The U.S. Navy destroyed three boats carrying Houthi rebels in the Red Sea on Sunday after fighters attempted to board a container ship in the second attack against the vessel this weekend.
Helicopters from two destroyers, the USS Eisenhower and USS Gravely, were dispatched after the Maersk Hangzhou issued a distress call at 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X, the ship’s second request for help in 24 hours.
Four small boats arriving from Yemen had got to within 20 meters of the Danish-owned vessel and attempted to board it, according to CENTCOM, and fired on U.S. helicopters as they approached. “The U.S. Navy helicopters returned fire in self-defense, sinking three of the four small boats, and killing the crews,” it said, adding that there was “no damage to U.S. personnel or equipment.”
On Saturday, Washington said it had shot down two anti-ship ballistic missiles after the Maersk Hangzhou issued its first distress call and reported being struck by a Houthi missile.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations organization said there were no casualties in the shipping vessel’s crew.
Maersk said on Sunday that it has paused all sailing through the Red Sea for 48 hours.
Since November, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have launched over 20 attacks against ships in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping lane between Europe and Asia where an estimated 15 percent of global trade passes. Several shipping lines and oil major BP have suspended operations in the area as a result.
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said he spoke with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on Sunday and stressed Tehran’s responsibility regarding the Houthi rebels.
“I made clear that Iran shares responsibility for preventing these attacks given their long-standing support to the Houthis,” Cameron said in a statement. The Houthi attacks in the Red Sea “threaten innocent lives and the global economy,” he added.
The Houthis have said the strikes are in support of Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is carrying out large-scale bombardments with U.S. backing in response to Hamas militants’ deadly attack against civilians in early October. In response, the U.S. set up a multinational naval taskforce to protect the route, which has been joined by countries including Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands and the U.K.
A Brussels promise has exposed the yawning gap between the United States and European Union over payments to climate-ravaged countries — just ahead of a major climate summit.
The vow came Monday from Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s climate commissioner, who said the EU was “ready to announce a substantial financial contribution” for a new climate damage fund.
The pronouncement flew in the face of the more cautious U.S. approach — and will inevitably raise pressure on Washington and other wealthy governments to follow suit.
The emerging divide reflects how contentious the debate is over a fund to support countries scarred by extreme weather and other global warming harms, often referred to as “loss and damage.” Even settling on a framework for the fund faced challenges until climate negotiators reached a fragile agreement earlier this month in Abu Dhabi.
The dispute has often pitted rich, heavy-emitting countries like the U.S. and the EU against the developing countries facing the impacts of those emissions. But long-simmering differences between Brussels and Washington are now also bubbling over as the new fund takes shape — especially as calls mount for wealthy countries to pay up.
In Abu Dhabi, Germany’s lead negotiator went out of her way to clarify that even though she was speaking for a group of developed countries, “our constituency is not one single group with one single voice.”
That transatlantic divide risks complicating rich countries’ efforts to get developing nations to sign up for more ambitious climate action at the COP28 climate summit starting later this month in Dubai. Cracks in the EU-U.S. alliance will make negotiating against the likes of China and Saudi Arabia trickier, and Washington’s reluctance to pay is impeding efforts to build trust between the poorest and most vulnerable nations and those with the resources to help them.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry told an event on Friday he was “confident” that Washington would contribute “several millions,” though it’s unclear when it could be delivered. The Biden administration has struggled to get finance for international climate efforts through Congress and tends to take a more hardline stance on climate disaster funding — for both strategic and ideological reasons.
The EU is no longer waiting around.
“We, the EU, are not only prepared to lead, but we are capable of showing leadership,” a senior EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the matter, told POLITICO.
Differing philosophies
The divide stems partly from a different sense of the moral responsibility borne by the U.S. and EU.
As the climate talks earlier this month concluded in Abu Dhabi, European representatives reluctantly supported the framework, while the U.S. continued to press for changes even after the meeting had ended, claiming the adopted text was “not a consensus document.”
A house destroyed by the sea on the island of Carti Sugtupu, in the Indigenous Guna Yala Comarca, Panama | Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images
A State Department official told POLITICO the U.S. “did not consider it sufficiently clear what the members were being asked to agree to, particularly on the issue of sources of funding.” The text has now been clarified, the official added, putting the U.S. in a position to welcome the negotiators’ recommendations.
“So I hope we’re going to avoid an implosion in Dubai because we now have agreed … on the way in which we can manage this fund,” Kerry said on Friday.
But the tiff over punctuation — the Americans were largely concerned about the placement of a comma they argued could indicate developed countries had a particular responsibility to pay — is another sign of the divergence between Washington and Brussels.
The EU and the U.S. are aligned on core issues: Both want a fund for vulnerable countries that doesn’t pin a unique responsibility on developed countries to provide the cash.
But Europe has been more comfortable with a document calling on wealthy nations to take the lead on money. “These distinctions can cut in both directions — if we’re taking the lead, then we’re expecting someone else to follow,” the EU diplomat said.
The EU’s more relaxed approach stands in contrast to Washington’s obsession with legally watertight language. The U.S. worries that any suggestion that rich polluting nations might have a responsibility toward countries hit by climate disasters could lead to legal obligations to pay compensation.
“As always, the European team is more flexible, and they’re the first who are ready to invest,” said Gayane Gabrielyan, Armenia’s deputy environment minister, who participated in the Abu Dhabi talks.
America’s political trump card
Cash-strapped countries argue such financial pledges are the incentive they need to make their own emissions-slashing commitments.
“You can’t ask developing countries to have a faster, greater green transformation than any developed country ever did and then on the other side say, ‘Oh, well we feel no obligation, and feel no responsibility for their climate loss and damage,’” said Avinash Persaud, climate envoy of Barbados, who participated in the talks in Abu Dhabi.
“I think the Europeans get that but our American partners don’t always appear to — or local politics trumps that,” he added.
Those politics are quite tricky for the U.S., however. President Joe Biden must get international climate finance pledges through Congress — a momentous challenge given the Republican-controlled House and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate, not to mention a potential looming government shutdown that would stall all funding bills.
Officials bring that challenge with them into climate finance negotiations, observers say.
President Joe Biden must get international climate finance pledges through Congress | Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
“They try to create funds or agreements that are going to be more palatable in Congress,” said Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA. “But historically, the results of that has been the U.S. has just consistently watered stuff down and has not been a reliable partner in joining agreements or contributing funds.”
That’s true for all kinds of climate funding, not just loss and damage. When Germany hosted a replenishment conference of the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund last month, Berlin put forward a record €2 billion, with other EU countries also contributing. The U.S. pledged nothing.
In another interview on Friday in Singapore, Kerry promised that Washington would “make a good-faith effort” when it comes to helping victims of climate disasters.
“But we need everyone to take part — it can’t be just a few countries, we need everyone to help to the degree that they can,” he said.
Leading or ceding leverage?
Some see the Europeans’ flexibility as a strategic mistake.
A former U.K. official, granted anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive diplomatic matter, said that at last year’s COP27 in Egypt, the European Commission team undermined the position of other wealthy countries by backing a climate disaster fund before developing countries had agreed to cut emissions in return.
The EU appears to have taken that message on board this year, with Hoekstra strongly implying Brussels will use climate disaster funding as a bargaining chip to obtain emission-cutting concessions.
If countries make enough pledges at COP28 to slash emissions, the new climate disaster fund “can be launched in Dubai, with the first pledges, too,” he said in a speech in Kenya last week. “Because if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions, no amount of money will be able to pay [for] the damages.”
But the EU is already gathering money. A senior European climate negotiator, who could only speak on condition of anonymity because of their sensitive position, said Hoekstra had been touring European capitals asking them to prepare contributions, something the Commission would not confirm but did not deny.
No official POLITICO spoke to would say on the record whether and how much their country would pay into the fund — except for Denmark’s climate minister Dan Jørgensen.
“We were the first country to pledge money last year … and we will also be ready to do that again now,” Jørgensen told POLITICO and four European newspapers last week, promising a “generous pledge.”
Asked for more details later, his office asked POLITICO not to publish the comment — implying that the minister should not have revealed Denmark’s intention to pay just yet.
Still, the EU let the cat out of the bag on Monday with its promise to pay into the fund, even as it declined to detail how much. The precise amount, a diplomat from a European country represented at the recent loss and damage talks, was the “big fat carrot” in the COP28 negotiations.
But asked if Brussels was also bringing a stick to Dubai, the diplomat conceded: “I think the Americans are the ones swinging a stick.”
Orsted booked a 28.4 billion Danish kroner ($4.02 billion) impairment charge in the third quarter related to its U.S. offshore wind portfolio and said it will stop development of two wind farm projects off the coast of New Jersey amid spiraling costs and supplier delays.
The Danish renewable-energy company had previously warned of up to DKK16 billion of impairments after flagging increasing supply-chain risks at U.S. projects, while a lack of favorable progress on U.S. tax credits and higher interest rates were also sending project costs higher.
“There is no way around the fact that they have stolen our business in Russia, and we are not going to help them make that look legitimate.”
That’s new Carlsberg CEO Jacob Aarup-Anderson, according to a Reuters account of a journalist call on Tuesday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin this summer ordered the seizure of Carlsberg’s stake in its Baltika subsidiary. Earlier this month, Carlsberg ended license agreements that allow for its beers to be produced in the country.
According to the presidential decree, Carlsberg retains title to the shares in Baltika Breweries but no longer has any control or influence over the company.
Carlsberg reported a 3% decline in organic volume growth, as a 6.3% slide in Central and Eastern Europe and a 5.2% decline in Western Europe was partly offset by a 1.5% rise in Asia.
The brewer said two-thirds of the volume decline was due to bad weather and another one-third to consumer sentiment.
Organic revenue, however, rose by 5.8%, on price hikes. It kept its operating-profit guidance for the year unchanged at 4% to 7% growth, and launched a new stock-buyback program valued at 1 billion Danish crowns.
Carlsberg said comparisons in the fourth quarter will be positive in China, in light of the year-ago lockdown, but the weak macro environment in Southeast Asia will continue to impact markets.
Carlsberg shares CARL.B, -0.83%
were steady on Tuesday but have dropped 8% this year.
Israel aviation authority advises airlines still flying in its airspace to carry extra fuel as delays are to be expected.
