Ukraine has filed lawsuits against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over their decision to ban grain imports, in a row that has split the EU and could hurt Kyiv’s prospects of joining the bloc.
“It is fundamentally important for us to prove that individual member states cannot ban the import of Ukrainian goods. That is why we are filing lawsuits against them in the WTO,” First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliya Svyridenko said in a statement.
Svyridenko added that the lawsuits, together with pressure from the European Commission and other member countries, “will help restore normal trade between Ukraine and neighboring countries, as well as show solidarity between us.”
The decision comes after the three countries rebelled against a European Commission decision last Friday to end temporary import restrictions — implemented in the spring in an attempt to mitigate a supply glut — and once again allow Ukrainian grain sales across the EU.
The bans by the three central European countries are intended to protect their farmers from a surge in exports from grain superpower Ukraine, following Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea.
“We hope that these states will lift their restrictions and we will not have to clarify the relationship in the courts for a long time,” Svyridenko said.
VIENNA — No one does victimhood quite like Austria.
Over the past century, the Central European country has presented itself to the outside world as an innocent bystander on an island of gemütlichkeit, doing what it can to get by in a treacherous global environment.
“Austria was always apolitical,” insists Herr Karl, the archetypal Austrian opportunist, brought to life in 1961 by Helmut Qualtinger, the country’s greatest satirist. “We were never political people.”
Recalling Austria’s collaboration with the Nazis, Herr Karl, a portly stockist who speaks in a working-class Viennese dialect, was full of self pity: “We scraped a bit of cash together — we had to make a living…How we struggled to survive!”
Russia’s war on Ukraine offers a bitter reminder that Austria remains a country of Herr Karls, playing all sides, professing devotion to Western ideals, even as they quietly look for ways to continue to profit from the country’s friendly relations with Moscow.
The most glaring example of this hypocrisy is Austria’s continued reliance on Russian natural gas, which accounts for about 55 percent of the country’s overall consumption. Though that’s down from 80 percent at the beginning of 2022, Austria, in contrast to most other EU countries, remains dependent on Russia.
Confront an Austrian government official with this fact and you’ll be met with a lengthy whinge over how the country, one of the world’s richest, is struggling to cope with the economic crosswinds triggered by the war. That will be followed by a litany of examples of how a host of other EU countries is guilty of much more egregious behavior vis a vis Moscow.
The unspoken, if inevitable, conclusion: the real victim here is Austria.
The myth of Austrian victimhood has long been a leitmotif of the country’s bilious tabloids, which serve readers regular helpings of all the ways in which the outside world, especially Brussels and Washington, undermines them.
Outside supervision
Earlier this month, the EU’s representative in Austria, Martin Selmayr, ended up in the sights of the tabloids — and the government — for uttering the inconvenient truth that the millions Vienna pays to Russia for gas every month amounted to “blood money.”
“He’s acting like a colonial army officer,” fumed Andreas Mölzer, a right-wing commentator for the Kronen Zeitung, Austria’s best-selling tabloid, noting with delight that both of Selmayr’s grandfathers were German generals in the war.
A few weeks before his “blood money” remarks, Selmayr told a Vienna newspaper that “the European army is NATO” | Patrick Seeger/EPA
“The Eurocrats have this attitude that they can just tell Austrians what to do,” Mölzer concluded.
Yet if Austria’s history since the collapse of the Habsburg empire in 1918 has shown anything, it’s that the country needs outside supervision. Left to their own devices, Austrians’ worst instincts take hold.
One needn’t look further than 1938 to understand the implications. But there’s no shortage of other examples: voters’ enthusiastic support for former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim as president in 1986, despite credible evidence that he had lied about his wartime service as an intelligence officer for the Nazis; the state’s foot-dragging on paying reparations to slave laborers used by Austrian companies during the war; the resistance to return valuable artworks looted from Jews by the Nazis to their rightful owners.
Not that Austrians learn from their mistakes. To this day, Austrians rarely heed the better angels of their nature unless the outside world forces them to, either by shaming them into submission or brute force.
That said, the West is almost as much to blame for Austria’s moral shortcomings as the Austrians themselves.
The Magna Carta for Austria’s cult of victimhood can be found in the so-called Moscow Declarations of 1943, in which the allied powers declared the country “the first free country to fall a victim to Hitlerite aggression.” Though the text also stresses that Austria bears a responsibility — “which she cannot evade” — for collaborating with the Nazis, the Austrians latched onto the “victim” label after the war and didn’t look back.
In the decades that followed, the country relied on its stunning natural beauty and faded imperial charm to transform its international image into that of an alpine Shangri-La, a snow-globe filled with prancing Lipizzaners and jolly folk enjoying Wiener schnitzel and Sachertorte.
Convenient excuse
A key element of that gauzy fantasy was the country’s neutrality, imposed on it in 1955 by the Soviet Union as a condition for ending Austria’s postwar allied occupation. At the time, Austrians viewed neutrality as a necessary evil towards regaining full sovereignty.
During the course of the Cold War, however, neutrality took on an almost religious quality. In the popular imagination, it was neutrality, coupled with Austrians’ deft handling of Soviet leaders, that allowed the country to escape the fate of its Warsaw Pact neighbors (while also doing business with the Eastern Bloc).
Today, Austrian neutrality is little more than a convenient excuse to avoid responsibility.
Austria’s center-right-led government insists that on Ukraine it is only neutral in terms of military action, not on political principle. In other words, it won’t send weapons to Kyiv, but it does support the EU’s sanctions and allows arms shipments destined for Ukraine to pass through Austrian territory.
Andreas Babler took over as leader of the Social Democrats in June AND has a long history of opposing not just NATO, but Austrian participation in any EU defense initiatives | Helmut Fohringer/APA/AFP via Getty Images
In the Austrian population as a whole, decades of fetishizing neutrality has left many convinced that it’s their birthright not to take sides. Most are blissfully unaware of the EU’s mutual defense clause, under which member states agree to come to one another’s aid in the event of “armed aggression.”
That mentality explains why Austria’s political parties — with the notable exception of the liberal Neos — refuse to touch, or even debate, the country’s neutrality and its security implications.
In March, just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy began an address via video to Austria’s parliament, Freedom Party MPs placed signs stamped with “Neutrality” and “Peace” on their desks before standing up in unison and leaving the chamber.
The far right wasn’t alone in its disapproval of Zelenskyy. More than half of the Social Democratic MPs also boycotted the event to avoid upsetting Russia.
Geographic good fortune
Andreas Babler, who took over as leader of the Social Democrats in June, has a long history of opposing not just NATO, but Austrian participation in any EU defense initiatives.
In 2020, he characterized the EU as “the most aggressive military alliance that has ever existed,” adding that it “was worse than NATO.”
