The fact that they went with “Trump broke international law” instead of “America’s unilateral actions validate our unilateral actions” gives me some hope (for lack of a better word) that they’re going for a diplomatic / economic victory by trying to take the vacated US place as “leader of the free world” instead of going full Trump/Putin on a world that’s already got enough shit to deal with.

The end point is still the same, of course, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a very good one from an European citizen’s point of view, but at least this would take longer and be less violent overall, and might help defuse Putin and Trump.