Leading international airlines have suspended or reduced flights to Israel’s capital Tel Aviv amid the conflict with Hamas and escalating attacks on Gaza.
About half of all scheduled flights at the airport did not operate on Sunday and a third were cancelled as of Monday evening.
American Airlines, Air Canada, Air France, Delta Air Lines, Egypt Air, Emirates, Finland’s Finnair, Dutch carrier KLM, Germany’s Lufthansa, Norwegian Air, Portugal’s TAP, Polish carrier LOT, Ryanair and United Airlines were among those suspending or reducing flight to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
Russia banned night flights to Israel and regulators including the US Federal Aviation Authority, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and Israel’s aviation authority urged airlines to use caution in Israeli airspace but stopped short of suspending flights.
Russia said it had restricted flights from going to Israel before 09:00 GMT due to what it called an “unstable political and military situation” and advised airlines to continue to monitor risks during daylight hours.
Israel’s civil aviation authority said airlines should “review current security and threat information” and had changed some air traffic routes. The authority noted that delays should be expected and advised airlines flying to Israel to carry extra fuel as a precaution.
British Airways said it was planning to continue operating flights to Israel “over the coming days with adjusted departure times”.
Virgin Atlantic said it would continue to run some flights but that customers could rebook or request a refund on their tickets.
The United Kingdom’s easyJet halted flights to Tel Aviv on Sunday and Monday, and Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv until further notice. Other airlines suspending flights included Aegean, Swiss and Austrian Airlines.
Airlines flying from China, Hong Kong and South Korea also cancelled flights to Tel Aviv.
Hong Kong’s main carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways, said that “in view of the latest situation in Israel”, it was cancelling its Tel Aviv flights scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday.
“The safety of our passengers and crew are our top priority. We will continue to monitor the situation very closely,” the airline said on its website, adding it would provide updates on the site.
Israel’s national carrier El Al said that it was maintaining its Tel Aviv flights for now, “in accordance with the instructions of the Israeli security forces”, with all flights now departing only from Terminal Three at Ben Gurion airport.
In June 2018, I packed three suitcases and booked a one-way flight from Texas to join my husband in Denmark. We met in 2016 and had been dating long-distance for much of our relationship. We were excited to get married and build a home and life together.
We found a wonderful apartment online in a new building in Amager, located in the southern part of Copenhagen. My husband viewed the apartment in person and sent me photos while I was still in Dallas.
I love the size of Copenhagen. It feels like a city, but it’s small enough that everything is still accessible
Photo: CNBC Make It
Today, we rent our 1,020-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment for $2,100 a month. The neighborhood is a decent commute to work — I’m a primary school teacher and my husband is in finance — with plenty of beautiful outdoor space and fun places to take our two-year-old son.
We have a small entryway with a built-in closet, and a bench to sit on when you take your shoes off.
Our lease is indefinite, and rent increases are tied to inflation. But we had to pay two month’s rent upfront, and three month’s rent as a security deposit.
Photo: CNBC Make It
We had to buy our own light fixtures, since they often don’t come installed in many Copenhagen apartments. A lot of Danes like this because they can choose things that best fit their style.
Photo: CNBC Make It
When you go into a lot of Danish homes, they have many of the same small design pieces, like this like this little Hoptimist toy. They come in a lot of different colors and styles.
Photo: CNBC Make It
Our sleek, modern bathroom doubles as a laundry room. We’re lucky to have both a washer and dryer in the unit.
Modern bathroom and kitchens can be hard to come by in the city center on a budget, so we were lucky to find a place that had both.
Photo: CNBC Make It
We liked how much space there was in the bedroom, and we’re able to fit in almost a king sized bed.
Photo: CNBC Make It
Since this was a new building, the apartment came with closets already installed. Most people in Denmark have to buy and set them up on their own.
Photo: CNBC Make It
The second bedroom was initially our guest room and office, but we turned it into a nursery when our son was born. What’s nice about our main bedroom is that it came with a wardrobe already built in, which isn’t the case for many Danish apartments.
The main area in our apartment is one big room that includes our kitchen, dining room and living room.
I came here with just three suitcases and didn’t ship anything from the U.S., and my husband had been living with a roommate, so we started fresh.
Photo: CNBC Make It
The kitchen sits along one wall, and is somewhat small by American standards, but we actually have a good amount of storage, especially because we have drawers instead of cabinets.
The kitchen and dining area is slightly smaller than I was used to in the U.S., but we do have some elegant storage options.
Photo: CNBC Make It
The neighborhood is very family-friendly, with plenty of restaurants, bakeries, shops, parks and playgrounds within walking distance.
We have a number of international neighbors. There is also a great beach nearby, which is bustling in the summer. And we have a small balcony that my son loves to play on when the weather is nice.
I’m much happier living in Copenhagen than in Dallas. I think a big part of that is job satisfaction. I’m able to enjoy the time that I’m not at work because I’m not as stressed out anymore.
For our utilities, we spend about $210 per month: $36 for heat, $55 for water, $66 for electricity and $53 for WiFi.
I’m not 100% fluent, but I can have most everyday conversations and exchanges in Danish.
Photo: CNBC Make It
We have a car and pay $120 a month for a parking spot in an underground garage. We also have renter’s insurance that comes to about $40 a month.
The cost of living in Copenhagen is sometimes high. But I know that my salary goes way further here than it did in Dallas, especially in terms of what I was paying for healthcare and transportation in the U.S. And the rent we pay now is a good value for the amount of space we have.
Before I moved here, I never lived in a city with good public transportation before, so I really appreciate it now!
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We live close to the metro, so I can easily get anywhere in the Copenhagen area. I pay about $90 a month for a public transportation pass that covers my work commute and everywhere else.
On public transit, it’s 15 minutes from our front door to the city center in one direction, and 15 minutes to the airport in the other direction, which is very convenient.
Looking ahead, we’d like to eventually get some more space, and we may need to move a bit further out of the city to achieve that. But we love Copenhagen, so we wouldn’t go too far. And I have loved living in this apartment. It has been a great first home in my new country.
Ilana Buhl is an elementary school teacher. She studied abroad in Denmark and quickly fell in love with the city. She now lives in Copenhagen with her husband and son, and shares snippets of her life on social media. Follow her on TikTok and Instagram.
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Copenhagen, Denmark — Denmark’s Lego said on Monday that it remains committed to its quest to find sustainable materials to reduce carbon emissions, even after an experiment by the world’s largest toymaker to use recycled bottles did not work. Lego said it has “decided not to progress” with making its trademark colorful bricks from recycled plastic bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate, known as PET, and after more than two years of testing “found the material didn’t reduce carbon emissions.”
Lego enthusiastically announced in 2021 that the prototype PET blocks had become the first recycled alternative to pass its “strict” quality, safety and play requirements, following experimentation with several other iterations that proved not durable enough.
The company said scientists and engineers tested more than 250 variations of PET materials, as well as hundreds of other plastic formulations, before nailing down the prototype, which was made with plastic sourced from suppliers in the U.S. that were approved by the Food and Drug Administration and European Food Safety Authority. On average, a one-liter plastic PET bottle made enough raw material for ten 2 x 4 Lego bricks.
Despite the determination that the PET prototype failed to save on carbon emissions, Lego said it remained “fully committed to making Lego bricks from sustainable materials by 2032.”
The privately-held Lego Group, which makes its bricks out of oil-based plastic said it had invested “more than $1.2 billion in sustainability initiatives” as part of efforts to transition to more sustainable materials and reduce its carbon emissions by 37% by 2032, Lego said.
The company said it was “currently testing and developing Lego bricks made from a range of alternative sustainable materials, including other recycled plastics and plastics made from alternative sources such as e-methanol.”
Also known as green methanol, e-methanol is composed of waste carbon dioxide and hydrogen, created by using renewable energy to split water molecules.
Lego said it will continue to use bio-polypropylene, the sustainable and biological variant of polyethylene — a plastic used in everything from consumer and food packaging to tires — for parts in Lego sets such as leaves, trees and other accessories.
“We believe that in the long-term this will encourage increased production of more sustainable raw materials, such as recycled oils, and help support our transition to sustainable materials,” it said.
Lego was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The name derived from the two Danish words, leg and godt, which together mean “play well.” The brand name was created unaware that lego in Latin means “I assemble.”
A.P. Moller-Maersk, is one of the world’s biggest container shippers with a market share of around 17%, and is widely seen as a barometer of global trade.
Andia | UIG via Getty Images
Copenhagen, DENMARK — Shipping giant Maersk on Thursday presented its first container vessel moved with green methanol, a landmark moment for one of the world’s most polluting industries.
The new container ship, ordered in 2021, has two engines: one moved by traditional fuels and another run with green methanol — an alternative component, which uses biomass or captured carbon and hydrogen from renewable power. Practically speaking, the new vessel emits 100 tons of carbon dioxide less per day compared to diesel-based ships.
“It’s a really symbolic day of our energy transition, really becoming a reality, something concrete that we can actually demonstrate, not just commitments and hard work, but actually something that everybody can see,” Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc told CNBC.
This is “the first step for us. But it’s the first step for the industry as well. The ship was ordered only in 2021, and she was really the first of its kind. Today, just a couple of years later, we have 125 ships that have been ordered by different companies to actually work on the same technology and the same energy transition. So this ship is really a trendsetter for a whole industry,” Clerc said.
Evergreen and other shipping firms have ordered similar vessels, though they have less ambitious carbon neutrality targets than Maersk.
Shipping accounts for around 3% of global carbon emissions, an amount comparable to major polluting countries. However, decarbonizing the sector has been challenging.
Denmark’s Minister of Industry Morten Bodskov said this is because it is a global industry.
Around 90% of the traded goods in the world are carried via ocean shipping, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“And if you want to make a global agreement, you have to have, I mean, more or less all countries behind the agreement, and then it is a industry in a highly competitive market. That has also been a key factor,” Bodskov told CNBC.
A so-called shipping tax is a good example of the challenging global conversations on how to accelerate decarbonization efforts.
In June, a group of 20 nations supported a plan for a levy on shipping industry emissions. But China, Argentina and Brazil were among the nations pushing back against such an idea.
Speaking to CNBC, Maersk’s chief said his firm is supportive of such a tax.