It’s an extraordinary assertion given that NATO is the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from swallowing Austria during the Cold War. The defense alliance, which Austrian leaders briefly entertained joining in the 1990s, remains the linchpin of the country’s security for a simple reason: Austria’s only non-NATO neighbor is Switzerland.
Austria’s neutrality and geographic good fortune have led it to spend next to nothing on defense. Last year, for example, spending fell to just 0.8 percent of GDP from 0.9 percent, putting it near the bottom of the EU league table with the likes of Luxembourg, Ireland and Malta.
A few years ago, the country’s defense minister even proposed doing away with “national defense” altogether so that the army could concentrate on challenges such as natural disaster relief and combatting cyber threats. The idea was ultimately rejected, but that it was proposed at all — by the person who oversees the military no less — illustrates how seriously Austria takes its security needs.
Over the past year, the government has pledged to increase defense spending, yet those plans are still well below what the country would be obligated to pay were it in NATO.
Put simply, Austria is freeloading on its neighbors and the United States and will continue to do so until it’s pressured to change course.
Reality check
That’s why it needs more straight talk from people like Selmayr, not less.
A few weeks before his “blood money” remarks, the diplomat told a Vienna newspaper that “the European army is NATO,” noting that the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance would leave only Austria and a few small island states outside the tent.
Austria’s neutrality and geographic good fortune have led it to spend next to nothing on defense | Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images
The reality check dashed Austria’s hope that it could avoid paying its share for EU defense by waiting for Brussels to create its own force.
Even so, rhetoric alone is not going to convince Austria to shift course. Nearly 80 percent of Austrians support neutrality because it’s so comfortable. The EU and the U.S. need to make it uncomfortable.
At the moment, most Austrians only see the upsides to neutrality; yet that’s only because the West has refused to impose any costs on the country for freeriding. That needs to change.
Critics of a more aggressive approach towards Vienna argue that it will only harden the population’s resolve to sustain neutrality and bolster the far right. That may be true in the short term, but the history of foreign pressure on Austria, especially from Washington — be it the isolation it faced during the Waldheim affair or the push to compensate slave laborers from the war — shows that the interventions ultimately work.
If forced to choose between remaining in the Western fold or facing isolation, Austrians will always chose the former.
Though almost no Austrian security officials will say so publicly, few have any illusions about the necessity of a sea change. More than one-third acknowledge that the country’s neutrality is no longer credible, according to a study published this month by the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy. A further third say the country’s participation in the EU’s common foreign and security policy has a “strong influence” on the credibility of its neutrality claim (presumably not in a good way).
And nearly 60 percent say the country needs to improve its interoperability with NATO in order to fight alongside its EU allies in the event of an armed conflict.
The problem is that no one is forcing them.
If Austria’s partners continue to avoid a confrontation, the country is likely to continue its slide towards Orbánism.
The Freedom Party, which wants to suspend EU aid for Ukraine and lift sanctions against Russia, leads the polls by a widening margin with just a year until the next national election. With neighboring Slovakia on a similar trajectory, Russian President Vladimir Putin may soon have a major foothold in the heart of the EU.
So far, the EU and Washington have been silent on the Freedom Party’s worrying rise, counting on Austrians to snap out of it.
Barring foreign pressure, they won’t. Why would they? With its populist prescriptions and beer hall rhetoric, the Freedom Party encourages Austrians to see themselves as what they most want to be: victims.
Or as Herr Karl famously put it: “Nothing that they accused us of was true.”
The United States on Tuesday sharply limited Hungary’s participation in its visa waiver program over security concerns regarding new passports issued between 2011 and 2020.
Under the American Visa Waiver Program, citizens of participating countries can travel to the U.S. for tourism or business for up to 90 days without a visa, and simply need a so-called Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
But starting Tuesday, ESTA validity for Hungarian passport holders will be reduced from two years to one, and an ESTA will only be valid for a single use.
The unprecedented move, in response to security concerns, affects Hungary as the only one of 40 countries participating in the U.S. program.
After coming to power in 2010, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government implemented a major policy change that granted citizenship to ethnic Hungarians abroad — including in Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. Domestic critics say Orbán’s controversial move was designed to boost his electoral prospects.
David Pressman, the U.S. ambassador in Budapest, told POLITICO in an interview ahead of the announcement, “There are hundreds of thousands of passports that have been issued by the government of Hungary as part of the simplified naturalization program without stringent identity verification mechanisms in place.”
The U.S. government has been engaging the Hungarian government on this “security vulnerability” for many years and across multiple administrations, Pressman said. But “the government of Hungary has opted not to close” it.
Responding to the American decision, Hungary’s interior ministry said the country “will not disclose the data of Hungarians beyond the border with dual citizenship because that would risk their security” and accused the White House of “taking revenge on Hungarians with the new visa waiver limit.”
“This is a really unfortunate day,” Pressman said. “This is not the outcome the United States sought or is seeking.”
Washington’s move comes at a time when Hungary’s relationship with Western partners is at a low point.
Budapest’s NATO allies are deeply frustrated that Hungary’s parliament has yet to ratify Sweden’s bid to join the alliance.
There are also ongoing concerns about senior Hungarian officials promoting Kremlin-style narratives at home, as well as over efforts to water down European sanctions targeting Moscow. Earlier this year, the U.S. imposed sanctions on a Hungary-based bank linked to Russia.
Many Western countries have spoken out about deteriorating democratic standards in Hungary, as well as policies and rhetoric they say undermine the rights of LGBTQ+ people there.
Pressman underscored how American experts had previously identified ways the security concerns could be addressed.
The U.S. in 2017 made Hungary’s status in the visa waiver program provisional, while security concerns were also behind a decision to render Hungarians born outside the country ineligible starting in 2020.
Now, however, all Hungarian passport holders will be affected.
“This is about a choice,” the ambassador said. “The Hungarian government thus far has chosen not to address that security concern, which has led the United States to respond.”
This article has been updated with a response from the Hungarian interior ministry.
Kyiv is unlikely to renew a gas transit deal that allows Russia’s Gazprom to export natural gas to the EU using pipelines running across Ukraine, Energy Minister German Galushchenko told POLITICO.
The 2019 transit deals runs until the end of 2024 and allows Gazprom to export more than 40 million cubic meters of gas a year via Ukraine, which earns Kyiv about $7 billion.
“I believe, by the winter of 2024, Europe will not need Russian gas at all,” Galushchenko said in a telephone interview. “If now profits from Russian gas pay for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and Gazprom’s private army, the only thing they should pay for in the future shall be reparations.”
He added that the war means “bilateral negotiations are impossible.”
The land route across Ukraine is one of only two pipeline links between Russia and the West. It still accounts for around 5 percent of the bloc’s gas imports, but that’s only a third of the prewar level.
