The Polish minister said that it “will take another decade” to reach Trump’s proposed goal, but that the U.S. president-elect “should not be criticized for setting a really ambitious target because otherwise there will be some countries that will continue to debate whether more spending is really needed.” The proposed 5 percent target is more … Read more
“In that case, shelters are one of the protective measures we need,” she added. Until 1998, any large apartment complex in Norway was required to have a bomb shelter; but no new bomb shelters have been built since. Mehl said that the requirement will apply to complexes larger than 1,000 square meters. The government is … Read more
At the same time, Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Kyiv’s Center for Countering Disinformation, confirmed that the counteroffensive had begun. However, the Ukrainian Armed Forces declined to comment immediately following a request from POLITICO. Ukraine launched a surprise cross-border raid in August 2024, overwhelming Russian border guards and capturing towns and villages in the Kursk … Read more
Moscow threatened to retaliate after claiming to have downed eight U.S.-manufactured missiles fired from Ukraine toward Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region. “These actions by the Kyiv regime, which is supported by Western curators, will be met with retaliation,” the Russian defense ministry said in a statement on Telegram Saturday, without specifying what countermeasures it intended to … Read more
Authorities in Moscow said on Saturday that they had prevented the killing of a high-ranking Russian military officer and a pro-war Russian blogger with a homemade bomb hidden in a portable music speaker, a plot allegedly prepared by Ukraine. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said that a Russian citizen, … Read more
This year, Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova came under online attack for running an exhibition titled Narva 44 dealing with the destruction of the border city during World War II by Soviet forces. The Kremlin blames the devastation on retreating German troops, she said, but the photos showed a different story. The exhibition annoyed Narva’s local council. Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova’s team … Read more
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, wants NATO allies to boost their defense spending to more than double the current target of 2 percent of gross domestic product, the Financial Times and the Telegraph reported Friday. According to the reports, Trump’s team has told European officials that the incoming American president expects members of the military … Read more
“We constantly ask for sanctions against the Russian nuclear industry,” the official said, granted anonymity to speak frankly about the sensitive row. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert “Fico is among those who block those sanctions … and is one of the key blockers of [Ukraine’s] bid to join NATO, too.” Fico, who along with Hungarian Prime … Read more
“If Putin attacks, we must be fit to wage war,” Pistorius said in the interview published on Saturday. The minister’s comments come amid a push for NATO members to increase their defense spending, with new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte saying alliance members need to spend “much more” on defense than the current target of 2 … Read more
During his first term, Trump had already suggested that NATO members should boost their defense spending to 4 percent of GDP. A NATO report in June showed that a record 23 member countries out of 32 were hitting the alliance’s 2 percent target for defense spending. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has partially sided with Trump … Read more