“We’ve long advocated the implementation of a carbon tax to really level the playing field and provide the right economic incentives for companies to really lean into the green transition,” he said.
“I’m worried about the rhetoric that energy transition is a downside and not really a great opportunity,” he added.
This vessel is the first of a wider order of 25 that are due to arrive in 2024. Maersk is looking to become climate neutral by 2040, so these new vessels will be an important part of meeting that deadline and updating its fleet of about 700 ships.
However, analysts are worried that Maersk and its competitors might struggle to find enough supply of green methanol. The fuel is scarce and costly to transport.
“When I look at the market for these green fuels, methanol is definitely one of the most advanced products out there at the moment. But what I can hear from the industry and from market participants is that the wrap up of methanol, green methanol, it hasn’t ramped up very fast,” Ulrik Bak, research analyst at SEB, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“There will be a significant time where I believe that we will have more methanol vessels, then there will be green methanol to [supply] those vessels,” he said.
Maersk has signed at least nine agreements with suppliers of green methanol from all over the world in an attempt to push these firms to produce more of the commodity.
“This has been actually the main, the main headache for a while,” Clerc said.
“And it continues to be as we need to scale this up … It continues to be one of the key focus areas that we need to have today,” he said, adding “we are more confident today than we were a year ago (regarding securing supply)”.
Ozempic and Wegovy don’t just affect weight loss, the two have had a far-reaching influence on Denmark’s economy.
Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of the drugs (historically used to treat diabetes but increasingly gained popularity for their weight loss effects), has amassed billions, with its most recent earnings report marking $7.1 billion in profit for the second quarter of 2023.
The Bagsværd-baseddrug manufacturer is now Denmark’s biggest company and its market value ($419 billion) is ahead of the country’s GDP ($406 billion), also leading to lower interest rates across the nation, The Wall Street Journalreported.
“Because the pharmaceutical industry’s exports have grown so much, it’s creating a big influx of currency into the Danish economy,” Jens Naervig Pedersen, director of Danske Bank, told the outlet.
As the Ozempic craze reached the U.S., it sparked widespread shortages lasting nearly six months and finally coming to an end in March.
Prescriptions for the drug hit its all-time high in the U.S. with 373,000 prescriptions filled in the last week of February — marking an 111% increase from the same week a year prior, according to a J.P. Morgan analysis of IQVIA data, per CNN.
The popularity has spread elsewhere to, contributing to subsequent shortages in Canada and the U.K.
Pedersen added that Denmark’s central bankers have maintained interest rates below those of the European Central Bank, thereby weakening the Danish krone. The low-interest rates allow Danish homeowners to pay less on their mortgages than anywhere else in Europe, Pedersen added to the outlet.
Novo Nordisk is now the second most valuable company across all of Europe, according to market capitalization tracker, Companies Market Cap — and there are no signs of it slowing down anytime soon. The company expects a 37% profit gain for 2023, as stated in its Q2 earnings report.
The success of a company affecting a country’s overall economy isn’t anything new. Volkswagen, for example, has long contributed to Germany’s economy, as the automaker contributes to the country’s employment levels and strengthens its industrial sector. However, when a nation hinges so much weight on a brand, it also means there can be adverse effects.
In June, Europe’s industrial production experienced an overall drop of 1.5% as compared to a month prior, driven primarily by a 3.5% decline in Germany’s automotive sector (which accounts for 5% of the country’s overall economy), CNN reported.
President Zelenskyy’s announcement that European allies will provide high-end fighter jets comes during a visit to their capitals.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed a “historic” decision by the Netherlands and Denmark to provide US-made F-16 fighter jets for his country to counter Russia’s invasion.
Zelenskyy sought the advanced warplanes for months to strengthen Ukraine’s Soviet-era air force as it pursues a grinding counteroffensive against Russian forces in the east.
Washington announced its approval of the F-16 transfers on Friday, and training of Ukraine pilots is set to begin this month, which may allow Ukraine to begin deploying the jets in early 2024.
The decision is “absolutely historic, powerful and inspiring for us”, Zelenskyy said alongside Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte during a visit to the Eindhoven airbase in the Netherlands on Sunday.
The Dutch air force has 42 F-16s and Rutte said the number provided to Kyiv would be finalised after talks with allies.
Later on Sunday, Zelenskyy travelled to Denmark’s Skrydstrup airbase and was greeted by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
“We also know that you need more and that is why today we announced that we will donate 19 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine,” the Danish leader said.
Six of the jets will be delivered by the end of this year, eight next year, and five in 2025, Frederiksen said.
“This is a very powerful support for us – training missions are already starting,” Zelenskyy told journalists.
“We are doing our best to get even more results for Ukraine. In particular, today we discussed the expansion of training missions. Ukraine’s sky shield is getting stronger.”
Alexandre Vautravers, an analyst and the editor-in-chief of the Swiss Military Review, said the F-16 development “is not a game changer but allows Ukraine to stay in the game”.
“Until now, we can say that Ukraine received quite a number of combat aircraft, mostly MiG-29s, so it has been able to maintain the number of aircraft it started the war with,” Vautravers told Al Jazeera.
“But the Western countries have no more ex-Soviet airplanes to commit to this fight and, therefore, it will need to be Western airplanes from now on.”
Zelenskyy’s visit comes after a trip to Sweden on Saturday, when he discussed joint production of CV90 combat vehicles and training of Ukraine pilots for Gripen fighter jets with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
‘Nuclear’ threat
The long-sought approval to supply the jets drew a warning from Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would consider the F-16s a “nuclear” threat because of their capacity to carry atomic weapons.
The Netherlands and Denmark have led a months-long push to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s and to ultimately deliver the jets to help counter the air superiority of Russia, whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov on Saturday said training had begun for Ukrainian pilots, but it would take at least six months and possibly longer to also train engineers and mechanics.
Frederiksen said more than 70 Ukrainian military officials arrived in Denmark for training. Ukraine says it expects several dozen pilots to be trained.
Both the Netherlands and Denmark have F-16s available to donate as their armed forces are transitioning to newer F-35 fighters made by a group of countries led by Washington.
Here is the situation on Tuesday, August 15, 2023.
Fighting
Ukraine downed three waves of Russian missiles and drones targeting Odesa, the army said. Fifteen drones and eight Kalibr-type sea-based missiles were involved in the attack. Falling debris from the destroyed weapons damaged a student dormitory and a supermarket in Odesa’s city centre, leaving three workers wounded.
Russia said its air defence systems shot down unmanned aerial vehicles over its Belgorod region, the TASS news agency reports. It said there were no casualties or damage.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian weapons were proving their effectiveness in the war against Ukraine and that “much-hyped” Western arms had shown themselves to be “far from perfect”.
Ukraine reported fierce fighting along its entire front line and claimed “some success” in pushing back Moscow’s troops in the southeast of the country. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian troops had pushed forward around the village of Staromaiorske, about 97km (60 miles) southwest of Russian-held Donetsk, and were pressing on two fronts in the south.
A Russian spokesperson in Ukraine’s Kherson region accused Kyiv’s forces of attacking a monastery in the village of Korsunka as well as a school, TASS reported.
Russia is equipping its new nuclear submarines with hypersonic Zircon missiles as part of the country’s efforts to boost its nuclear forces, the RIA state news agency reported, quoting Alexei Rakhmanov, chief executive officer of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). Yasen-class submarines, also known as Project 885M, are nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines built to replace Soviet-era nuclear attack submarines as part of a programme to modernise Russia’s fleet.
Economy
The Russian rouble slid past 100 against the dollar, its lowest level since March 23, 2022. The rouble has shed about 30 percent of its value against the dollar as imports rise and exports decrease since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. On Monday morning, data from the Moscow Exchange showed the rouble trading at 101.01 to the dollar, while against the euro, it fell to a near 17-month low of 110.73.
Military aid
The United States will send Ukraine new military assistance worth $200m. The package includes air defence munitions, artillery rounds, anti-armour capabilities and mine-clearing equipment, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the US for its decision to send Kyiv the assistance package.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked Germany’s finance minister and government for their support in financial aid and sanctions against Russia.
Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the provision of long-range missiles, such as the German Taurus missiles Kyiv has asked for, would reduce Russia’s combat capabilities by focusing on “the destruction of rear logistics – warehouses, transportation, fuel”.
Diplomacy
Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu will visit Russia and Belarus this week. “State Councillor and Defence Minister Li Shangfu will go to Russia to attend the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security, and visit Belarus,” a Chinese defence ministry spokesperson said.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said employees of Russian institutions in Moldova – the embassy, trade mission and Russian Centre of Science and Culture – as well as their family members have returned to Moscow. Last month, Moldova told Russia to reduce its embassy presence in Chisinau, citing concerns about alleged Russian attempts to destabilise the small state, which borders Romania and Ukraine.
Politics
US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy met with jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in her third such visit since his March detention in Russia on espionage charges, which he denies, according to the newspaper.
An ally of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is on trial in Siberia on charges of creating an “extremist organisation”, a court spokeswoman told France’s AFP news agency. Ksenia Fadeyeva, 31, is a former municipal deputy in the Siberian city of Tomsk and headed Navalny’s political office in the city.
Espionage
A major general in Ukraine’s security service has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for high treason, the German press agency, dpa, reported. The intelligence officer was accused of collecting information and passing it on to Russia, the public prosecutor’s office in Kyiv said.
Poland’s Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski announced that two Russian citizens found “distributing propaganda materials of the Wagner Group” have been detained in Warsaw and Krakow. “Both were charged with … espionage and arrested,” Kaminski said on social media.
Black Sea tension
Ukraine condemned what it called “provocative” Russian actions a day after a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo vessel in the Black Sea.
Romania aims to double the monthly transit capacity of Ukrainian grain via the Danube River, the country’s Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu said. Romania could increase Danube River transit capacity by hiring more staff to ease the passage of vessels and finalising connecting infrastructure projects, Grindeanu told reporters. Before Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal, the Danube ports accounted for about a quarter of Ukraine’s grain exports.
Regional security
The United Kingdom said its fighter jets intercepted two Russian maritime patrol bomber aircraft in international airspace north of Scotland, a NATO policing area. The UK said its Typhoon jets routinely scrambled during such incidents to secure and safeguard its skies.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it scrambled a MIG-29 jet after a Norwegian air force plane neared Russian airspace off its Arctic coast. Separately, the ministry said Russian strategic bombers carried out routine flights over international waters in the Arctic.