It’s not only Ukraine that’s casting doubt on the future of gas transit.
Gazprom chief Alexei Miller warned last week his company will stop exports if Ukraine doesn’t drop its efforts to seize Russian state assets to enforce a $5 billion award for the energy infrastructure Moscow illegally expropriated when it annexed Crimea in 2014. Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz are also at loggerheads over a dispute on transit fees.
“If Naftogaz continues such unfair actions, it cannot be ruled out that the Russian Federation will impose sanctions. Then, any relations between Russian companies and Naftogaz will be simply impossible,” Miller said, according to the TASS news agency.
Despite the bombs, missiles and drones wreaking havoc on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, the web of pipelines has kept pumping gas to the EU — where it ends up mainly in Austria, Slovakia, Italy and Hungary.
Russian pipeline gas is not subject to sanctions but the European Commission has plans to end the bloc’s reliance on Moscow’s fossil fuels by 2027.
However, there is growing criticism the EU countries still using Russian gas aren’t moving fast enough to diversify. Austria’s Russian gas imports are back to prewar levels. Hungary gets around 4.5 billion cubic meters a year. In April, its government signed a deal with Gazprom to secure additional volumes.
Kyiv ending the gas deal could cause problems for those countries.
“If Ukrainian transit stops, Gazprom pipeline gas deliveries to EU countries could drop to between 10 and 16 billion cubic meters (45 to 73 percent of current levels),” said a June analysis by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. That could leave Europe with a shortfall in 2025 before additional liquefied natural gas capacity from the U.S. and Qatar comes online.
“For Europe as a whole, it’s pretty manageable. But for some countries at the end of the pipeline, Austria, Hungary and so on, the picture is a bit different,” said Georg Zachmann, senior fellow at economic think tank Bruegel. “We’d have to see a reshuffle of physical capacities, physical flows. That might come with additional cost for them.”
It would represent a much more permanent potential break with Moscow.
“Keeping the thing alive means there’s maybe a chance in the future to go back to that. But if the flows are stopped there’s a risk it’s going to be completely dismantled, and the privilege these countries had in the past of getting access to cheap Siberian gas is going to be gone forever,” Zachmann said.
Ukraine’s long-term goal is to boost its own gas production to meet EU demand, Oleksiy Chernyshov, CEO of Naftogaz, told POLITICO in May.
Ukraine’s defence minister says he hopes training lasts no longer than 6 months so fighter planes can be in combat against Russia soon.
The training of Ukrainian pilots on United States-made F-16 fighter jets is to begin in Romania in August, officials have said on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Lithuania.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced the Romania training programme on Tuesday alongside Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren and Denmark’s acting Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen.
“Hopefully, we will be able to see results in the beginning of next year,” Poulsen told reporters.
Resnikov said he hoped the training would last no longer than six months and that by that point, Ukraine will be using the combat aircraft in its fight against Russia’s invasion of his country.
[Al Jazeera]
The Netherlands and Denmark are leading an 11-nation coalition to train Ukrainian pilots on the US fighter jets, which Ukraine argues will help turn the tide of the war in its favour.
Training Ukrainian pilots in the use of advanced fighter planes was previously seen as controversial but received the green light in May at the G7 summit in Japan.
Russia later warned that providing Kyiv with F-16 would be a “colossal risk” as it threatens spreading the war to other parts of Europe.
Though Ukraine’s allies have committed to providing training and other support, the opening of the fighter pilot school does not mean F-16s will actually be delivered to Kyiv. Ukraine’s military supporters have yet to commit to sending warplanes.
Romania announced last week that it intended to set up an F-16 training centre for military pilots from NATO partner states and Ukraine.
Romania, which shares a long border with Ukraine and has been a NATO member since 2004 and a European Union member since 2007, has increased defence spending in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
After Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, NATO increased its presence on Europe’s eastern flank by sending additional multinational battlegroups to alliance members Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia.
The fighter pilot training facility will aim to position Romania as “a regional leader in the field of F-16 pilot training” and contribute to “improving cohesion, demonstrating unity and strengthening the deterrence and defence posture Euro-Atlantic”, the Romanian government said in a statement.
Romania has played an increasingly prominent role in the alliance throughout Russia’s war in Ukraine, including hosting a NATO meeting of foreign ministers in November. The government has also approved the acquisition of an unspecified number of “latest generation” US-made F-35 fighter jets as part of Romania’s push to modernise its air force.
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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LUXEMBOURG — Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday implored EU foreign affairs ministers to move faster on their promises to supply Kyiv with ammunition. But his plea came as officials were given new details showing the EU still has a long way to go to meet its lofty pledges.
According to several diplomats, Kuleba — who addressed a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg via video link — was critical of the slow pace of the EU in delivering ammunition and missiles as part of a plan to provide 1 million shells in the next 12 months as Ukraine fights off Russia’s invasion.
The plan has already been endorsed by EU leaders but, when it comes to the technical details, has only been partially agreed upon by member states, which are still discussing the so-called track two of the scheme, which involves the joint purchase of ammunition.
The bone of contention is a legal one about exemptions for companies based outside the EU in the supply chain of the defense companies involved in the plan, but in the background doubts also remain as to whether the EU defense industry can really deliver all of these shells.
Kuleba on Monday “repeated that Ukraine needs desperately the ammunition to stand against the Russian attacks, and also to organize the counterattack,” Margus Tsahkna, the foreign minister of Estonia, which put forward the ammo plan, told POLITICO. “And ammunition is crucial.”
The problem is not only the speed of the EU in delivering the ammo, but also the quantity. The plan is being funded by a pot of money called the European Peace Fund, which partially reimburses the member states for ammo and missiles. That cash, meant to help provide ammunition quickly, comes from the so-called track one of the plan — worth a total of €1 billion — which has already been fully agreed upon. EU top diplomat Josep Borrell, speaking to journalists Monday, said that “we have received requests for reimbursement for €600 million.”
Yet according to three diplomats, not all the material that member states want reimbursing for has actually been delivered. Of the €600 million that Borrell mentioned, €180 million was for the provision of 1,080 missiles (six of which have not yet been reported as delivered) and the rest of the money was for 41,000 pieces of ammunition, of which 28,000 have not been reported as delivered, the diplomats said.
Those numbers are well short of 1 million.
Kuleba stressed “that if there is one priority, and if it’s a single burning issue, this is weapons delivery, in particular ammunition … he also asked for not being hesitant on delivering the aircraft and other modern pieces of military technology,” Slovakia’s foreign minister, Rastislav Káčer, told POLITICO. “He was pushy, politely,” Káčer added.
Borrell tried to offer reassurance on the speed of the EU decision-making process, saying: “There has been some disagreement but the work continues. We are not waiting for the legal document to be finished to start working. The work continues and everything is being prepared,” he said at a press conference after the meeting.
