Well, to give an answer to that we have to go back in European history.
Historically seen Western Europe and Eastern Europe have a long history of wars on its continent. Wars of domination of the seas between the then Republic of the 7 Provinces (what is now more or less the Netherlands) and England. Those wars between warships in the Channel were ultimately won by England. The 30 year war in the region what is now Germany between the different smaller kingdoms there. A devastatingly long war for which the peasants paid the heaviest price. There were also the wars between France and England over land. England had vast parts of what is now France and ultimately France could drive out the English and its borders became more or less what they are now.
Long before those wars there were other wars ( in the 8th century) which finally determined how east, west and middle Europe were divided into 3 mayor kingdoms. Here is not the place to get into details, you can look them up in Wikipedia.
In that same period the Vikings from the north (from what are now Denmark, Norway and Sweden) invaded England, France and the northern part of the Lotharingen kingdom (the middle kingdom), the part that are now the Dutch provinces of Friesland and North Holland. There really was a lot going on and everybody fighting everybody over landgrabbing, looting and powergrabbing.
When in Western Europe the wars took place between the different western European kingdoms, in Eastern Europe there were 2 big players who started wars against a very much smaller Russia at that time: Sweden, which was much bigger than today, having the whole of what is now Finland and a big part of what is now Russia in the north within its borders, and the Polish/Lithuanian alliance, with a Lithuania far bigger than today and a Poland situated farther east than Poland of today. Both Sweden and the Lithuanian/Polish alliance attacked Russia of that time more than once, but each time Russia ultimately won and as a result incorporated big chunks of Sweden and Lithuania within its new borders. In fact each time that Russia was attacked, which happened over centuries, it grew in size because it always won in the end. Ultimately Sweden became a much smaller and much weakened country and Poland became part of Russia with a gouverner installed in Warschau until the end of WWI.
Then came Napoleon after the French revolution and decided to conquer all of the European continent which he did, except the Balkan. But when he decided he wanted also the Russian empire, all went wrong for him and he and his army were chased back by the Russian army and the tsar to the gates of Paris. After goal accomplished the Russian tsar and his army went back to Russia, leaving behind a liberated and relieved western Europe.
Then came WWI which brought and end to nearly all the mayor kingdoms on the European continent and the British Empire tried to get dominion over het Black Sea fighting a weakenend Russian Empire in which it failed.
Then came WW2 with Nazi Germany deciding it wanted Russia for itself. Also in this case ultimately the then Sovjet Union ultimately defeated the nazi army and drove it back to the gates of Berlin.
OK, after this very shortened and not at all complete European history of wars (there were a lot more), we come to the point of ‘What the hell is going on in Europe’.
It seems that the Europeans, more precisely the European powerful people, had nothing better to do then creating wars against each other and always with the goal of dominion over the others. When they did this not at home, they did it in far away countries which they conquered making them their colonies. Dominance and greed were the driving factors and that never changed.
Also today dominance and greed are the driving factors behind the whole Ukrainian conflict, which in fact is not an Ukrainian conflict but a conflict between the EU, UK, US on the one side and Russia on the other side. A conflict in which right from the start the goal was to weaken Russia, get a regime change there and dividing the federation in a number of smaller countries with puppet governments compliant to the EU, UK and the US so that western greed could get their claws on all the natural riches of the Russian Federation (which they tried before in the 90’s of the last century).
Now it seems that the US is backing out and want a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
But ofcourse it was the EU and the UK political elites who sacrificed the whole European economy to this insane plan. With all the endless sanctions against Russia, blowing up the Russian gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea and pumping a never stopping flow of weapons into the Ukraine army and billions of euros into the Ukrainian government to keep the administration afloat.
And now they lost and they are furious. They cannot imagine that they have lost and so they invent the latest lie to distract their citizens from the terrible mess they have created.
Now the country they wanted to weaken so badly is winning a war that they, together with US neocons, provoked on purpose, using a proxi (Ukraine) to do the dirty work for them.
Now, in their panic, Russia must be seen as a dangerous threat to the whole of Europe and its so called democracy and values. And so the whole of Europe must now be militarized and its industry, what is left of it, transformed into a military industry. Its populations must prepare for imminent war with Russia. And so insanity has become complete.
That is what is going on in Europe. A continent that is sinking under the weight of the insanity of its political elite who has sold their countries and their citizens for the sake of dominance and greed, inventing lie upon lie to achieve their goals, and when that did not work, inventing more lies to save their own skin.
Their plan of militarisation and preparation for a war with Russia that will never come (at least not from the Russian side) will not work, because of the simple fact that they don’t have the economical, energetic and industrial means nor the armies. And their populations, especially the young, will not comply, as we can already see happening. But as long as power remains in the hands of this totally irresponsible and empty headed political elite, they will cause more disaster, especially for the European populations, because they will do ‘what ever it takes’ to continue with their nihilistic madness, destroying everything they touch.
So this is the Europe of today. What the Europe of tomorrow will be, will this time depend on what the European populations will decide and do. The human mind is a wonderful thing and capable of doing the seemingly impossible when the circumstances demand it in an ever forward pushing evolutionary process.