Russia will deliver S-400 anti-aircraft systems to India within an agreed timeframe, the Russian Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian defence export official as saying. India is the world’s biggest weapons importer and still primarily uses Russian technology for arms, but officials have expressed concern that Russia’s war in Ukraine could delay deliveries.
BRUSSELS — EU countries are bickering over granting billions in new funds to deal with migration as asylum applications soar and backlogs pile up at the Continent’s borders.
Germany, which received a quarter of all EU asylum applications in 2022, specifically wants to “revitalize” the EU’s ties with neighboring Turkey, according to a senior German official — a nod to the last time the bloc faced such levels of migration.
Then, in 2016, the EU offered Turkey billions in exchange for the country housing thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war. Now, there is a push to authorize up to €10.5 billion in new money for not just Turkey, but also countries like Libya or Tunisia, hoping it would help them prevent people from entering the EU without permission.
The debate has jumped onto the agenda of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. And countries are sparring over whether to reference a monetary request in the meeting’s final conclusions, according to five diplomats and officials from four different countries.
The behind-the-scenes fight illustrates how much migration has come to dominate the political agenda. Organizers for the summit had hoped to keep the divisive migration talk to a minimum in favor of discussions on Russia, China and economic security. But with high-profile disasters like the recent migrant shipwreck near Greece and arrival figures continuing their steep climb, the heated issue is becoming increasingly hard to avoid.
Notably, draft conclusions for the summit, dated Wednesday evening and seen by POLITICO, still had two indirect references to the fresh migration funds: The €10.5 billion pot and another €2 billion for “managing migration” within the EU’s own borders.
Whether that language survives until Friday is another question.
Germany: Let’s talk Turkey, not money
Germany, as always, is one of the key players in the debate — and in this instance, it is making arguments for both sides.
On one side, Berlin wants to renew the EU’s relationship with Turkey, hoping it can take in more asylum seekers and help cut down on unauthorized border crossings. In return, the Germans want the EU to improve trade ties with the country.
On the other side, however, Berlin is fiercely opposing the attempt to explicitly mention money in the summit conclusions. The logic: Committing to fresh billions now would imperil upcoming talks over whether to add €66 billion to its budget. Germany wants to discuss the whole package at once, instead of approving parts of it in advance.
As of Wednesday night, the summit conclusions draft still contained an indirect endorsement of the money.
Germany, as always, is one of the key players in the debate — and in this instance, it is making arguments for both sides | David Gannon/AFP via Getty Images
The document mentions “financing mechanisms” — seen as a reference to the €10.5 billion — for “the external aspects of migration.” That money would go to countries like Turkey, Libya and Tunisia, which migrants often traverse on their way to Europe.
There’s also an indirect reference to the €2 billion for internal EU migration management. The text calls for “support for displaced persons,” particularly from Ukraine, via “adequate and flexible financial assistance to the member states who carry the largest burden of medical, education and living costs of refugees.” Translated, that would mean more money for countries that host the bulk of Ukrainian refugees, like Poland and Germany.
Yet during a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday, German officials urged their counterparts to cut or massively reduce both passages, according to the five diplomats and officials, who, like other officials in this story, were granted anonymity because they are not allowed to publicly discuss the talks.
As of Wednesday night, that appeal had failed. But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz may take up the issue himself with his counterparts on Thursday.
The German argument is that including the figures would mean EU leaders are essentially making a big step toward endorsing the full budget package — which the European Commission requested just last week — before even discussing it, two of the officials said.
Nevertheless, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to briefly present her €66 billion budget plan during the gathering of EU leaders on Thursday, meaning there will likely be an initial debate about the money, the officials said.
Von der Leyen’s plans are expected to run into resistance from a number of countries, particularly the so-called “frugal” countries, including Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Speaking to a briefing for reporters in Berlin on Wednesday, a senior German official also voiced caution about von der Leyen’s plan.
“One of the questions is: Is the Commission’s assessment of the situation convincing?” said the senior official, who could not be named due to the rules under which the briefing was organized.
Time to work with Erdoğan again?
At the same time, the senior German official stressed Berlin’s interest in renewing the EU relationship with Turkey.
“[Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan has been re-elected, and this must be an opportunity for the EU to take another broad look at its relationship with Turkey,” the official said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images
“For us, it’s a matter of putting EU-Turkey relations once again on the agenda … to possibly revitalize them, if all sides want to commit to this,” the official continued, adding that the European Commission and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell should “come back in the fall with proposals.”
One idea could be an update of the EU’s trade rules with Turkey — a thorny issue, though, as talks between Brussels and Ankara have failed to make progress on modernizing the so-called EU-Turkey customs union for several years.
Germany’s Scholz held a phone call with Erdoğan on Wednesday during which both leaders discussed how “to cooperate further and deepen exchanges on various cooperation issues,” according to Steffen Hebestreit, Scholz’s spokesperson.
Any progress in EU-Turkey relations would also require the agreement of the EU countries perpetually at odds with Turkey — Greece and Cyprus.
At least in that sense, there seems to be progress: “We agreed to include a paragraph on Turkey and the future relations,” a Greek diplomat said.
The latest draft conclusions from Wednesday evening ask Borrell and the Commission “submit a report” on EU-Turkey relations “with a view to proceeding in a strategic and forward-looking manner.”
Barbara Moens, Jakob Hanke Vela, Lili Bayer, Jacopo Barigazzi and Gregorio Sorgi contributed reporting.
As the war enters its 479th day, these are the main developments.
This is the situation as it stands on Saturday, June 17, 2023.
Fighting
The Commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said the situation in the east of the country remains “tense” and plans for the ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces need to be adjusted. “Despite the advance of our troops in the south and the loss of territory and settlements in this direction, the enemy continues to move some of the most combat-capable units to the Bakhmut direction, combining these actions with powerful artillery fire and strikes by assault and army aircraft on the positions of our troops,” he said.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces repelled numerous attempts by Ukrainian forces in their ongoing counterattacks over the last 24 hours and inflicted significant losses in the south Donetsk and Donetsk directions. More than 500 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and five tanks were destroyed, the ministry said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin again rejected reports of Ukrainian counteroffensive successes on the front lines in Ukraine, saying that at “no point have they achieved their goals”. He also said Ukraine will soon run out of its own military equipment and will be totally reliant on the West.
Ukraine will send several dozen combat pilots to train on US-made F-16 fighter jets, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said. NATO members the Netherlands and Denmark are leading efforts in an international coalition to train pilots and support staff, maintain aircraft and ultimately supply the F-16s.
Putin proclaimed the end of “neo-colonialism” in international politics and praised Russia’s economic strategy following its ruptured ties with the West. “The ugly neo-colonial system of international relations has ceased to exist, while the multi-polar global order is strengthening,” he said at an annual economic forum in Saint Petersburg.
Putin confirmed that Russia has sent nuclear arms to its ally Belarus. He also said that Russia could “theoretically” use nuclear weapons if there was a threat to its territorial integrity or existence.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it “ironic” that Putin had placed Russian nuclear arms in Belarus when Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine as an action to prevent Kyiv from obtaining nuclear weapons.
The White House denounced the comments from Putin on the possible use of nuclear weapons, adding that the US had made no adjustments to its own nuclear posture in response to the rhetoric.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is ready for further talks on nuclear arms control, the Interfax news agency reported.
A delegation of African leaders visited Kyiv on a peace mission where they called on Russia and Ukraine to de-escalate and negotiate. Shortly after their arrival, air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine as Russian missiles were detected. “The launching of the missiles today does not deter us and has not stopped us from continuing to call for de-escalation,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ruled out peace talks with Russia until a full withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from Ukraine.
United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told Putin that his nation wished to strengthen ties with Russia. The Gulf state has not joined the West in placing sanctions on Moscow and has maintained what it says is a neutral position on the Ukraine war.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said NATO allies may be ready to remove hurdles from Ukraine’s path to joining the NATO military alliance amid reports that the US is open to allowing Kyiv to forgo a formal candidacy process.
Turkey and Hungary must ratify Sweden’s NATO membership before the alliance meets at a summit in July, France said, adding that any further delays were not understandable and risked the security of the 31-member alliance.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also urged Turkey’s new defence minister to approve Sweden’s NATO membership.
Putin said there was a “serious danger” that NATO could be pulled further into the Ukraine conflict.
Canada said it would bolster its force in Latvia as part of NATO with the deployment of 15 Leopard 2A4M tanks.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it summoned the Australian ambassador after authorities in Australia cancelled the lease of a land plot where a new Russian embassy complex was being built in Canberra.
Humanitarian aid
The United Nations estimates an “extraordinary” 700,000 people require drinking water in eastern Ukraine following the collapse of the Kakhovka dam.
The US will provide an additional $205m in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, Secretary of State Blinken said.
It is unlikely that Russia will quit the Black Sea grain deal before it comes up for renewal on July 17, Russian media reported. But Russian officials said they see no grounds to extend the agreement beyond that date. “How can you extend something that doesn’t work?” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
At NATO summit after NATO summit, European leaders get a clear public message from Washington — increase spending on defense.
In private, there’s another message that’s just as clear — make sure a lot of that extra spending goes on U.S. weapons.
European leaders are resisting.
“We must develop a genuinely European defense technological and industrial base in all interested countries, and deploy fully sovereign equipment at European level,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the GLOBSEC conference in Bratislava last month.
The decades of cajoling from Washington are paying off. Although most EU countries aren’t yet meeting NATO’s target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, the alliance has seen eight years of steady spending increases. In 2022, spending by European countries was up by 13 percent to $345 billion — almost a third higher than a decade ago — much of it a reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Now the question is how that money will be spent.
The U.S. wants to ensure that European countries — which already spend about half of their defense purchasing on American kit — don’t make a radical switch to spending more of that money at home.
Some European leaders are hoping that’s exactly what happens, but it’s an open question whether the Continent’s defense industry can make that happen.
“Traditionally, there was a suspicion about a change in Europe’s defense capabilities which dates back more than 25 years,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, Eurasia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What direction would the EU go, would it mean the EU would decouple from NATO, what would the impact be on U.S. defense industrial policy?”