Diplomats reckon it’s a matter of days, likely Wednesday, before track two of the plan will be finalized.
“The truth is that there is not satisfaction about how we’re delivering on track one, in the quantity and the speed,” Káčer said. “We can do more, we can scratch more. Slovakia is trying. We are putting everything we have in the stockpiles.”
Ukraine’s farmers played an iconic role in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion, towing away abandoned enemy tanks with their tractors.
Now, though, their prodigious grain output is causing some of Ukraine’s staunchest allies to waver, as disrupted shipments are redirected onto neighboring markets.
The most striking is Poland, which has played a leading role so far in supporting Ukraine, acting as the main transit hub for Western weaponry and sending plenty of its own. But grain shipments in the other direction have irked Polish farmers who are being undercut — just months before a national election where the rural vote will be crucial.
Diplomats are floundering. After a planned Friday meeting between the Polish and Ukrainian agriculture ministers was postponed, the Polish government on Saturday announced a ban on imports of farm products from Ukraine. Hungary late Saturday said it would do the same.
Ukraine is among the world’s top exporters of wheat and other grains, which are ordinarily shipped to markets as distant as Egypt and Pakistan. Russia’s invasion last year disrupted the main Black Sea export route, and a United Nations-brokered deal to lift the blockade has been only partially effective. In consequence, Ukrainian produce has been diverted to bordering EU countries: Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
At first, those governments supported EU plans to shift the surplus grain. But instead of transiting seamlessly onto global markets, the supply glut has depressed prices in Europe. Farmers have risen up in protest, and Polish Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk was forced out earlier this month.
Now, governments’ focus has shifted to restricting Ukrainian imports to protect their own markets. After hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Warsaw in early April, Polish President Andrzej Duda said resolving the import glut was “a matter of introducing additional restrictions.”
The following day, Poland suspended imports of Ukrainian grain, saying the idea had come from Kyiv. On Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, after an emergency cabinet meeting, said the import ban would cover grain and certain other farm products and would include products intended for other countries. A few hours later, the Hungarian government announced similar measures. Both countries said the bans would last until the end of June.
The European Commission is seeking further information on the import restrictions from Warsaw and Budapest “to be able to assess the measures,” according to a statement on Sunday. “Trade policy is of EU exclusive competence and, therefore, unilateral actions are not acceptable,” it said.
While the EU’s free-trade agreement with Ukraine prevents governments from introducing tariffs, they still have plenty of tools available to disrupt shipments.
Neighboring countries and nearby Bulgaria have stepped up sanitary checks on Ukrainian grain, arguing they are doing so to protect the health of their own citizens. They have also requested financial support from Brussels and have already received more than €50 million from the EU’s agricultural crisis reserve, with more money on the way.
Restrictions could do further harm to Ukraine’s battered economy, and by extension its war effort. The economy has shrunk by 29.1 percent since the invasion, according to statistics released this month, and agricultural exports are an important source of revenue.
Cracks in the alliance
The trade tensions sit at odds with these countries’ political position on Ukraine, which — with the exception of Hungary — has been strongly supportive. Poland has taken in millions of Ukrainian refugees, while weapons and ammunition flow in the opposite direction; Romania has helped transport millions of tons of Ukrainian corn and wheat.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Poland’s Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki | Omar Marques/Getty Images
Some Western European governments, which had to be goaded by Poland and others into sending heavy weaponry to Kyiv, are quick to point out the change in direction.
“Curious to see that some of these countries are [always] asking for more on sanctions, more on ammunition, etc. But when it affects them, they turn to Brussels begging for financial support,” said one diplomat from a Western country, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Some EU countries also oppose the import restrictions for economic reasons. For instance, Spain and the Netherlands are some of the biggest recipients of Ukrainian grain, which they use to supply their livestock industries.
Politically, though, the Central and Eastern European governments have limited room for maneuver. Poland and Slovakia are both heading into general elections later this year. Bulgaria has had a caretaker government since last year. Romania’s agriculture minister has faced calls to resign, including from a compatriot former EU agriculture commissioner.
And farmers are a strong constituency. Poland’s right-wing Law & Justice (PiS) party won the last general election in 2019 thanks in large part to rural voters. The Ukrainian grain issue has already cost a Polish agriculture minister his job; the government as a whole will have to tread carefully to avoid the same fate.
It’s the rumor inflating the Brussels bubble: The EU’s top executive, Ursula von der Leyen, could be crossing town to run NATO.
The rationale makes sense. She has a good working relationship with Washington. She is a former defense minister. And as European Commission president, she has experience working with most NATO heads of government. Plus, if chosen, she would become the alliance’s first-ever female leader.
The conversation has crested in recent weeks, as people eye current NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s pending exit at the end of September.
Yet according to those inside NATO and at the Commission, the murmurings are more wish-casting than hints of a pending job switch. There is no evidence von der Leyen is interested in the role, and those in Brussels don’t expect her to quit before her first presidential term ends in 2024.
The chatter is similar to the rumblings around Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, a long-serving leader who checks every box but insists he doesn’t want the job.
The speculation illustrates how much Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed NATO — and who can lead it. The war has put a new spotlight on the alliance, making the job more politically sensitive and high-profile than in the past. And allies are suddenly much more cautious about who they want on the podium speaking for them.
In short, the chatter seems to be people manifesting their ideal candidates and testing ideas rather than engaging in a real negotiation.
“The more names, the clearer there is no candidate,” said one senior European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal alliance dynamics.
A second senior European diplomat agreed: “There is a lot of backroom gossip,” this person said, “but no clear field at this stage.”
The (very) short list
The next NATO chief, officials say, needs to be a European who can work closely with whoever is in the White House.
But that’s not all. The next NATO chief needs to be someone who backs Ukraine but is not so hawkish that it spooks countries worried about provoking Russia. And the person has to have stature — likely a former head of state or government — who can get unanimous support from 31 capitals and, most importantly, the U.S.
There are several obstacles to Usula von der Leyen’s candidacy | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
That’s not a long list.
Von der Leyen is on it, but there are several obstacles to her candidacy.
The first is simply timing. If Stoltenberg leaves office in the fall as scheduled, his replacement would come into the office a year before von der Leyen’s term at the Commission ends in late 2024. She may even seek another five-year term.
“I don’t think she will move anywhere before the end of her mandate,” said one senior Commission official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
Speculation is rife that the current NATO chief may be asked to stay on, at least for a little while longer, to allow for a candidate such as von der Leyen to come in at a later stage.
“If Stoltenberg is prolonged until next summer, Ursula von der Leyen’s candidature would look logical,” said a third senior European diplomat.
But in an interview with POLITICO last week, Stoltenberg appeared keen to go home. The NATO chief has been in the job for over eight years, the second-longest tenure in the alliance’s seven-decade history.
