For a brief moment there, it seemed that the performative threat of an "imminent invasion" by Putin would make the European Union less dysfunctional than it always is (and indeed, when it comes to agreeing to have German debt fund everyone's prosperity for a few years, if it meant agreeing that "Putin man bad", with hundreds of billions in new debt issuance, there was shocking agreement across Europe). It didn't last however, and on Thursday EU leaders tussled over weapons deliveries to Kyiv and who would represent them in US-led diplomacy as the bloc struggled to formulate a strategy on Ukraine.

As Bloomberg reports, an EU summit in Brussels was unable to agree on delivering €5 billion ($5.4 billion) to secure ammunition for Ukraine this year, as members including France and Italy balked at committing to specific financial volumes. A number of European leaders will meet again in Paris on March 27 to try to drive the process forward, but they too will fail to agree (unless Germany agrees to foot the entire bill)