Buying at home
The current tensions in Brussels are over whether new EU-wide defense policy should be limited to EU companies — a position driven by Macron and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, a Frenchman. That confirms suspicions stateside about European protectionism when it comes to allowing U.S. companies to compete for EU contracts.
“Our plan is to directly support, with EU money, the effort to ramp up our defense industry, and this for Ukraine and for our own security,” Breton said last month.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton wants new EU-wide defense policy to be limited to EU companies | Olivier Hoslet/AFP via Getty Images
But there’s an uncomfortable fact for the backers of European strategic autonomy: When it comes to arms, Europe still depends on the U.S.
While European companies have deep expertise in defense — building everything from France’s Rafale fighter to Germany’s Leopard tank and Poland’s man-portable Piorun air-defense system — the scale of the U.S. arms industry, as well as its technological innovation, makes it attractive for European weapons buyers.
The most common big-ticket item is Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, at a cost of $80 million a pop. There is also an immediate surge in demand for off-the-shelf items like shoulder-fired missiles and artillery shells.
“Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states want to import more arms, faster,” said a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Buying abroad
The war in Ukraine has underscored the dominance of the U.S. defense industry.
A host of European countries are buying Javelin anti-tank missiles produced by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin; Poland this year signed a $1.4 billion deal to buy 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks, as well as another $10 billion agreement to buy High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems produced by Lockheed Martin; Slovakia is buying F-16 fighters, while Romania is in talks to buy F-35s.
Those deals are raising fears in Europe over whether they can wean themselves off of U.S. defense suppliers. In one example, France and Germany worry about Spain’s intentions as it kicks the tires on F-35s while also being a partner in developing the European Future Combat Air System jet fighter.
But the need to restock weapons depots and continue shipping materiel to Ukraine is urgent, and after decades of contraction, the Continent’s defense industry is having a difficult time adjusting.
“Our European allies and partners, they’ve never experienced anything like this,” said a senior U.S. Defense Department official, referring to the spasm of spending brought on by Russia’s invasion. The official was granted anonymity to discuss the situation. “They don’t yet have the defense production authorities they need [to move quickly] and they’ve really been looking to us to try to get a handle on how they can increase production, and I think they’re learning a lot from us.”
To help Europe get there, the United States has expanded the number of bilateral security supply arrangements it has with foreign partners since the Russian invasion, signing new agreements with Latvia, Denmark, Japan and Israel since October. These allow countries to more quickly and easily sell and trade defense-related goods and services.
The Biden administration also signed an administrative arrangement with the European Union in late April to establish working groups on supply-chain issues, while giving both sides a seat at the table in internal meetings at the European Defence Agency and the Pentagon.
But there are limits to how far and how fast both sides are able and willing to go.
In the near term, capacity issues and political will means the rhetorical sea change in EU military spending is unlikely to make a huge dent in U.S. military industrial policy.
While the past 18 months have seen a huge spike in defense budgets — Germany announced a special debt-financed fund worth €100 billion after the Russian invasion of Ukraine; Poland’s defense expenditure is set to reach 4 percent of GDP this year — EU-wide projects are facing significant headwinds. European companies say they need longer lead times and long-term contracts to make needed investments.
“You need that visibility and certainty to make those investments. We’re in a chicken game between governments and industry — who are the first ones that are putting the money on the table,” said Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, director of the military expenditure and arms production program at SIPRI.
Ultimately, the global defense boom means that there should be plenty of military spending to go around, at least in the short term as countries rush to prove their worth to their NATO and EU allies and the Russian threat remains acute.
Paul McLeary reported from Washington and Suzanne Lynch from Brussels.
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President Biden is welcoming Denmark and Britain’s prime ministers this week to Washington for talks that will focus heavily on what lays ahead in the war in Ukraine — including the recently launched effort to train, and eventually equip, Ukraine with American-made F-16s fighter jets.
Britain and Denmark are playing a key role in the joint international plan that Mr. Biden recently endorsed after months of resisting calls from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for U.S. aircraft.
The president’s separate meetings with the leaders of two key NATO allies — he’ll see Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen on Monday and the U.K.’s Rishi Sunak on Thursday — come at a critical period in the 15-month war as Ukraine readies to launch a counteroffensive. It’s also a moment when the U.S. and Europe are looking to demonstrate to Moscow that the Western alliance remains strong and focused on cementing a longer-term commitment to Ukraine, with no end to the conflict in sight.
“One of the things we’ll be looking for their perspectives on and the President will be interested in sharing his perspectives on is the long term security needs of Ukraine,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “And that’s really where the F-16s kind of come into this discussion.”
Denmark has purchased dozens of American-made F-16s since the 1970s and has indicated it is open to the possibility of providing Ukraine with some. Britain strongly advocated for a coalition to supply Ukraine with fighter planes, and says it will support Ukraine getting the F-16s it wants. But the U.K. does not have any F-16s, and has ruled out sending Royal Air Force Typhoon jets.
Instead, Britain says it will give Ukrainian pilots basic training on Western-standard jets starting in early summer to prepare them to fly F-16s. The Ukrainian pilots will then go on to other countries for the next stages of training.
The F-16 agreement is among several recent high-profile efforts by the U.S. and Europe focused on bolstering Western resolve as the war grinds on. Moscow officials claimed that Ukrainian forces were making a major effort to punch through Russian defensive lines in southeast Ukraine for a second day Monday. Kyiv authorities did not confirm the attacks and suggested the claim was a Russian misinformation ruse.
Frederiksen and Sunak were among 45 European leaders who traveled to Moldova last week for the first summit of the European Political Community, where they underscored support for Eastern Europe’s ambitions to draw closer to the West and keep Moscow at bay.
Mr. Biden is also expected to discuss with the two leaders preparations for next month’s NATO summit in Lithuania, which comes amid growing pressure on the alliance from Zelenskyy on NATO to offer Ukraine concrete security guarantees and a defined path for Kyiv to eventually win membership into the group.
The 31-member alliance is also looking at boosting Ukraine’s non-member status in NATO and preparing a framework for security commitments that it can offer once the war with Russia is over.
Max Bergmann, a former senior State Department official during the Obama administration, said Mr. Biden and his European counterparts’ task is to stay on the same page for what comes after Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive.
“Throughout this conflict, we have not only underestimated the Ukrainians but we have also underestimated the Europeans,” said Bergmann, who is now director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “They’re not wavering but they will also need to keep finding new funds to plow into military equipment to support the Ukrainians. There’s a question on both sides of the Atlantic: How much will it actually take to sustain Ukraine?”
Mr. Biden is also expected to check in with Frederiksen and Rishi on his effort to press fellow NATO member Turkey to back off blocking Sweden from joining the military alliance.
Sweden and Finland, both historically unaligned militarily, jointly sought NATO membership after being rattled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Turkey initially blocked both countries from joining the alliance before agreeing to membership for Finland while continuing to object to Sweden.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has objected to Sweden’s perceived support of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, the leftist extremist group DHKP-C, and followers of the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara claims was behind a failed military coup attempt in 2016.
Erdogan won reelection last week to a third term despite his government’s struggle to deal with runaway inflation and the aftermath of an earthquake that leveled entire cities in the country. Now that his reelection battle is behind him, White House officials are increasingly optimistic that the Turkish leader will withdraw his opposition to Sweden’s membership, according to a U.S. official familiar with internal deliberations. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Biden said he raised Sweden’s NATO application and Turkey’s desire to buy 40 new F-16s from the U.S. — a move some in Congress oppose until Turkey approves NATO membership for Sweden — during a phone call last week with Erdogan.
“He still wants to work on something on the F-16s. I told him we wanted a deal with Sweden, so let’s get that done,” Mr. Biden told reporters shortly after the call.
Days later, at his commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, the president spoke with certainty about Sweden’s NATO membership hopes. “It will happen. I promise you,” heu said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken both expressed hope that Sweden will be brought into the NATO fold by the time allied leaders meet in Lithuania on July 11-12. Stoltenberg met with Erdogan on Sunday in Istanbul for talks but no breakthrough was made.
Copenhagen, Denmark — A 57-year-old truck driver was detained Thursday after loads of potatoes were found spilled on a key bridge linking two Danish islands, police have said. The driver was held on suspicion of causing reckless endangerment to life.
A first spill was reported on the westbound side of the Storebaelt bridge at 6.35 a.m. (0435 GMT), police spokesman Kenneth Taanquist said. The bridge connects the island where the capital, Copenhagen, is located to the rest of Denmark.
The Great Belt Bridge suspension bridge over Storebaelt joins Funen to Zealand, as seen from Halskov rocks, Denmark, in a June 21, 2015 file photo.
Tim Graham/Getty
A similar incident happened on the eastbound side a short time later, Taanquist added.
“It looks weird,” he said. “We are working on two hypotheses: it is either an accident or it is something that has been done deliberately.”
Police said the roads had become slippery and urged drivers to drive slowly. According to the Danish Road Directorate, lines of vehicles were reported on either side of the roughly 11-mile bridge and tunnel link between the islands of Funen, where Odense — Denmark’s third largest city — is located, and Zealand, where Copenhagen sits.
A third incident of potatoes on the road was reported near the town of Kolding on the Jutland peninsula. Kolding is near the Storebaelt bridge.
Danish public broadcaster DR noted that the potato spills occurred on the same day as the Danish parliament passed a law to tax diesel trucks transporting heavy loads.
Trucks are seen blockading traffic as a police vehicle approaches at Folehaven, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 15, 2023, during a protest against the government’s proposal to tax diesel trucks carrying heavy loads.
MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty
The new measure has drawn protests from truck drivers. In recent weeks, they peacefully blocked highways and main roads throughout the country, claiming the tax will make their livelihoods unsustainable. A majority in the Danish parliament argue it is vital as the continued use of gas and diesel-fueled trucks is environmentally unsustainable.
As of 2025, the drivers of gas and diesel-fueled vehicles over 3.5 tons (7, 716 pounds) will be taxed 1.3 kroner ($0.19) per kilometer (roughly half a mile) driven.
Torben Dyhl Hjorth, a spokesman for the protesting truckers, said on Facebook that they “strongly distance themselves from today’s ‘stunts’.” He added that they were planning a protest at a later stage which “can be felt but without risk to people’s lives and well-being.”
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Don’t expect to see F-16s in Ukrainian skies anytime soon — the allies need some time.
