President suggests bringing Kyiv-controlled land into western military pact could stop ‘hot stage’ of war
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested that Ukrainian territory under his control should be taken under the “Nato umbrella” to try to stop the “hot stage” of the war with Russia.
Speaking to Sky News, the Ukrainian president said that such a proposal has “never been considered” by Ukraine because it has never “officially” been offered.
Continue reading...Regional leaders meet after undersea telecoms cables severed, while Chinese ship remains at anchor nearby
The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has said the Baltic sea is now a “high risk” zone as he met Nordic and Baltic leaders days after a suspected sabotage attack on undersea cables.
The Swedish prime minister declined to speculate on who may have been responsible for the severing of two fibre optic telecoms cables in the Baltic last week. A Chinese ship – the Yi Peng 3 – that sailed over the cables about the time they were severed has remained anchored in the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark since 19 November.
Continue reading...German intelligence chief warns continued hybrid warfare by Moscow increases risk of alliance invoking Article 5
Russia’s acts of sabotage against western targets may eventually prompt Nato to consider invoking the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defence clause, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service has warned.
Speaking at an event of the German Council of Foreign Relations (DGAP) think tank in Berlin on Wednesday, BND chief Bruno Kahl said he expected Moscow to further step up its hybrid warfare.
Continue reading...Far-right, pro-Moscow candidate Călin Georgescu came from 5% in polls to win presidential election’s first round
Romania’s telecoms regulator is asking for TikTok to be suspended as the country’s defence council prepares to discuss cyber risks to its elections, after a little-known ultranationalist came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential vote.
The country’s constitutional court will also examine two allegations of electoral fraud after Călin Georgescu, a Moscow-friendly, EU-sceptic and anti-Nato independent, topped the ballot in a result that upended Romanian politics.
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Călin Georgescu, a Moscow-friendly independent candidate with a nationalist background, has taken a surprise lead in the first round of Romania’s presidential election.
As my colleague Jon Henley notes in this report, with 99.98% of votes counted, Georgescu, who has praised Vladimir Putin as “a man who loves his country”, was on 22.9%, with the reformist Elena Lasconi, of the Save Romania Union (USR), second on 19.17%.
Continue reading...Moscow is pushing hard on eastern frontline amid uncertainty as to how Trump taking office will affect war
Russia launched its biggest ever drone attack on Ukraine on Monday night and Tuesday morning, sending a reported 188 drones into the country against various targets, resulting in power cuts in part of western Ukraine and damage to residential buildings outside Kyiv.
Russian forces are pushing hard along the frontline in the east of the country, amid uncertainty as to how the dynamics of the war might change once Donald Trump takes office in January. Russia also vowed “retaliatory actions” for fresh Ukrainian strikes on military targets inside Russia that used long-range missiles sent by the US.
Continue reading...Revealed: Pete Hegseth writes scathingly of key institutions and says ‘If you love America, you should love Israel’
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has attacked several key US alliances such as Nato, allied countries such as Turkey and international institutions such as the United Nations in two recent books, as well as saying US troops should not be bound by the Geneva conventions.
At the same time, the man who would head America’s gigantic military has tied US foreign policy almost entirely to the priority of Israel, a country of which he says: “If you love America, you should love Israel.”
Continue reading...Pat McFadden will tell cyber summit that Russia ‘won’t think twice about targeting British businesses’ and danger to Nato must not be underestimated
Russia is “exceptionally aggressive and reckless in the cyber realm” and “no one should underestimate” the threat to Nato, a senior UK minister will warn in a speech on Monday.
Pat McFadden, whose portfolio includes national security, will tell a Nato cybersecurity conference in London that Moscow “won’t think twice about targeting British businesses”, according to excerpts of his address released on Sunday by his ministry.
Continue reading...Strike with US-made missiles has prompted fears of Russian reprisal that would broaden the scope of a frontline
A Ukrainian strike using American-made missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia using American-made weaponry, has prompted renewed fears of reprisal through “hybrid warfare” – a chaotic tool of conflict that muddies borders and broadens the scope of a frontline.
Over recent years, European nations have witnessed a spate of incidents – cyber-attacks, arson, incendiary devices, sabotage and even murder plots. The aim of such episodes, security officials believe, is to sow chaos, exacerbate social tensions among Ukraine’s allies and disrupt military supplies to Kyiv.
Continue reading...Russian foreign minister says his country will do everything possible to avoid nuclear war after Ukraine fires Atacms into Russia for first time
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday approved an updated nuclear doctrine, Reuters reports the document posted on the government’s website showed.
In a key section of the document, Russia has expanded the list of criteria that require a nuclear response to include “aggression by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear country”. Such actions, the doctrine says, will be considered a joint attack.
In addition, a nuclear response from Russia is possible in the event of a critical threat to its sovereignty, even with conventional weapons, in the event of an attack on Belarus as a member of the Union State, [or] in the event of a massive launch of military aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, other aircraft and their crossing the Russian border.
Each time these discussions about an individual weapon type are considered, freighted with great significance, the reality has been they’ve only made an incremental difference in the battlefield. From Ukraine’s perspective, it is better to have them than not, but ultimately, no single weapon type is decisive in a complex war like this.
