Russia is no where near being a peer of the United States much less the European Union. China certainly is a peer of the United States and surpasses the EU.
Finland along with Sweden only became NATO members after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine has been seeking closer ties to NATO almost immediately after the dissolution of the USSR. Understandable since Ukraine along with most of Eastern Europe became colonies of the USSR after WW2, were horribly extorted for their resources and were violently suppressed anytime they expressed a desire for freedom from Soviet rule.
Then Ukraine ousted their pro Russian leader due to massive corruption and replaced it with one that is more pro western. Russia followed that up shortly by invading Crimea. Given no international resistance to said invasion, Russia proceeded to invade Ukraine.
Russia does not have a hope of winning a war with the United States much less the EU. The only goal of Putin is to remain in power in Russia so he found a scapegoat to divert the Russian peopleâ(TM)s attention from all the horrible things he had done and continues to do to their country.
The only advantage for Russia is that they are facing completely divided opponents. Then he has an ally with Trump who idolizes Putin for his ruthlessness and absolute power while Putin thinks of Trump as a pathetic weakling.
I just hope that EU member states will ramp up their support of Ukraine while American support dwindles. Ukraine has already inflicted almost 1.2 million casualties to the Russian army in the war. That is half of the Russian casualties during their war of aggression in Afghanistan. The Ukraine will win this war as Russia has no hope to continue their aggression for long before going bankrupt or more hopefully the mass loss of support of the population.