Following months of Ukrainian lobbying, the U.S. on Friday greenlit training for Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighter aircraft, raising expectations that a fleet of F-16s would soon be on its way.
Yet as of now, some of the leading contenders to donate the American-developed warplanes — including the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark — have only committed to helping train Ukrainian pilots, expressing reluctance to make further promises.
“Let’s make sure we now make the most of training activities,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra told reporters in Brussels on Monday. “What the future then holds for us,” he added, “remains to be seen.”
Some, like Belgium, have even directly said they don’t have F-16s to spare.
The pattern, however, is one that has played out over and over as Western allies gradually escalate the weaponry they are shuttling to Ukraine. At first, there is hesitation. Then one of the major powers — often the U.S. — takes a first step, followed by a coalition of European nations that jump roughly together.
“This is kind of indicative of how the U.S. has provided assistance at every step of the war in Ukraine,” said Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
For now, no one is ready to send the first jet. That could easily change — in time.
“The delivery of F-16s will indeed make a difference … months from now,” said Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe.
Where are the jets now?
The slow decision-making is linked to both political and technical considerations. Few countries have an F-16 surplus, and the modern machines require significant training and logistics. The U.S. also has to authorize other countries to re-export the plane.
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, said “the Netherlands are in a position to be [the] first” country gifting fighter jets.
The Netherlands currently has 24 F-16s in use which are “operationally deployable” and “will remain in use until mid-2024,” a spokesperson for the Dutch defense ministry said. “After that, they are available for another destination, such as sale.”
Ukrainian Air force MiG-29 fighter planes take part exercises during August 2016 | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
The Netherlands also has an additional 18 F-16s “which are no longer used operationally” and “can also be given a different destination.”
Twelve of these 18 were originally slated to be transferred to a private company, but the transfer had been delayed, the spokesperson noted.
Predictably, the U.S., where the F-16 was invented, maintains its own massive fleet. Yet asked Monday if there is any chance the U.S. will provide its own planes, U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters: “I don’t know. I mean, I think there’s a number of possibilities.”
The U.K., meanwhile, has been an aggressive advocate of creating a Western “coalition for jets.” But the country itself lacks any F-16s to donate.
Several other capitals have also signaled they are only willing to go as far as training. In addition to Belgium, Polish President Andrzej Duda said last week that Warsaw will not give away its more modern jets — the country maintains a fleet of 48 F-16s — after already donating Soviet-era MiG-29s.
How long will training take? Where will it happen?
Washington has indicated that while it now supports Ukraine getting access to the F-16s, the decision is designed to help Kyiv in the longer term — and won’t have an immediate impact on the battlefield.
“It will take several months at best for them to have that capability and there are a lot of details that are going to have to be sorted out,” Kendall, the air force secretary, said Monday. “It will give the Ukrainians an incremental capability that they don’t have right now. But it’s not going to be a dramatic game changer.”
For now, allies are working to get the training started.
A spokesperson for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — whose country doesn’t have F-16s — said on Monday that Berlin and Washington were in “close coordination” on the plans, but stressed that the program “takes several months or even years, depending on the previous experience of the pilots.”
The spokesperson cited Spangdahlem and Ramstein as air force bases in Germany where the U.S. has F-16s stationed, offering possible sites for practice. The spokesperson declined to comment on what specific support Berlin may provide.
Some experts have criticized the pace of decision-making.
The U.S. administration’s “continued incremental decision-making undermines so much of the good work it has already done,” Hodges, the former U.S. general, told POLITICO on Monday.
“If the administration would decide that it wants Ukraine to actually win this war, then all the excuses would go away, decisions would be made in time, and the full effect of Western support would bring about the quickest possible successful conclusion to this war,” he added.
Kendall, the U.S. air force secretary, underscored that the issue is a matter of priorities — and that there is now a shift to thinking ahead.
“We could certainly have started earlier, but there were much higher priorities and it’s seen by some as an escalatory act on our part,” he said.
How would Ukraine use F-16s? Would Russia respond?
While there were fears earlier in the conflict that providing advanced, Western fighter jets could be escalatory, officials appear to have shed those concerns — as they did earlier in the conflict on the issue of sending modern, Western tanks.
A diplomat from a European country with F-16s said Ukraine could use the planes in different ways, including mere surveillance and defense of its airspace, and commit to not launch any bombing campaigns over Russian territory.
U.S. President Joe Biden said over the weekend that he received “a flat assurance” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the jets will not be used in Russian territory. “But wherever Russian troops are within Ukraine in the area, they would be able to do that,” he said.
Alexander Grushko, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, warned that Western countries sending F-16s to Ukraine would incur “colossal risks for themselves,” according to Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass. Yet that’s a message Moscow has tossed out for each new stage of Western support — and the Kremlin is running out of ways to escalate further.
“There is not much they can do,” said Jones, the CSIS scholar. “I think it reflects that the concerns I think that a range of government officials have had about how the Russians might respond to more sophisticated weapons have just not proven to be accurate.”
The European diplomat said the U.S. could grow more comfortable with the idea of sending F-16s to Ukraine if Kyiv fails to make significant gains in its upcoming offensive, or if the West finds itself unable to supply Ukraine with other key needs and decides to compensate with jets.
Asked if it is realistic for Ukraine to get F-16s by the fall, a senior Central European defense official was upbeat, saying “I think it is.”
Weighing in on the same question, a senior diplomat from Eastern Europe quipped: “Why not?”
Jacopo Barigazzi, Hans von der Burchard, Jan Cienski and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.
It’s an hour before dawn breaks over the North Sea. Aboard the KV Bergen, the officer of the watch is wide awake.
The 93-meter long Norwegian Navy Coast Guard vessel is on patrol, 50 miles out to sea. The sky is dark, the sea darker. But off the starboard bow, bright lights gleam through the rain and mist. Something huge and incongruous is looming out of the water, lit like a Christmas display.
“Troll A,” says Torgeir Standal, 49, the ship’s second in command, who is taking the watch on this bleak March morning.
It’s a gas platform — a big one.
When it was transported out to this desolate spot nearly 30 years ago, Troll A — stretching 472 meters from its seabed foundations to the tip of its drilling rig — became the tallest structure ever moved by people across the surface of the Earth. Last year, Troll, the gas field it taps into, provided 10 percent of the EU’s total supply of natural gas — heating homes, lighting streets, fueling industry.
“There are many platforms here,” says Standal, standing on the dark bridge of the Bergen, his face illuminated by the glow from the radar and satellite screens on his control panel. “And thousands of miles of pipeline underneath.”
And that’s why the Bergenhas come to this spot today.
In September 2022, an explosion on another undersea gas pipeline nearly 600 miles away shook the world. Despite three ongoing investigations, there is still no official answer to the question of who blew up the Nord Stream pipe. But the fact that it could happen at all triggered a Europe-wide alert.
The Norwegian Navy’s KV Bergen, seen in the background, after departing from the port of Bergen
Against a backdrop of growing confrontation with Moscow over its brutal invasion of Ukraine and its willingness to use energy as a weapon, the vulnerability of the undersea pipes and cables that deliver gas, electricity and data to the Continent — the vital arteries of comfortable, modern European life — has been starkly exposed.
In response, Norway, alongside NATO allies, increased naval patrols in the North Sea — an area vital for Europe’s energy security. The presence of the Bergen, day and night, in these unforgiving waters, is part of the effort to remain vigilant. The task of the men and women on board is to keep watch on behalf of Europe — and to stop the next Nord Stream attack before it happens.
The officers of the watch
But what are they looking for?
In recent weeks the Bergen has tracked the movements of a Russian military frigate through the North Sea — something that it has to do “several times every year,” says Kenneth Dyb, 47, the skippsjef, or commander of the ship.
The Russians have a right to sail through these seas out to the Atlantic, and it is very unlikely Moscow would be so brazen as to openly attack a gas platform or a pipeline. But, says Dyb, as his ship steams west to another gas and oil field, Oseberg, “it’s important to show that we are present. That we are watching.”
Recent reports that Russian naval ships — with their trackers turned off — were present near the site of the Nord Stream blasts in the months running up to the incident have reinforced the importance of having extra eyes on the water itself.
The Oseberg oil and gas field, 130 kilometers north-west of Bergen
Of course, the gas didn’t come for free. Norway has profited hugely from the spike in gas and oil prices that followed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The state-owned energy giant Equinor made a record $75 billion profit in 2022. Oslo is sensitive to accusations of war profiteering — and keen to show Europe that it cares about its neighbors’ energy security as much as it cares about their cash.
But the threat to the pipelines could also be more low-key. One of the many theories about the Nord Stream attack is that it was carried out by a small group of divers, operating from an ordinary yacht. In such a scenario, something as seemingly innocent as a ship suddenly going stationary, or following an unaccustomed course through the water, could be suspicious. The Bergen’s crew have the authority to board and inspect vessels that its crew consider a cause for concern.
Russia’s covert presence in these waters has been acknowledged by Norway’s intelligence services in recent weeks. A joint investigation by the public broadcasters in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland uncovered evidence of civilian vessels, such as fishing ships, being used for surveillance activities. This is something that has been “going on forever,” according to Ståle Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, but it has increased in intensity in recent years.
“We always look for oddities, anything that is unusual, like new ships in the area that have not been here before,” says Magne Storebø, 26, senior petty officer, as he takes the afternoon watch on the bridge later that day.
The sky is leaden and the horizon lost in cloud. Coffee in hand, Storebø casts his eye over the radar and satellite screens as giant windscreen wipers whip North Sea spray from the floor-to-ceiling windows. There are few ships around, all of them familiar to the crew; service vessels plying back and forth from the gas and oil platforms.
The Nord Stream incident and the new security situation has changed the way Storebø thinks about his work, he says.
He is “more aware of the consequences suspicious vessels could have,” he says. “More awake, you could say.”
Senior Petty Officer Magne Storebø keeps watch from the bridge
Soft-spoken and calm beyond his years, Storebø is philosophical about the potential dangers of his work. He has been in the Navy for four years, in which time war has broken out on the European continent and the threat to his home waters has come into sharp focus.
“If you are going to put a rainy cloud over your head and bury yourself down, I don’t think the Navy or the coastguard is the right place to work in,” he says in conversation with two shipmates later that day. “You need to adjust and to look in a positive direction — and to be ready in case things don’t go that way.”
