NATO held its 2026 summit in Ankara, in an air-conditioned venue, to plan for eventual war with Russia now that Ukraine is crumbling. At the same time, New Scientist reported over 20,000 June heatstroke deaths in Europe, 5,000 of them in Germany alone. While NATO plotted deaths over there, neglect is killing tens of thousands over here – and with the two hottest months still to come, the toll could pass 100,000 by summer’s end. Fatalities on this scale, in this short a span, are usually only seen in wartime.
The threat facing us isn’t Russia. It’s our own ruling class, offering a stark choice between nuclear winters and scorching summers – rearmament over resilience, military aircraft over civilian aircon. In Ankara, NATO members handed out tens of billions in contracts and another $70bn to Ukraine. Their greed for profit and markets is what endangers us.
Trump, as ever, grumbled about attending – only Erdoğan’s personal invitation brought him round. En route he repeated his intention to turn Greenland into the ‘Greenback’, accused the Europeans of stabbing him in the back over the Gulf war (despite European airbases hosting the US aircraft that struck it) and demanded Europe pick up more of the military and financial burden as Washington pivots to China. The Pentagon duly announced the withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from Germany. Washington has also offered Ukraine a licensing deal to build the discredited Patriot system – a headline-grabbing gesture, not a serious commitment, designed to paper over the financing the US isn’t providing.
Ukraine dominated the summit agenda and the war there is entering a new phase. Western drones –including AI-guided systems paired with sophisticated communications – are enabling deep strikes into Russia with real psychological and material effect. In practice, Europe is now attacking Russia, even as Britain and Europe claim that it is Russia planning to invade – the oldest propaganda trick there is: accuse your enemy of your own crimes.
Russia is responding in kind. What began as a “special military operation” is hardening into all-out war, because Moscow cannot allow Ukraine to serve as a NATO staging ground against its economy. The fighting has shifted from the front line to economic and logistical targets – fuel depots, locomotives, energy plants, pipelines and even tankers in the Sea of Azov. Putin, unable to hold back if he wants to keep power, likely has three months to finish his summer offensive – take Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, effectively end the battle for Donbas and turn toward Kherson and Odesa – against a Ukrainian army now largely stripped of foreign mercenaries by Russian targeting.
Elsewhere, the US is still trying to prise control of the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, in defiance of a memorandum of understanding that ceded Gulf oversight to Iran and Oman – instructing tankers into a narrow corridor along the Omani coast specifically to provoke Tehran. Iran won’t cede the leverage it holds over 20% of the world’s energy supply, nor its missile force, having paid dearly for both in the 40-day war. And in the Pacific, Washington is quietly training irregular forces, including jihadist groups, to harass China’s periphery, while pushing the Philippines toward becoming “another Ukraine”.
It isn’t the Russians and Chinese who are coming for us – it’s El Niño
The numbers make the point starkly. Medscape, a portal for doctors and health professionals, notes that between 2010 and 2022, extreme heat was linked to 368,183 excess deaths across 34 EU countries, the worst year being 2022. Nature puts the 2023–24 total at 113,573 – an average of 32,117 deaths a year across the full 2010–2024 period and 60,482 a year across 2022–2024 alone. Compare that to roughly 7,000 annual cold deaths in Europe between 2000 and 2019, per a 2023 Lancet study. Ten years ago, cold killed more than heat; that’s no longer true, and the gap is set to widen. 2024 was the hottest year on record, the first to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and 2026/27 is expected to be hotter still under a projected super El Niño – hitting an ageing population in which infants and the elderly are most vulnerable.
And yet almost no resilience has been built into our cities, homes, care homes, schools, hospitals or transport systems to cope with it. Unsurprisingly, none of this featured at the recent NATO summit in Ankara. Those in power lost their humanity decades ago and sold what remained to the highest bidder – chief among them, the fossil fuel industry.
2026 and 2027 will be crisis years. Billions of people facing this heat will have to choose – sweat it out in the old way or build a society that rehabilitates the planet and looks after the people living on it. It isn’t really a choice. The heat will make the decision for us.
