In a crisis situation nothing is certain. We all share the unpleasant feeling that we are slowly losing the firm ground beneath our feet. And this crisis mood colours also our view of the future. Yet, there are actors who consciously and willingly cause crisis situations with the intention to profit from the ensuing chaos.

Today the word “crisis” is on everyone’s lips. And this is not without reason. In the last few years we have been confronted with an accumulation of crisis situations. It started with the Donald Trump presidency and continued with the COVID-19 pandemic, which not only caused a huge death toll, but also destabilised the world economy. The crisis further deepened with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, undermining the international rules-based order that was built after the Second World War. The war led not only to bloodshed and hardship, but also further deterioration in an already dire economic situation, boosting inflation. So, here we are today!

Like their predecessors in the 1920s and 1930s, today’s populists understand that by dividing society and delegitimising their adversaries, they can get away with blatant violations of the democratic rules. They aim to fuel discontent and toxic polarisation, which transform public debate into tribal wars.

In the mid-1970s three eminent political scientists – Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington, and Joji Watanuki – penned a famous report on the crisis of western democracy, which they described as declining and overloaded with societal demands. Paradoxically, their report coincided with the start of a democratisation wave that, in 15 years, swept away dictatorships across the globe, including those in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine has dramatically exacerbated Kyiv’s dependence on the West to keep the economy afloat. Ukraine’s finance ministry estimates that in 2022, 38.6 per cent of the country’s budget came from external donors in grants and credits while Ukraine’s GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund, contracted by a third.

As Russia continues to bomb Ukraine’s power grid and destroy its infrastructure, the country’s economic projections for 2023 are devoid of optimism. For the country to survive, it needs economic assistance from abroad – and this is where matters get complicated. While Brussels recently gave the green light to the long-awaited macro-aid package worth 18 billion euros, the latest economic forecasts also spell trouble for EU economies, with the eurozone’s GDP growth expected to slow to 0.3 per cent.