European starts to strut like a victor (4)
I believe the answer is:
slav
'european' is the definition.
(I know that Slav is a type of european)
'starts to strut like a victor' is the wordplay.
'starts to' indicates taking the first letters.
'victor' becomes 'V' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
The initial letters of 'strut like' is 'sl'.
'sl'+'a'+'v'='SLAV'
(Other definitions for slav that I've seen before include "eg a Pole" , "Eastern European" , "One of the European people" , "East European - Asian Russian" , "Native of eastern Europe, perhaps" .)