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Belgium seizes suspected Russian shadow fleet tanker linked by US sanctions to Iranian shipping network
Belgian authorities have seized a tanker identified as part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet in what appears to be the country’s first operation of this kind at sea. The vessel, Ethera, was intercepted overnight off the Belgian coast and escorted…
ProtectEU: Inside Brussels’ Strategy to Prevent Terrorism
When the European Commission unveiled its new ProtectEU strategy on 26th February, it marked a notable moment in the bloc’s long and often cautious efforts to confront terrorism and violent extremism. The initiative, presented as a comprehensive agenda to prevent…
Can Europe’s nuclear deterrent remain credible without US certainty?
Europe’s nuclear deterrence debate has sharpened as officials and analysts examine whether Britain and France can continue to provide a credible nuclear backstop in a less certain security environment. The immediate trigger has been a broader reassessment of deterrence in…
Mass Russian attack damages Ukraine energy grid, leaving six regions without power
Large-scale overnight missile and drone attack damages power infrastructure, forcing blackouts and supply restrictions across much of the country. Parts of six Ukrainian regions were left without electricity on Thursday, 26 February, after what Kyiv described as a combined large-scale…
Secret Tunnels and Hybrid Pressure: How Belarus and Russia Are Testing Europe’s Eastern Border
Belarus’s use of migration pressure against the European Union is no longer confined to flights, forest crossings and organised pushes at the frontier. According to reporting by The Telegraph, citing Polish officials, border guards discovered four underground tunnels under the…
England Hosts Ukraine’s First Overseas Drone Factory in Strategic Defence Move
In England’s quiet Norfolk-Suffolk borderlands, far from the front lines of Europe’s most ferocious conflict, a remarkable new chapter in the Russo-Ukrainian war has quietly begun. A £200 million drone production facility, built by one of Ukraine’s most prominent unmanned-systems manufacturers,…
Four Years Since the Invasion: The War’s Strategic Lessons for Ukraine, Russia and Europe
Four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the central expectation that shaped much of the early commentary has not materialised: Moscow has not achieved its declared war aims. On the fourth anniversary, the…
Zelenskyy’s warning to Trump: peace without guarantees will fail Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plea to Donald Trump — “stay on our side” — should be read as more than an appeal for sympathy. It is a warning about strategy. At the centre of the current diplomacy is a question that sounds…
Putin doubles down on militarisation while Geneva talks yield no breakthrough
Vladimir Putin used Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day on 23 February to call for further military expansion and to urge national unity around the war, in remarks that provided no indication of a shift towards ending hostilities, as US-mediated…
Britain and France Demonstrate Unshakable Resolve to Defend NATO’s Eastern Flank
In the face of an increasingly uncertain global security landscape, British and French soldiers have offered a clear demonstration of the enduring strength of NATO’s collective defence arrangements. The recent NATO joint training deployment in France, where troops from the…