Asked about gossip that he may stay on, the secretary-general shot back sarcastically: “First of all, there are many more questions in the world that are extremely more important than that.”
“My plan is to go back to Norway,” he added, “I have been here for now a long time.”
The alliance is divided on the matter. Some countries — particularly those outside the EU — would prefer a quick decision to avoid running into the EU’s own 2024 elections. The fear, a fourth European diplomat said, is that NATO becomes a “consolation prize in the broader European politics” as leaders haggle over who will run the EU’s main institutions.
Another challenge for von der Leyen would be Germany’s track record on defense spending — and her own record as Germany’s defense minister.
A decade ago, NATO countries pledged to move toward spending 2 percent of their economic output on defense by 2024. But Germany, despite being Europe’s largest economy, has consistently missed the mark, even after announcing a €100 billion fund last year to modernize its military.
From the German government’s perspective, keeping von der Leyen at the helm of the Commission might be a bigger priority than NATO | Kenzo Tribuillard/AFP via Getty Images
Additionally, some observers say von der Leyen bears some responsibility for the relatively poor state of Germany’s defenses.
From the German government’s perspective, keeping von der Leyen at the helm of the Commission might also be a bigger priority than NATO — even if she comes from the current center-right opposition. The EU executive is arguably more powerful than the NATO chief within Europe, pushing policies that affect nearly every corner of life.
Predictably, the Commission is officially dismissive of any speculation.
“The president is not a candidate for the job” of NATO secretary-general, a Commission spokesperson told POLITICO on Monday. “And she has no comment on the speculation.”
Who else can do it?
As with von der Leyen, it is unclear if some other names floated are actually available.
Dutch Prime Minister Rutte has dismissed speculation about a NATO role, telling reporters in January that he wanted to “leave politics altogether and do something completely different.”
A spokesperson for the prime minister reiterated this week that the his view has not changed.
Insiders, however, say the Dutch leader shouldn’t be counted out. In office since 2010, Rutte has significant experience working with leaders across the alliance and promotes a tight transatlantic bond.
The Netherlands is also relatively muscular on defense — it has been one of Europe’s largest donors to Ukraine — but not quite as hawkish as countries on the eastern flank.
“Rutte’s name keeps popping up,” said the second senior European diplomat, “but no movement on this beyond gossip.”
Others occasionally mentioned as possible candidates are Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and to a lesser extent British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová.
But despite the gossip, officials acknowledge many of these names are not politically feasible at this stage.
Kallas, for instance, is perceived as too hawkish. And conversely, Canada and some southern European countries are viewed within the alliance as laggards on defense investment. Then there’s the fact that some capitals would oppose a non-EU candidate, complicating a Wallace candidacy.
As a result, a senior figure from a northern or western EU country appears the most likely profile for a successful candidate. Yet for now, who that person would be remains murky. Officials do have a deadline, though: the annual NATO summit in July.
“Either a new secretary general will be announced,” said a fifth senior European diplomat, “or the mandate of Jens Stoltenberg will be prolonged.”
Senior members of Biden’s national security team who helped arrange the travel at the end of last year were heartened — and pleasantly surprised — by how powerful and positive the reaction to Zelenskyy’s trip seemed to be among the American people, said the sources, who, like others in this article, were granted anonymity to discuss internal planning. It was Zelenskyy’s first travel outside Ukraine since the start of the war.
Hoping to sustain momentum for efforts to keep the fragile Western alliance together in support of Ukraine, the officials began discussions about using the anniversary of Russia’s invasion to make a similarly bold gesture.
Publicly, the planning would play out in the trip officials formally announced 10 days ago — that Biden would make a second trip to Poland, Ukraine’s neighbor, to meet with its president and other NATO allies who have most to lose from any weakening of Western resolve.
But privately, among a small universe of senior officials, the thinking was that this might be the moment to realize a long-held hope among some officials for an even more potent demonstration of U.S. solidarity: having Biden visit Ukraine.
“Discussions about possibly going have been underway for months and really accelerated in recent weeks,” a senior administration official said.
Officials across the government had long made it clear that it was nearly impossible to guarantee Biden’s safety heading into a war zone in which the U.S. is not an active partner.
Other leaders of NATO and the G-7 group of major industrial nations, senior members of Congress and the secretaries of defense and state had all made the long, secretive journey to Kyiv. First lady Jill Biden made a surprise Mother’s Day visit to western Ukraine, spending two hours in the border town of Uzhhorod to meet first lady Olena Zelenska.
But the level of security needed for the president of the U.S. had long been considered incompatible. Even until the end, discussions about security measures were “intense,” as another official put it. They even included a call to Russian officials hours before Biden departed for “deconfliction” purposes, national security adviser Jake Sullivan would later tell reporters.
“[It] required a security, operational and logistical effort from professionals across the U.S. government to take what was an inherently risky undertaking and make it a manageable level of risk,” Sullivan told reporters after Biden left Kyiv on Monday afternoon local time. “But, of course, there was still risk and is still risk in an endeavor like this.”
Biden spent about five hours in the capital, meeting with Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials. The two leaders visited St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery and then walked to the nearby Wall of Remembrance, which honors those who have died in the war.
Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer, said that while planning involved officials from across the government, it was a very closely held among every agency involved.
At a White House news briefing Friday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby flatly denied that Biden would detour to Ukraine on his Poland trip.
Typically, it would be Sullivan who briefed reporters ahead of a Biden foreign trip, but he did not this time so he would not be in the position of misleading reporters, two sources familiar with the matter said.
As planning reached the late stages, aides to Vice President Kamala Harris were told that her itinerary for the Munich Security Conference needed to be trimmed to ensure that she returned to U.S. soil by Saturday night. They were not given a reason, only that it was “nonnegotiable,” according another administration officials.
On Sunday, the White House released a public schedule that had Biden scheduled to depart for Poland late Monday — well after he had already quietly left Washington.
Instead, a handful of officials gathered at the White House before dawn, along with others in Europe, to track his journey every step of the way, two officials said.
Sullivan was among the small number of staff members who traveled with Biden on Monday; others who were due to travel to Poland will still travel, without Biden, as scheduled Monday night.
White House officials did not immediately provide additional details of the precautions taken to minimize the security risks. But one obvious hurdle was how to provide security without committing U.S. air assets in the region.
Biden took a 10-hour train ride from the Polish border into Kyiv. A source familiar with the matter said that while Biden could have gone to other locations in Ukraine that would have been easier to reach, he chose Kyiv to highlight that the capital is still standing after Ukraine’s forces proved to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the country would be more different to topple than anticipated.
For Jill Biden’s visit to Ukraine in May, military aircraft tracked her motorcade as it made its way from a Slovakian airport up to the border but did not follow along as she drove across Ukraine’s border. The first lady’s trip was made public only as she prepared to cross back into Slovakia hours later.
