly abusive register. The Slovak outlet said the lack of EU representatives was “absolutely logical and just”, claiming that Brussels was a “rotten swamp” filled with people who encouraged war with Russia while barely discussing peace. European officials were branded incompetent, reckless, war agitators and “psychopaths”.
The insults do more than set a tone. They turn a dispute about policy into a judgement about character. Military and financial support for Ukraine is not examined as a response to an invasion, or as an attempt to prevent a wider collapse in regional security. Instead, those helping the attacked country are portrayed as irrational enemies of peace.
Read the Zem A Vek article.
Europe cast as the bill-payer
Pogled shifted the argument from diplomatic access to money. The Bulgarian website said Brussels, Berlin and Paris had spent years financing Ukraine’s budget and supplying weapons, only to be left waiting outside when discussions about the post-war order began.
In its telling, European countries had been reduced to subcontractors whose remaining duties were to pay for reconstruction and provide peacekeeping contingents. The image is designed to make solidarity look like humiliation: Europe has no independent interests, the argument suggests, and is merely funding decisions made by larger powers.
Read the Pogled article.
That framing collapses several separate questions. Taking part in one round of talks is not the same as shaping the whole diplomatic process. Financing Ukraine’s budget is not the same as directing its military strategy. Helping with reconstruction is not the same as accepting an automatic obligation to deploy peacekeepers.
There is also another way to understand European assistance. Supporting Ukraine’s economy, defence capacity and eventual recovery can be viewed as part of Europe’s own security policy. The ability of an attacked neighbour to resist aggression affects regional stability, the credibility of international agreements and the future cost of deterring further attacks.
Three outlets, one adaptable frame
The publications operate in different media markets, but all have established editorial positions hostile to Western institutions and sympathetic to narratives favourable to Moscow.
L’AntiDiplomatico is an Italian website known for a strongly anti-Western and anti-Atlantic line. It regularly republishes statements from Russian officials, diplomats and state media, while promoting a vision of a multipolar world in which Russia and China play central roles. Its founder, Alessandro Bianchi, has been associated with the parliamentary milieu of Italy’s populist Five Star Movement.
Zem A Vek presents itself as an alternative, independent Slovak publication outside the mainstream. The Slovak monitoring project Konšpirá lists the portal among websites with questionable content and gives it an unreliability rating of 9.5 out of 10. The outlet routinely attacks the EU, NATO, the United States and liberal democratic institutions while amplifying or defending positions associated with Russian foreign policy.
Pogled, a Bulgarian website with a YouTube channel, has been identified by the fact-checking platform as one of the country’s prominent amplifiers of Kremlin narratives. It frequently translates or republishes material from Russian propaganda outlets, attacks Kyiv and its Western partners, and promotes the idea that the West is in decline as Russia and China lead the emergence of a new world order. Its material is also circulated in nationalist, pro-Russian and far-right online groups.
Those profiles do not establish that every article was coordinated with Russian authorities. They do, however, help explain how a similar interpretation can appear in separate national media spaces without identical wording. A diplomatic event provides the occasion; each outlet adapts the frame to its own audience.
The central omission
The most consequential omission concerns the origin of the war. By describing European assistance as “incitement” or as the reason the fighting continues, the articles shift attention from Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine towards the states helping the victim defend itself. Support is recast as aggression, while the aggressor’s responsibility fades from view.
The same reversal shapes the argument about European security. Saying that the continent cannot be secure “without Russia” may sound pragmatic when stripped of context. But a durable system cannot rest on a major power’s right to veto the sovereign choices of neighbouring countries or alter borders by force.
Any lasting settlement will have to address security concerns while respecting the United Nations Charter, state sovereignty and the prohibition on aggression. European governments describe their support for Ukraine as part of an effort to secure a just and lasting peace, not as an end in itself. That position can be challenged on cost, strategy or diplomatic effectiveness. It is not the same as wanting the war to continue for its own sake.
In the three Abu Dhabi articles, one meeting is made to carry a much larger conclusion: Europe is dependent, divided and useful mainly as a source of money. The substantive question is narrower. Does the absence of European representatives from one discussion demonstrate lasting irrelevance, or does it simply provide a convenient way to obscure why the continent’s security order was disrupted in the first place?
