Executive Summary

This report provides a consolidated assessment of the evolving geopolitical, security, and socioeconomic environment across Europe. The reporting period highlights several pressure points with risks emerging from parallel trends.

The fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 dominated the reporting period, with peace negotiations between Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv remaining deadlocked over control of the Donetsk region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Three rounds of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi and Geneva have failed to produce a resolution, and U.S. special envoy Steven Witkoff's claim of "significant progress" is contradicted by reporting from Axios and Ukrainian officials describing the talks as having reached a dead end. Combined military casualties are estimated at 1.8 million, including approximately 1.2 million Russian and 600,000 Ukrainian personnel killed, wounded, or missing.

Hungary blocked the EU's 20th sanctions package targeting Russia and a €90 billion loan to Ukraine, citing disrupted Russian oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the failure "a setback and a message we did not want to send." Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski accused Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of exploiting anti-Ukraine sentiment ahead of Hungary's April 2026 election. The deadlock exposes structural vulnerabilities in EU consensus-based decision-making on sanctions enforcement.