Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s text for NV is one of the most important Ukrainian reflections on European security, because it does not speak about war from the perspective of exercises, procurement plans or political slogans. It speaks from the experience of a state that has gone through the hidden phase of Russian aggression, localised conflict, full-scale invasion and now existential war. This experience matters enormously, but it cannot be mechanically applied to every NATO country. Zaluzhnyi’s first