Energy war round two
As Europe emerges from the first winter of its energy war with Russia, its gas supplies have held up better than almost anyone expected.
But as the Continent braces for next winter, the risk of another Nord Stream-style attack to a key pipeline is taken seriously at the highest levels of leadership.
“Things look OK for gas security now,” said one senior European Commission official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters of energy security. “But if Norway has a pipeline that blows up, we are in a different situation.”
EU policymakers see four key risks to gas security going into next winter, the senior official added: exceptionally cold weather; a stronger-than-expected Chinese economic recovery hoovering up global gas supply; Russia cutting off the remaining gas it sends to Europe; and last but not least, an “incident” affecting energy infrastructure.
Such an event might not only threaten supply but could potentially spark panic in the gas market, as seen in 2022, driving up prices and hitting European citizens and industries in the wallet. And nowhere is the potential for harm greater than in the North Sea.
Norway is now Europe’s biggest single supplier of gas. After Russian President Vladimir Putin and the energy giant Gazprom shut off supply via Nord Stream and other pipelines, Norway stepped up its own production in the North Sea, delivering well over 100 billion cubic meters to the EU and the U.K. in 2022. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Troll A herself in March this year — the first visit of a Commission president to Norway since 2011 — to personally thank the country’s president, Jonas Gahr Støre, for supplies that “helped us through the winter.”
“We have a huge responsibility, supplying the rest of Europe with energy,” Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram told POLITICO. “To be a stable, reliable producer of energy, of gas, is an important role for us and we take that very seriously. That is why we are also doing so much to protect this infrastructure.”
The vast majority of that gas is transported into northwest Europe via a complex network of seabed pipes — more than 5,000 miles of them in Norway’s jurisdiction alone. The North Sea has an average depth of just 95 meters. That’s not much deeper than the Nord Stream pipes at the location they were attacked.
“It actually doesn’t take a particularly sophisticated capability to attack a pipeline in relatively shallow waters,” says Sidharth Kaushal, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K. A small vessel, “some divers and an [explosive] charge” are all it could take, Kaushal says.
The navy chief
After the Nord Stream incident in September, suspicion instantly fell on Russia. Moscow has a record of operating in the so-called gray zone — committing hostile acts short of warfare, often covertly.
To date, the three investigations looking into the incident have yet to confirm that suspicion. But European governments — and their militaries — are not taking any chances.
In the days immediately following the explosions, NATO navy chiefs started calling each other to try to coordinate efforts to protect energy infrastructure, says Rune Andersen, the chief of Norway’s navy, speaking to POLITICO at Haakonsvern naval base, before the KV Bergen’svoyage.
Everyone had the same thought, he says. “If that happens in the North Sea, we will have a problem.”
Andersen joined the Navy as a young man in 1988, in the last days of the Cold War. Now 54, he is used to the Russian threat overshadowing Norway’s and Europe’s security.
“After decades of attempts to integrate or cooperate with Russia, we now have war in Europe. We see that our neighbor is brutal and willing to use military force,” he says grimly. “I worked in the Navy in the ’90s when it was enduring peace and partnership on the agenda. We are back to a situation where our job feels more meaningful — and necessary.”
Kenneth Dyb, the skippsjef, or commander of the ship
However, he points out, his own forces have so far not seen any Russian movements or operations “that are different to what they were before” the Nord Stream attacks. “The job we are doing is precautionary, rather than tailored to any specific threat,” he adds.
Even so, those early discussions with NATO allies have now formalized into daily coordination via the Allied Maritime Command headquarters in the U.K., to ensure there are always NATO ships on hand that can act as “first responders” to potential incidents. British, German and French ships have joined their Norwegian counterparts in the monitoring and surveillance effort.
It is “by nature challenging” to protect every inch of pipeline, all of the time, Andersen says.
The role of the Bergen and ships like it, he adds, is just “one bit of the puzzle.” Simply by their presence at sea, these ships increase the chances of catching would-be saboteurs in the act, and hopefully deter them from trying in the first place.
The goal, in other words, is to reduce the size of the “gray zone” — or to “increase the resolution” of the navy’s picture of the activity out on the North Sea, as Andersen puts it.
In collaboration with the energy companies and pipeline operators, unmanned underwater vehicles — drones — using cameras and high-resolution sonar have been used, Andersen says, to “map the micro-terrain” around pipelines. These are sensitive enough to spot an explosive charge or other signs of foul play.
Equinor, alongside the pipeline operator Gassco, has carried out a “large inspection survey” of its undersea pipeline infrastructure, a company spokesperson says. The survey revealed “no identified signs of malicious activities” but pipeline inspections are ongoing “continuously.”
Senior Petty Officer Simen Strand speaks to the crew. “We haven’t had much to fear in the past. We are probably less naïve nowadays,” he says.
Perhaps understandably, the heightened level of alert has led to the occasional false alarm. A spate of aerial drone sightings near Norwegian energy infrastructure around the time of the Nord Stream attacks last year included a report of a suspicious craft circling above Haakonsvern naval base itself.
“After a while, we concluded it was a seagull,” says Andersen, with the shadow of a grin.
Europe on alert
The navy chief is nonetheless deadly serious about the potential threat. A Nord Stream-style attack in the North Sea is possible. Anderson will not be drawn on the most vulnerable points in the network, saying only that “easy to access” places and “key hubs” are “two things in the back of mind when we think [about] risk.”
Throughout Europe, the alert has been raised. This month, NATO warned of a “significant risk” that Russia could target undersea pipelines or internet cables as part of its confrontation with the West.
Several countries are increasing patrols and underwater surveillance capabilities. The British Royal Navy accelerated the purchase of two specialist ocean surveillance ships, the first of which will be operational this summer. The EU and NATO have established a new joint task force focusing on critical infrastructure protection, and a “coordination cell” has been established at NATO headquarters in Brussels to improve “engagement with industry and bring key military and civilian stakeholders together” to keep the cables and pipelines secure.
Norway — and Europe — are in this struggle for the long haul, Andersen believes.
Indeed, even as Europe transitions from fossil fuels to green energy, the North Sea will remain a vital powerhouse of offshore wind energy, with plans for a huge expansion over the next 25 years. Earlier this year, the Netherlands’ intelligence services reported a Russian ship seeking to map wind farm infrastructure in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. “We think the Russians wanted to investigate the possibilities for potential future sabotage,” Jan Swillens, head of the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service tells POLITICO in an emailed statement. “This incident makes clear that these kinds of Russian operations are performed closer than one might think.”
At the same time in the Baltic, countries are shoring up security around their infrastructure, at sea and on land. Late last year, Estonia carried out an underwater inspection of the two Estlink power cables and the Baltic Connector gas pipeline linking it to Finland, the Estonian navy says. Lithuania, meanwhile, is paying “special attention” to security around its LNG terminal at Klaipėda and the gas cargoes that arrive there, a defense ministry spokesperson says.
Torgeir Standal, left, the KV Bergen’s second in command
It was in Lithuania that Europe had its first major false alarm since the Nord Stream incident, when a gas pipeline on land exploded on a Friday evening in January. Foul play was briefly considered a possibility in the immediate aftermath but was quickly ruled out. The pipe was 40 years old, and had been subject to a technical fault.
The danger posed by Russia to infrastructure throughout Europe should not be underestimated, says Vilmantas Vitkauskas, director of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre and a former NATO intelligence official.
“We know their way of thinking, [the way] they send signals or apply pressure,” Vitkauskas says. “We understand Russia quite well, and we are quite worried by what we see — and how vulnerable our infrastructure is in Europe.”
The watchers on the water
Back aboard the Bergen, life for the sailors carries on as normal. It’s a young crew, with an average age of around 30. Some are conscripts. It’s still compulsory in Norway for 19-year-olds to present themselves for national service, but only around one in four are actually recruited for the mandated 19-month stint.
The days are long. Surveillance, maintenance and exercises in search and rescue are all part of the crew’s regular routine. A helicopter from one of the Oseberg oil and gas platforms soars overhead, and the crew are drafted into an exercise winching people on and off the deck of the Bergenin the dead of night, simulating a rescue operation.
The ship needs to be ready to respond to an incident should the call come in from naval headquarters that help is required, or a suspicious vessel has been identified in their patch of the North Sea. But in their downtime, the sailors head to the gym on the lower deck, or play FIFA on the X-box in the sparse games room. Three hearty meals a day are served in the galley kitchen. There is even a ship’s band, cheekily named “Dyb Purple” after their commander. Dyb “takes it well,” says Senior Petty Officer Storebø.
In the daily whirl of activity, most of the young sailors don’t think of their work in the grand strategic sense of protecting the energy security — the warmth, the light, the industry — of an entire continent.
But the context of the Ukraine war — and the precedent set by the Nord Stream attack — has added a note of solemnity just below the surface of the comradeship and bonhomie.
“We are probably less naïve nowadays,” says 33-year-old Senior Petty Officer Simen Strand, who has a wife and two children, a boy and a girl, back home in Bergen. “We haven’t had much to fear in the past, there hasn’t been a concrete threat.”
Storebø agrees but is characteristically sanguine. “Russia has always been there … I’ve not personally felt any more unease than before.”
The next day, Storebø has the night watch, from midnight to four in the morning, as the Bergen travels back to base for a short stop before heading out to sea again.
It’s dark up on the bridge, with the glow of the control panel screens the only light inside. Twenty miles away, little lights can be seen on the Norwegian coast. A lighthouse flares to the south, at Slåtterøy, not far from Storebø’s home island of Austevoll. Beneath the waves, unseen, gas flows from the Troll field back to the mainland, where it is processed. From there, it continues its journey south to light the dark of European nights.
All is quiet but Storebø can’t afford to lose focus. “Coffee and music help,” he says. “I like the night shifts.”
As the officer of the watch, he has to be ready, should the radar, the satellites, or his own eyes see something out of the ordinary — ready to call the captain and raise the alarm.
That’s the job, he says. “You always have it in the back of your mind.”
The EU has reached a deal to send Ukraine 1 million rounds of ammunition within the next 12 months.