When Joe Biden, then the vice president, last traveled into a war zone, a trip to Baghdad and Erbil, Iraq, in April 2016, his arrival was disclosed after he had safely arrived in the Green Zone, with subsequent movements covered by the traveling media pool.
Biden noted that Monday’s trip was his eighth to Ukraine, and his first words after he stepped off the train were, “It’s good to be back in Kyiv,” according to the media pool.
Biden last visited the country in his final days as vice president.
This time, he “was very focused on making sure that he made the most of his time on the ground, which he knew was going to be limited,” Sullivan said.
MUNICH — NATO’s eastern flank has found its voice — but Joe Biden’s visit is a reminder that Western capitals still have the weight.
After Russia bombed its way into Ukraine, the military alliance’s eastern members won praise for their prescient warnings (not to mention a few apologies). They garnered respect for quickly emptying their weapons stockpiles for Kyiv and boosting defense spending to new heights. Now, they’re driving the conversation on how to deal with Russia.
In short, eastern countries suddenly have the ear of traditional Western powers — and they are trying to move the needle.
“We draw the red line, then we waste the time, then we cross this red line,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said over the weekend at the Munich Security Conference, describing a now-familiar cycle of debates among Ukraine’s partners as eastern capitals push others to move faster.
The region’s sudden prominence will be on full display as U.S. President Joe Biden travels to Poland this week, where he will sit down with leaders of the so-called Bucharest Nine — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
The choice is both symbolic and practical. Washington is keen to show its eastern partners it wants their input — and to remind Vladimir Putin of the consequences should the Kremlin leader spread his war into NATO territory.
Yet when it comes to allies’ most contentious decisions, like what arms to place where, the eastern leaders ultimately still have to defer to leaders like Biden — and his colleagues in Western powers like Germany. They are the ones holding the largest quantities of modern tanks, fighter jets and long-range missiles, after all.
“My job,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in Munich, is “to move the pendulum of imagination of my partners in western Europe.”
“Our region has risen in relevance,” added Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský in an interview. But Western countries are still “much stronger” on the economic and military front, he added. “They are still the backbone.”
They’re listening … now
When Latvian Defense Minister Ināra Mūrniece entered politics over a decade ago, she recalled the skepticism that greeted her and like-minded countries when they discussed Russia on the global stage.
“They didn’t understand us,” she said in an interview earlier this month. People saw the region as “escalating the picture,” she added.
Latvian Defense Minister Ināra Mūrniece | Gints Ivuskans/AFP via Getty Images
February 24, 2022, changed things. The images of Russia rolling tanks and troops into Ukraine shocked many Westerners — and started changing minds. The Russian atrocities that came shortly after in places like Bucha and Irpin were “another turning point,” Mūrniece said.
Now, the eastern flank plays a key role in defining the alliance’s narrative — and its understanding of Russia.
“Our voice is now louder and more heard,” said Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu.
The Bucharest Nine — an informal format that brings together the region for dialogue with the U.S. and occasionally other partners — is one of the vehicles regional governments are using to showcase their interests.
“It has become an authoritative voice in terms of assessment of the security situation, in terms of assessment of needs,” Aurescu said in an interview in Munich. NATO is listening to the group for a simple reason, he noted: “The security threats are coming from this part of our neighborhood.”
Power shifts … slowly
While the eastern flank has prodded its western partners to send once-unthinkable weapons to Ukraine, the power balance has not completely flipped. Far from it.
Washington officials retain the most sway in the Western alliance. Behind them, several western European capitals take the lead.
“Without the Germans things don’t move — without the Americans things don’t move for sure,” said one senior western European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
And at this stage of the war, as Ukraine pushes for donations of the most modern weapons — fighter jets, advanced tanks, longer-range missile systems — it’s the alliance’s largest economies and populations that are in focus.
“It’s very easy for me to say that, ‘Of course, give fighter jets’ — I don’t have them,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told reporters earlier this month.
Asked if his country would supply Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets, Morawiecki conceded in Munich, “we have not too many of them.” | Omar Marques/Getty Images
“So it’s up to those countries to say who have,” she said. “If I would have, I would give — but I don’t.”
And even some eastern countries who have jets don’t want to move without their Western counterparts.
Asked if his country would supply Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets, Morawiecki conceded in Munich, “we have not too many of them.” He did say, however, that Poland could offer older jets — if the allies could pull together a coalition, that is.
Another challenge for advocates of a powerful eastern voice within NATO is that the eastern flank itself is diverse.
Priorities vary even among like-minded countries based on their geographies. And, notably, there are some Russia-friendly outliers.
Hungary, for example, does not provide any weapons assistance to Ukraine and continues to maintain a relationship with the Kremlin. In fact, Budapest has become so isolated in Western policy circles that no Hungarian government officials attended the Munich Security Conference.
“I think the biggest problem in Hungary is the rhetoric of leadership, which sometimes really crosses the red line,” said the Czech Republic’s Lipavský, who was cautious to add that Budapest does fulfill NATO obligations, participating in alliance defense efforts.
Just for now?
There are also questions about whether the east’s moment in the limelight is a permanent fixture or product of the moment. After all, China, not Russia, may be seizing western attention in the future.
“It’s obvious that their voice is becoming louder, but that’s also a consequence of the geopolitical situation we’re in,” said the senior western European diplomat. “I’m not sure if it’s sustainable in the long run.”
A second senior western European diplomat, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal alliance dynamics, said that the eastern flank countries sometimes take a tough tone “because of the fear of the pivot to China.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has also reiterated that western alliance members play a role in defending the eastern flank | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
Asked if the war has changed the balance of influence within the alliance, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said: “Yes and no.”
“We have to defend our territories, it is as simple as that,” she told POLITICO in Munich. “In order to do so we had to reinforce the eastern flank — Russia is on that part of the continent.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has also reiterated that western alliance members play a role in defending the eastern flank.
Asked whether NATO’s center of gravity is shifting east, he said on a panel in Munich that “what has shifted east is NATO’s presence.”
But, he added, “of course many of those troops come from the western part of the alliance — so this demonstrates how NATO is together and how we support each other.”
And in western Europe, there is a sense that the east does deserve attention at the moment.
“They might not have all the might,” said the second senior western European diplomat. “But they deserve solidarity.”
BRUSSELS — With Ukraine’s partners racing to send more weapons to Kyiv amid an emerging Russian offensive, fulfilling Ukrainian requests is becoming trickier.
Ukraine is still waiting for promised deliveries of modern tanks. Combat jets, though much discussed, are mired in the throes of government hesitation.
On top of that, Kyiv is using thousands of rounds of ammunition per day — and Western production simply can’t keep up.
