No one can say how long the war against Ukraine will last.
With every day that Vladimir Putin bombs the country, the costs mount - human suffering, displacement and death, destruction of cities and destruction of the industrial base.
The Russian armed forces are no longer as considerate as they were in the first few days, when they believed that the country would fall into their hands: a fat booty with steel mills, ports and armaments companies.
All of this is now being destroyed because Putin can no longer demonstrate his power in any other way.
Not even the people in the occupied territories can hope that one day he will rebuild the country.
In fact, if Western sanctions take effect, Russia itself will become impoverished.
Perhaps there is a bargaining chip for reparations - those 300 billion euros that the Kremlin has invested in foreign currency abroad and that have been frozen since the beginning of the war.
Several EU countries have already campaigned for expropriation.
This is not a trivial matter, but it should be seriously considered.
A gigantic task
Of course, this sum accounts for only part of the war damage caused by Russia.
They should already be beyond one trillion euros.
The international community therefore faces a gigantic task once the war is over.
The EU Commission President has now opened the debate on this.
She sees the reconstruction aid in the pandemic as a role model - in return, the states had to commit to reforms.
It would be the same for Ukraine.
That could be the lever to actually bring the country closer to EU membership.
For the member states, it would mean that the Commission would take on more debt to pay for reconstruction.
There are good reasons for this, but it would also be a system change.
Europeans would do well to engage in this debate now.
Because no one should bet on the fact that the war will last for a long time.