The plan — seen by POLITICO — will see the EU both donate ammunition from its own stockpiles and also jointly purchase new shells for Ukraine. It also leaves open the possibility that the EU could help countries collectively buy missiles for Ukraine. And it sets a goal to “jointly procure” these munitions “in the fastest way possible” before October.
Diplomats and ministers finalized the strategy during meetings in Brussels on Sunday and Monday. EU leaders are expected to give their final blessing at a summit in Brussels later this week.
The deal represents a landmark juncture for the EU, marking the first time the self-described peace project has plotted to jointly buy arms for a country at war. Officials have argued the EU must evolve to meet the extraordinary moment — no less than the fate of democracy on European soil is at stake, they insist.
“A historic decision,” tweeted Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, once the deal was clinched Monday.
The plan has come together rapidly in recent weeks amid fears that Kyiv is running out of shells to hold off Russia’s unyielding assault. Ukrainian officials have said they need at least 1 million 155-millimeter shells to restock and maintain their defenses — a figure that far outstrips Europe’s annual production capacity.
To make up for the shortfall, the EU has drafted a multi-stage blueprint.
First, it will dedicate €1 billion to countries able to either donate ammunition immediately from their own stockpiles or redirect existing orders. Then, it will set aside another €1 billion to jointly buy more ammunition (and possibly missiles) for Ukraine and replace Europe’s donated shells. Finally, it wants to explore ways to boost Europe’s ability to manufacture the arms it needs for years to come.
Borrell in his final remarks speaking to journalists said countries had agreed to the €2 billion total. But diplomats said the legal texts were still being finalized.
Funding for the endeavor is expected to come from the so-called European Peace Facility, formerly an obscure program that has become the EU’s main wartime vehicle to partially reimburse countries for their weapons donations to Ukraine.
Less firm is what the EU plans beyond the €2 billion meant to jointly buy ammunition and cover donations of existing munitions. EU countries did not put forward anything about how to fund the last phase of its plan: growing industrial capacity for years to come. The document circulating Monday merely invited the European Commission to explore the issue and “present concrete proposals.”
“We have an industrial problem,” one seniorofficial conceded late last week, referring to Europe’s struggles to bolster homegrown defense manufacturing.
The €2 billion, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu agreed Monday, is “a clear and solid step further but it won’t be enough.”
Still, the ammunition agreement is a victory for Estonia, which first floated the idea of quickly providing Ukraine with 1 million fresh rounds as part of its push to get EU countries to send more weapons to Kyiv.
It’s also poised to be a boon for France and its many defense firms, as well as numerous defense companies across the EU. France, which has the bloc’s strongest defense sector, has long led the charge to augment European defense spending within EU borders, and the plan approved Monday will essentially do just that, instructing all joint EU contracts to go to EU firms. The only exception is Norway, which is already closely integrated into the EU market.
Several diplomats said French officials were also the ones pushing to include missiles in the scheme, although others chalked it up to Ukraine’s need for the weapons.
Despite the agreement, officials still need to hammer out exactly how the program will operate in practice. Officials have been going back and forth over whether the joint contract negotiations should go through EU agencies, or whether countries should just band together on their own.
EU officials were keen to see the plan identify a role for the European Defense Agency (EDA), the EU body meant to help countries cooperate on national security issues. But some countries have been wary about empowering Brussels to essentially become Europe’s arms negotiator.
The final decision, in classic EU fashion, is an all-of-the-above approach.
Ultimately, only 18 countries signed an agreement to work with the EDA on “the collaborative procurement” of ammunition. On the list are EU heavyweights like Germany, France and the Netherlands (as well as Norway), but not Italy or Spain. The pact envisions two parallel efforts — “a two-year, fast-track procedure for 155mm artillery rounds and a seven-year project to acquire multiple ammunition types.”
But countries will also be able to form groups of three or more to jointly negotiate contracts on their own. Three diplomats said the Netherlands and Denmark, for instance, have expressed interest in joining Germany in its national efforts to procure more ammunition.
Officials acknowledged that considerable work lay ahead.
“Definitely there are many details to be solved,” said Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s defense minister.
Gregorio Sorgi and Nicolas Camut contributed reporting.
Nearly six months on from the subsea gas pipeline explosions, which sent geopolitical shockwaves around the world in September, there is still no conclusive answer to the question of who blew up Nord Stream.
Some were quick to place the blame squarely at Russia’s door — citing its record of hybrid warfare and a possible motive of intimidation, in the midst of a bitter economic war with Europe over gas supply.
But half a year has passed without any firm evidence for this — or any other explanation — being produced by the ongoing investigations of authorities in three European countries.
Since the day of the attack, four states — Russia, the U.S., Ukraine and the U.K. — have been publicly blamed for the explosions, with varying degrees of evidence.
Still, some things are known for sure.
As was widely assumed within hours of the blast, the explosions were an act of deliberate sabotage. One of the three investigations, led by Sweden’s Prosecution Authority, confirmed in November that residues of explosives and several “foreign objects” were found at the “crime scene” on the seabed, around 100 meters below the surface of the Baltic Sea, close to the Danish Island of Bornholm.
Now two new media reports — one from the New York Times, the other a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR, plus newspaper Die Zeit — raised the possibility that a pro-Ukrainian group — though not necessarily state-backed — may have been responsible. On Wednesday, the German Prosecutor’s Office confirmed it had searched a ship in January suspected of transporting explosives used in the sabotage, but was still investigating the seized objects, the identities of the perpetrators and their possible motives.
In the information vacuum since September, various theories have surfaced as to the culprit and their motive:
Theory 1: Putin, the energy bully
In the days immediately after the attack, the working assumption of many analysts in the West was that this was a brazen act of intimidation on the part of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spelt out the hypothesis via his Twitter feed on September 27 — the day after the explosions were first detected. He branded the incident “nothing more [than] a terrorist attack planned by Russia and act of aggression towards the EU” linked to Moscow’s determination to provoke “pre-winter panic” over gas supplies to Europe.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also hinted at Russian involvement. Russia denied responsibility.
The Nord Stream pipes are part-owned by Russia’s Gazprom. The company had by the time of the explosions announced an “indefinite” shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipes, citing technical issues which the EU branded “fallacious pretences.” The new Nord Stream 2 pipes, meanwhile, had never been brought into the service. Within days of Gazprom announcing the shutdown in early September, Putin issued a veiled threat that Europe would “freeze” if it stuck to its plan of energy sanctions against Russia.
But why blow up the pipeline, if gas blackmail via shutdowns had already proved effective? Why end the possibility of gas ever flowing again?
Simone Tagliapietra, energy specialist and senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said it was possible that — if it was Russia — there may have been internal divisions about any such decision. “At that point, when Putin had basically decided to stop supplying [gas to] Germany, many in Russia may have been against that. This was a source of revenues.” It is possible, Tagliapietra said, that “hardliners” took the decision to end the debate by ending the pipelines.
Blowing up Nord Stream, in this reading of the situation, was a final declaration of Russia’s willingness to cut off Europe’s gas supply indefinitely, while also demonstrating its hybrid warfare capabilities. In October, Putin said that the attack had shown that “any critical infrastructure in transport, energy or communication infrastructure is under threat — regardless of what part of the world it is located” — words viewed by many in the West as a veiled threat of more to come.
Theory 2: The Brits did it
From the beginning, Russian leaders have insinuated that either Ukraine or its Western allies were behind the attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said two days after the explosions that accusations of Russian culpability were “quite predictable and predictably stupid.” He added that Moscow had no interest in blowing up Nord Stream. “We have lost a route for gas supplies to Europe.”
Then a month on from the blasts, the Russian defense ministry made the very specific allegation that “representatives of the U.K. Navy participated in planning, supporting and executing” the attack. No evidence was given. The same supposed British specialists were also involved in helping Ukraine coordinate a drone attack on Sevastopol in Crimea, Moscow said.
The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said the “invented” allegations were intended to distract attention from Russia’s recent defeats on the battlefield. In any case, Moscow soon changed its tune.
Theory 3: U.S. black ops
In February, with formal investigations in Germany, Sweden and Denmark still yet to report, an article by the U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh triggered a new wave of speculation. Hersh’s allegation: U.S. forces blew up Nord Stream on direct orders from Joe Biden.
The account — based on a single source said to have “direct knowledge of the operational planning” — alleged that an “obscure deep-diving group in Panama City” was secretly assigned to lay remotely-detonated mines on the pipelines. It suggested Biden’s rationale was to sever once and for all Russia’s gas link to Germany, ensuring that no amount of Kremlin blackmail could deter Berlin from steadfastly supporting Ukraine.
Hersh’s article also drew on Biden’s public remarks when, in February 2022, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he told reporters that should Russia invade “there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
The White House described Hersh’s story as “utterly false and complete fiction.” The article certainly included some dubious claims, not least that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has “cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War.” Stoltenberg, born in 1959, was 16 years old when the war ended.
Russian leaders, however, seized on the report, citing it as evidence at the U.N. Security Council later in February and calling for an U.N.-led inquiry into the attacks, prompting Germany, Denmark and Sweden to issue a joint statement saying their investigations were ongoing.
Theory 4: The mystery boatmen
The latest clues — following reports on Tuesday from the New York Times and German media — center on a boat, six people with forged passports and the tiny Danish island of Christiansø.
According to these reports, a boat that set sail from the German port of Rostock, later stopping at Christiansø, is at the center of the Nord Stream investigations.
Germany’s federal prosecutor confirmed on Wednesday that a ship suspected of transporting explosives had been searched in January — and some of the 100 or so residents of tiny Christiansø told Denmark’s TV2 that police had visited the island and made inquiries. Residents were invited to come forward with information via a post on the island’s Facebook page.
Both the New York Times and the German media reports suggested that intelligence is pointing to a link to a pro-Ukrainian group, although there is no evidence that any orders came from the Ukrainian government and the identities of the alleged perpetrators are also still unknown.
Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s adviser, tweeted he was enjoying “collecting amusing conspiracy theories” about what happened to Nord Stream, but that Ukraine had “nothing to do” with it and had “no information about pro-Ukraine sabotage groups.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against “jumping to conclusions” about the latest reports, adding that it was possible that there may have been a “false flag” operation to blame Ukraine.
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said only that their investigation was ongoing, while a spokesperson for Sweden’s Prosecution Authority said information would be shared when available — but there was “no timeline” for when the inquiries would be completed.