As members of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group gather in Brussels on Tuesday to coordinate arms assistance to Ukraine, they face pressure to expedite delivery and provide even more advanced capabilities to Ukrainian forces.
“We have received good signals,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address following visits to London, Paris and Brussels.
“This applies both to long-range missiles and tanks, and to the next level of our cooperation — combat aircraft,” he said, however adding, “We still need to work on this.”
And while most of Ukraine’s partners are committed to responding to Zelenskyy’s stump tour with expanded support as the conflict threatens to escalate, Western governments will have to overcome political and practical hurdles.
“It is clear that we are in a race of logistics,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday. “Key capabilities like ammunition, fuel, and spare parts must reach Ukraine before Russia can seize the initiative on the battlefield.”
Existing and future supply of weapons to Ukraine will both be on the table when the defense group — made up of about 50 countries and popularly known at the Ramstein format — meets at NATO headquarters.
NATO allies will also hold a meeting of defense ministers directly afterward to hear the latest assessment from Ukrainian counterparts and discuss the alliance’s future defense challenges.
Ukrainian officials will use the session, which would typically be held at the U.S. base in Ramstein, Germany, to share their latest needs with Western officials — from air defense to ground logistics — while it will also be a venue for Kyiv’s supporters to check in on implementation of earlier pledges and availabilities in the near future.
The aim of the session, said a senior European diplomat, is “to step up military support as much as needed — not only commitments, but actual speedy deliverables is of particular significance.”
“Tanks are needed not on paper but in the battlefield,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of discussions.
Ammo, ammo, ammo
One of the most pressing issues on the table in Brussels this week is how to keep the weapons already sent to Ukraine firing.
“Of course it is important to discuss new systems, but the most urgent need is to ensure that all the systems which are already there, or have been pledged, are delivered and work as they should,” Stoltenberg said.
During meetings with EU heads on Thursday, Zelenskyy and his team provided each leader with an individualized list requesting weapons and equipment based on the country’s known stocks and capabilities.
But there was one common theme.
“The first thing on the list was, everywhere, the ammunition,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said.
“If you have the equipment and you don’t have the ammunition, then it’s no use,” the Estonian leader told reporters on Friday.
And while Ukraine is in dire need of vast amounts of ammo to keep fighting, Western countries’ own stocks are running low.
“It’s a very real concern,” said Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe. “None of us, including the United States, is producing enough ammunition right now,” he said in a phone interview on Sunday.
Munitions will also be top of mind at the session of NATO defense ministers on Wednesday, who will discuss boosting production of weapons, ammunition and equipment, along with future defense spending targets for alliance members.
Boosting stockpiles and production, Stoltenberg emphasized on Monday, “requires more defense expenditure by NATO allies.”
Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty images
And while the NATO chief said some progress has been made on work with industry on plans to boost stockpile targets, some current and former officials have expressed frustration about the pace of work.
Kallas last week raised the idea of joint EU purchases to help spur production and hasten deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, although it’s not clear whether this plan would enjoy sufficient support within the bloc — and how fast it could have an impact.
Hodges thinks companies need a clearer demand signal from governments. “We need industry to do more,” he said.
But he noted, “These are not charities … they are commercial businesses, and so you have to have an order with money before they start making it.”
Jets fight fails to take off (for now)
Fighter jets are a priority ask for Ukrainian officials, although Western governments seem not yet ready to make concrete commitments.
Numerous countries have expressed openness to eventually providing Ukraine with jets, indicating that the matter is no longer a red line. Regardless, hesitation remains.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg | Valeria Mongelli/AFP via Getty Images
The U.K. has gone the furthest so far, announcing that it will train Ukrainian pilots on fighter jets. But when it comes to actually providing aircraft, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace cautioned that “this is not a simple case of towing an aircraft to the border.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda, meanwhile, said sending F-16 aircraft would be a “very serious decision” which is “not easy to take,” arguing that his country does not have enough jets itself.
For some potential donors, the jets debate revolves around both timing and utility.
“The essential question is: What do they want to do with planes? It’s not clear,” said one French diplomat, who was unauthorized to speak publicly. “Do they think that with 50 or 100 fighter jets, they can retake the Donbas?” the diplomat said.
The diplomat said there is no point in training Ukrainians on Western jets now. “It’ll take over six months to train them, so it doesn’t respond to their immediate imperatives.”
But, the diplomat added, “maybe some countries should give them MiGs, planes that they can actually fly.”
Slovakia is in fact moving closer to sending MiG-29 jets to Ukraine.
“We want to do it,” said a Slovak official who was not at liberty to disclose their identity. “But we must work out the details on how,” the official said, adding that a domestic process and talks with Ukraine still need to take place.
No big jet announcements are expected at the Tuesday meeting, though the issue is likely to be discussed.
Where are the tanks?
And while Western governments have already — with great fanfare — struck a deal to provide Ukraine with modern tanks, questions over actual deliveries will also likely come up at Tuesday’s meeting.
Germany’s leadership in particular has stressed it’s time for countries that supported the idea of sending tanks to live up to their rhetoric.
“Germany is making a very central contribution to ensuring that we provide rapid support, as we have done in the past,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is shown an anti-aircraft gun tank Gepard | Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images
“We are striving to ensure that many others who have come forward in the past now follow up on this finger-pointing with practical action,” he went on. Germany’s goal is for Ukraine to receive tanks by the end of March, and training has already begun.
Along with tanks, another pending request that Ukrainian officials will likely bring up this week is long-range missiles.
Hodges, who has been advocating for the West to give Ukraine the weapons it would need to retake Crimea, said he believes long-range precision weapons are the key. “That’s how you defeat mass with precision.”
Any such weapon, he argued, “has got to be at the top of the list.”
Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting from Paris and Hans von der Buchard contributed from Berlin.
The EU was quick to hit Russia with sanctions after Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine — but it took time and an escalation of measures before Moscow started to feel any real damage.
Since the war started in late February last year, November was the first month when the value of EU imports from Russia was lower than in the same month of 2021. Until then, the bloc had been sending more cash than before the conflict — every month, for nine months. More recent data is not yet available.
The main reason behind this? Energy dependency on Russia and skyrocketing energy prices. But that’s not the whole story: Some EU countries were much quicker than others to reduce trade flows with Moscow — and some were still increasing them at the end of last year.
Here is a full breakdown of how the war has changed EU trade with Russia, in figures and charts:
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday that his country’s offer to send Patriot anti-missile systems to Poland remains on the table despite Warsaw’s suggestion that they should go to Ukraine instead.
Poland’s proposal has received a cool response from Berlin, where some are concerned that deploying Patriots to Ukraine could draw NATO into the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Defense experts say training for the highly sophisticated system could also take years, meaning it would not meet Ukraine’s immediate needs.