Each of these weapons comes along months, maybe years, after Ukrainians asked for them. It’s quite an agonising process. They are clearly military useful, they have a psychological and deterrent effect but in terms of an actual destructive effect, not so much.
Continue reading...Boris Pistorius says ‘no one believes’ two undersea fibre-optic communications cables were cut accidentally
Germany has said it has to assume that damage to two undersea fibre-optic communication cables in the Baltic Sea since Sunday was an act of sabotage.
Two cables – one between Finland and Germany, the other between Sweden and Lithuania – were severed on Sunday and Monday, raising suspicions of a malicious attack, though authorities initially declined to speculate.
Continue reading...Ukraine orders nationwide energy rationing after more than 200 missiles and drones used in attack that killed seven people
Russia launched more than 200 missile and drones at Ukraine’s energy grid overnight and in the early morning, killing seven people in its largest-scale attack in months, and forcing the country to announce nationwide electricity rationing from Monday.
Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s principal energy supplier, said blackouts and consumption restrictions would be introduced “in all regions” as engineers tried to repair as much of the damage to power facilities as possible.
Continue reading...British and French leaders will discuss Ukraine and defence amid fears for future of Nato after Trump’s re-election
Keir Starmer will join Emmanual Macron in Paris for the French Armistice Day service in a pointed show of European solidarity days after Donald Trump’s re-election, with Ukraine and defence on the agenda for private talks between the two leaders.
The visit will have a symbolic element with Starmer becoming the first UK leader to attend France’s national commemoration event since Winston Churchill in 1944.
Continue reading...Budapest meeting finds consensus on need to raise growth and productivity as ‘America first’ protectionism looms
EU leaders meeting in Budapest have signed a declaration aimed at boosting the bloc’s ailing competitiveness – a task given added urgency by the threat of “America first” protectionist trade policies promised by the US president-elect, Donald Trump.
The bloc has too many barriers to innovation and must drastically reduce red tape, especially for startups; ramp up investment; make access to capital easier; and raise productivity, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Friday.
Continue reading...EPC talks in Budapest hear calls for unity on continent as former US president’s return to White House brings uncertainty
European leaders have called for stronger action to defend their continent and support Ukraine, in a show of unity after Donald Trump won re-election to the White House for a second term that is likely to prove a major challenge for the bloc.
Meeting in Budapest for two days of talks hosted by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, an outspoken Trump ally, the EU’s 27 heads of state and government were joined on Thursday by 20 other leaders from the wider European Political Community including Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Continue reading...Public congratulations but private foreboding as heads of state, ministers and diplomats express hopes for cooperation and peace
Western leaders raced to respond to the return of Donald Trump to the White House with a powerful mandate to put his policy of “America first” into action once again. But many of the public congratulations could do little to disguise the private foreboding of what the next four years will augur for European security, populism and the world economy.
Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister and the European leader closest to Trump, was one of the first to hail his ally’s victory. He posted on social media: “The biggest comeback in US political history! Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump on his enormous win. A much-needed victory for the world!”
Continue reading...Decision comes after military concludes projects would complicate defending Nato’s newest member against attack
Sweden has vetoed plans for 13 offshore windfarms in the Baltic Sea, citing unacceptable security risks.
The country’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said on Monday that the government had rejected plans for all but one of 14 windfarms planned along the east coast.
Continue reading...Past threats former president – and present Russian ones – have spurred Europe to invest in self-defence, but as conflicts rise the alliance still looks vital
Politeness and convention dictate that European leaders try to sound noncommittal when asked whether a Donald Trump presidency would hurt Nato. But despite the rhetoric about “Trump-proofing”, Nato cohesion will be at risk from a hostile or isolationist Republican president, who has previously threatened to leave the alliance if European defence spending did not increase.
“The truth is that the US is Nato and Nato is the US; the dependence on America is essentially as big as ever,” said Jamie Shea, a former Nato official who teaches at the University of Exeter. “Take the new Nato command centre to coordinate assistance for Ukraine in Wiesbaden, Germany. It is inside a US army barracks, relying on US logistics and software.”
Continue reading...Documents obtained by Ottawa Citizen show officials were concerned about negative media in case of Kristen Adams
Canada’s military decided not to apologize to an employee after she was sexually assaulted while working with Nato allies, over fears that any apology would be reported by an Ottawa newspaper.
For years, the country’s armed forces has publicly acknowledged a culture that bred abuse and assault, and a longstanding failure to root it out. The crisis, which prompted a shake-up at the most senior ranks, has eroded public trust in the institution and weakened morale within the military’s ranks.
Continue reading...Ukrainian membership would be part of five-point ‘victory plan’ to end war, president tells Brussels summit
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged European leaders to issue an “immediate invitation” to Ukraine to join Nato as he pitched his “victory plan”, which he said would end the war in 2025 at the latest.
Addressing the EU’s 27 leaders at a Brussels summit, Ukraine’s president outlined his five-point plan, which urges allies to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons on military targets inside Ukraine’s occupied territories and Russia, as well as to help increase air defences.
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