The Christmas and New Year period is traditionally a time associated with peace, reconciliation and goodwill, but as Europe looks towards 2026, the prospects are shaped less by seasonal sentiment than by a series of grim strategic realities.

One of the clearest signals of this shift came earlier in 2025, when the United States delivered a shock to European capitals. At the Nato summit in The Hague in June, Washington pressed its allies to commit to defence spending equivalent to 5 per cent of gross domestic product, a dramatic increase from the long standing 2 per cent benchmark. Framed as a test of seriousness, the demand forced European governments to confront uncomfortable questions about responsibility, solidarity and security.

While Europe’s attention has increasingly focused on broader security challenges through the year, Cyprus has remained locked in tit for tat local politics.

Tufan Erhurman’s recent leadership election victory in the north has triggered a familiar cycle in Cypriot politics – renewed discussion of preconditions for talks, to be followed by talks about talks, before eventually reaching negotiations on the Cyprus problem itself.

Erhurman has set out four conditions which he presents as being anchored in United Nations parameters, but in reality only one clearly is. UN Security Council resolutions refer to the political equality of the two communities, a principle implicit in the bizonal, bicommunal framework and never formally contested by either side. His remaining conditions, covering past convergences, fixed timelines and safeguards over blame, are political positions rather than requirements set out in UN resolutions. His ten proposed confidence building measures, taken together, largely amount to demands on the Greek Cypriot side that would improve Turkish Cypriots’ daily lives. These do not relate to any particular model of a final Cyprus settlement.

The Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides, meanwhile, has publicly praised the Eoka militia and lamented their failure to achieve Enosis, union with Greece, while simultaneously presenting himself as a proponent of a different union between Greek and Turkish Cypriots within a shared state. For many Turkish Cypriots, this contradiction is confidence eroding and raises doubts about his commitment to a genuinely independent future for Cyprus.

So, the scene is set for another process of interminable talks. Yet while political energy continues to be absorbed by this process, the wider environment in which Cyprus exists has become markedly more dangerous.

The biggest question worrying Europe now centres on Russian aggression and threat. Once discussed cautiously, it is now widely perceived as an existential concern by many countries.

If Russia were to enter into a military conflict with the West, would Cyprus be a significant strategic target? Yes. The island hosts British sovereign bases, supports American, French and Israeli military operations, and contains intelligence and surveillance infrastructure shared among Western allies.

Striking such assets would allow Russia to inflict serious damage on major Western powers indirectly, without the political risks that come with direct attacks on their national territory. Military infrastructure in the north would also be relevant in any scenario involving conflict between Russia and Turkey, a key Nato member. On such a small island, such attacks would inevitably cause civilian casualties on both sides.

Russia’s challenge to Europe is no longer theoretical. It is visible in repeated probing of Nato airspace and expanded naval and submarine activity, including operations near undersea cables and energy infrastructure. In the Black Sea, Russia has shown how pressure creates dominance. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the peninsula has been heavily militarised, disrupting shipping, blocking ports and directly affecting Nato members, while Ukraine has borne the heaviest cost.

These actions are sustained by long term military production, with Western intelligence estimating annual output of millions of artillery shells and large numbers of missiles, drones and armoured vehicles.

Paradoxically, Europe already possesses formidable collective military capacity. What it lacks is cohesion. Incursions into airspace or territorial waters should be treated as tests of the alliance as a whole, not as national inconveniences. When responses are fragmented or half hearted, the message received in Moscow is division.

Turkey is central to any credible European deterrence strategy. It has the second largest armed forces in Nato, controls access to the Black Sea and occupies a critical strategic crossroads. No serious effort to contain Russian power can succeed without Turkey’s full integration into Western security planning.

Western policymakers once understood that anchoring Turkey firmly within the alliance was essential to securing Europe’s southern flank. That logic remains valid. This has direct relevance for Cyprus and Greece. A divided eastern Mediterranean serves no European security interest and creates opportunities for Russia to exploit.

From Ankara’s perspective, Russia is a long-standing rival rather than a partner. Turkey’s approach to Moscow is shaped by geography and security risks, not political or cultural sympathy. What is often described as ambivalence is in fact the behaviour of a frontline state managing constant risks and opportunities posed by a neighbouring power.

From the Nato point of view, efforts to marginalise Turkey through arms restrictions or political freezes are therefore strategically counterproductive. Excluding Turkey from advanced defence programmes, including the F 35, and delaying the replacement of the Russian made S 400 with a Nato compatible system such as Patriot weakens Nato interoperability and collective deterrence at a time when unity matters most.

The question is not whether Europe has the means to deter Russia, but whether it has the political will to act as one.

That same unity of purpose through a strategic alliance is required among the five actors whose histories shape Cyprus today – Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom, so that exposure to Russian threat is minimised across the island as a whole.

Wishing everyone a good festive break and peace on earth for 2026.

Fahri Zihni is former chair of Council of Turkish Cypriot Associations (UK), a former policy advisor at the UK’s Cabinet Office and a former president of Society of IT Management, UK