“Our offer to the Polish government to protect their own country is not yet off the table,” Scholz told reporters during a news conference in Berlin.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, NATO beefed up defenses along its eastern flank. The alliance deployed U.S. Patriot batteries to Poland and German Patriot batteries to Slovakia, as well as a French equivalent system to Romania.
Scholz said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had thanked Germany during a call Tuesday for the financial and military support it has provided to Kyiv so far, including air defense systems.
Germany is looking into providing more Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, as well as the IRIS-T surface-to-air missile system, he said.
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The European Commission is exploring legal options to confiscate Russian state and private assets as a way to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction, according to a document seen by POLITICO.
The goal would be “identifying ways to strengthen the tracing, identification, freezing and management of assets as preliminary steps for potential confiscation,” according to the document.
The potential bounty would consist of nearly $300 billion frozen Russian central bank assets, as well as assets and revenues of individuals and entities on the EU’s sanctions list. The idea was floated already in May, and is supported by Kyiv, as well as Poland, the Baltics and Slovakia. EU leaders in October tasked the Commission to look into legal options to seize Russian assets currently frozen under sanctions.
But the conundrum is that there’s currently no legal mechanism to confiscate Russian assets — as pointed out by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen back in May. It would need to be created.
“There may be a path for the EU to validly confiscate frozen assets under international law, but it is likely a narrow, a long and an untested path,” said Jan Dunin-Wasowicz, a lawyer at Hughes Hubbard & Reed.
That isn’t deterring the Commission from looking into it.
With regards to private assets belonging to sanctioned people or entities, Brussels is readying proposals to make sanctions evasion an EU crime, a step which would facilitate their confiscation — but only in case of a criminal conviction. Even then, the EU would need to argue each case in court, likely having to litigate for years.
That’s because a lot of these assets would be considered foreign investments, which enjoy protection against expropriation without compensation and a right to fair and equitable treatment under international treaties that Russia has with a lot of EU countries.
The confiscating authority would also need to draw a clear link between the property owner and the conflict in Ukraine.
“To ensure proportionality, you would need to look at who are the owners, what did they do, et cetera,” said Stephan Schill, professor of international and economic law and governance at the University of Amsterdam.
With regards to frozen foreign reserves of the central bank, the largest money pot, the EU executive writes in the document that “these are generally considered to be covered by immunity,” with a footnote pointing to a U.N. convention on jurisdictional immunities of foreign states and their property, which is however not yet in force.
“From an international law perspective, it’s pretty clear that without Russia’s consent you can’t use Russian central bank assets,” said Schill.
As for assets of Russian-owned state enterprises, the paper notes that these wouldn’t be “in principle” covered by such convention, but grabbing them may raise problems linked to the confiscation of private assets, “in addition to the need to demonstrate a sufficient connection to the Russian state.”
The EU is also mulling an “exit tax” on the assets or proceeds from assets of sanctioned individuals that want to transfer their property out of the EU. This could run into legal problems of its own, as it would target a specific group of individuals — which runs counter to non-discrimination provisions in international law — and they in turn could invoke the human right to property as a defence.
To Schill’s knowledge, there is no recent and valid precedent for any of these options.
“The EU and member states are trying to introduce new criminal law,” he said.
BERLIN — The leaders of Hungary, Austria and Serbia met Monday in Budapest to find solutions on how to stem the increasing number of migrants arriving in Europe, among them many young men from India.
The three leaders agreed to take joint action to control the new arrivals along the migration route that leads through Serbia.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told reporters after the meeting that the joint action plan would include increased police cooperation along the borders as well as supporting Serbia when it comes to deporting migrants back to their home countries.
“We will directly support Serbia to carry out repatriations and not only support technical know-how, but also do everything possible that is necessary, and financially support them,” Nehammer said.
The Austrian chancellor lauded Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s announcement that by the end of the year Serbia would align its visa policies with the European Union — Serbia is an EU candidate country but not a member yet — so that the visa-free regime with some non-EU countries is no longer used for migration purposes.
“We will thus prevent the situation when someone uses Serbia as a country of arrival but not because of their real needs but for illegal migration toward the west,” Vucic said.
Hungarian President Viktor Orban called for an overall political change in how to approach migration and suggested so-called hot spot centers outside the European Union where asylum-seeker requests should be processed. He added that “we are not satisfied at all with the situation that has developed.”
That procedure would, however, undermine the national laws of some European countries, among them Germany, which has enshrined in its constitution every foreigner’s right to apply for political asylum and have his or her request individually checked while staying in the country.
Among the migrants recently detained in Austria who have applied for asylum to avoid immediate deportation, Indians accounted for the biggest group in September, according government data.
Indians are not allowed to enter the EU without a visa but have taken advantage of being able to travel to Serbia which they can enter without a visa. From there, many are trying to reach Western European countries with the help of traffickers.
Monday’s meeting in the Hungarian capital came after announcements by the Czech Republic and Austria last week that they would launch temporary border controls at their crossings with Slovakia to stop migrants from entering.
In addition to the meeting in Budapest, the interior ministers of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia called on the European Union on Monday to better protect the outer borders to curb the latest increase of migration.
“We’re facing problems that affect the entire Europe,” said Vit Rakusan, the interior minister of the Czech Republic.
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Jovana Gec reported from Belgrade, Serbia. Bela Szandelzsky in Budapest, Hungary, and Karel Janicek in Prague, contributed to this report.
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Follow all AP stories on migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
The presidents of nine NATO countries in central and eastern Europe declared on Sunday that they would never recognize the annexation by Russia of several Ukrainian regions. Hungary and Bulgaria were conspicuously absent from the signatories.
In a joint statement, the leaders also supported a path to NATO membership for Ukraine.
The nine leaders demanded that “Russia immediately withdraw from all occupied territories” and encouraged “all allies to substantially increase their military aid to Ukraine,” according to the statement.
“We reiterate our support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” they wrote.
The statement comes two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he was annexing four Ukrainian regions, a move the West has described as an illegal land-grab. It was signed by the presidents of Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro and North Macedonia.
The signatories also wrote that they “firmly stand behind” a NATO decision in 2008 over Ukraine’s future membership to the alliance. At the time, NATO allies pledged that Ukraine would eventually become a member. But as that process stalled over the years, it seemed increasingly unlikely that Ukraine’s bid would become a reality.
In the wake of the annexations, Ukraine formally applied for a fast-track accession to NATO, with hopes to jump-start its membership bid.
On Sunday, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that 10 NATO countries supported Ukraine’s membership to the alliance — including many countries that used to belong to the former Soviet bloc.
NATO countries however have hesitated at including a new member that is at war — and by treaty they would be forced to defend. In recent months, NATO has also welcomed the application of two new countries in Europe – Finland and Sweden, spurred by security concerns after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
