Europe is struggling to come up with the cash to fund Ukraine’s war effort. Its debt-laden countries would rather not stump up themselves. And the European Commission is still attempting to get full support for its proposal to use frozen Russian assets to back up to €210bn in loans. The danger, however, is that inactivity will be far more costly.

Think of this for a moment as a purely financial question. On the one hand, Europe commits to funding Ukraine’s war efforts for, say, four years, whether through one of the various schemes to leverage frozen Russian assets or, at a pinch, with member states putting up the money themselves. Estimates over how much this would cost vary: the IMF calculates a financing gap of $136bn to 2029 while a report from consultancy Corisk and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs reckons between €522bn and €838bn.

The pay-off comes if Ukraine can consequently push Russia into a reasonable ceasefire. President Vladimir Putin would hardly be in a position to demand the return of Russia’s €210bn of frozen assets, meaning some or all of the initial outlay would be recouped. And, while Europe has good reasons to raise its defence spending anyway, Putin would be less likely to pose a further military threat.