Even with Russia’s planned military modernisation and build-up, there is no evidence that Putin has the intent to attack a Nato member state. In fact, the Russian leader has assiduously avoided a direct conflict with Nato even as he has expanded operations in Ukraine since 2014. Russia has not attacked shipments of US and European military equipment on their way to Ukrainian forces, has limited missile strikes in Ukraine’s western regions where the risk of an errant missile hitting Nato territory is high, and has refrained from intentional air incursions into Nato airspace near Ukraine’s borders. Given these examples of restraint, it seems unlikely that Putin’s next move would be to start the type of war he has eschewed to this point.
But even if Moscow did launch such a campaign, Europe should be confident in its ability to repel Russian forces, despite its military deficiencies and gaps. If a small country like Ukraine can fight Moscow to a stalemate, despite limited manpower and weapon shortages, Europe fighting as a collective — with many times Russia’s GDP and population — should be able to halt an incursion and drive Putin’s forces back, even without US military support.
Europe has two factors working in its favour: Russia’s military shortcomings and the advantages of defensive warfare. First, the war in Ukraine has revealed the Russian military’s significant weaknesses, including its limited ability to project power over long distances as would be required for an offensive into Nato territory. Second, Ukraine’s battlefield has underscored the advantages that accrue to the defender in modern warfare. In responding to a Russian attack, Europe would be able to exploit these advantages by establishing barriers like minefields and trenches and leveraging drones to make it difficult for an aggressor to advance.
For policymakers in Washington, the bottom line is that even a larger, modernised Russian military does not pose a direct threat to the United States or its interests in Europe, nor does it constitute a challenge that Europe cannot handle itself. The Trump administration should not let Europe’s dire warnings derail its efforts to disentangle itself from continental security burdens or delay its plans to draw down a US military presence in the region. Trump and his advisors should instead move full steam ahead, regardless of changes on the horizon for Russia’s military force.
Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities.
The author is one of the “experts” at Defence Priorities, a staunchly far-Right think-tank founded by supporters of Sen Rand Paul and bank-rolled by the Koch brothers (the money-men for a wide variety of far-Right causes). The article reflects, unsurprisingly, the isolationist philosophy of Trump and MAGA. Withdrawal of the USA from all links to Europe is one of the key policies pushed by these people. Of course the author wants to down-play the threat to Europe posed by Putin, as a way of justifying US disengagement from NATO: see – there is no threat so US support isn’t needed. Besides, staying engaged would under-cut Trump’s pathetic fantasy that Putin is just another strong man (like himself) with whom a deal can be made. These isolationist views are not limited to Europe, by the way, but apply more or less globally. Let’s build Fortress America and to hell with the rest of the world!
China has similar aims in global shipping and resource access, including in the Arctic, where melting sea ice is creating opportunities for expanded maritime transport and energy exploitation, especially along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) off Russia’s coast. China seeks access to the Arctic’s potentially vast natural resources, including oil, gas, and minerals, even though China is not among the eight Arctic countries that control territory in the region. Beijing seeks to normalize more direct and efficient maritime shipping routes to Russia and other Northern Hemisphere areas, as a way to fuel its economic growth and energy security and reduce its dependence on Middle East energy. China has gradually increased engagement with Greenland mainly through mining projects, infrastructure development, and scientific research projects. Despite less active engagement right now, China’s long-term goal is to expand access to Greenland’s natural resources, as well as to use the same access as a key strategic foothold for advancing China’s broader and economic aims in the Arctic.
Some forecasts indicate China’s technology sectors will account for as much as 23 percent of its gross domestic product by 2026, more than doubling since 2018. In addition to private funding, the PRC government is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in priority technologies, such as AI, microelectronics, and biotechnologies, in pursuit of its self-reliance goals.
China almost certainly has a multifaceted, national-level strategy designed to displace the United States as the world’s most influential AI power by 2030. China is experiencing a boom in generative AI with the rapid emergence of a large number of PRC-developed models, and is broadly pursuing AI for smart cities, mass surveillance, healthcare, S&T innovation, and intelligent weapons. Chinese AI firms are already world leaders in voice and image recognition, video analytics, and mass surveillance technologies. The PLA probably plans to use large language models (LLMs) to generate information deception attacks, create fake news, imitate personas, and enable attack networks. China has also announced initiatives to bolster international support for its vision of AI governance.
China has stolen hundreds of gigabytes of intellectual property from companies in Asia, Europe, and North America in an effort to leapfrog over technological hurdles, with as much as 80 percent of U.S. economic espionage cases as of 2021 involving PRC entities
The PLA has the capability to conduct long-range precision-strikes with conventional weapons against the Homeland’s periphery in the Western Pacific, including Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska. China has developed a range of ballistic and cruise missiles with conventional payloads that can be delivered from its mainland as well as by air and sea, including by nuclear-powered submarines. China may be exploring development of conventionally-armed intercontinental range missile systems, which, if developed and fielded, would allow China to threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental United States. The PLA will continue to pursue the establishment of overseas military installations and access agreements to project power and protect China’s interests abroad. Beijing may also pursue a mixture of military logistics models, including preferred access to commercial infrastructure abroad, exclusive PLA logistics facilities with pre-positioned supplies co-located with commercial infrastructure, and bases with stationed forces, to meet its overseas military logistics needs.
If Beijing believed that a major conflict with Washington was imminent, it could consider aggressive cyber operations against U.S. critical infrastructure and military assets. Such strikes would be designed to deter U.S. military action by impeding U.S. decision-making, inducing societal panic, and interfering with the deployment of U.S. forces
China’s approach to and role in global biological, medical, and other health-related global priorities present unique challenges to the United States and the world The COVID-19 pandemic that ultimately led to the death of more than one million Americans—and multiples more worldwide—began in China, which Beijing still refuses to acknowledge. China’s strict censorship and repression of free speech prevented doctors treating the earliest of patients in Wuhan from warning the world of a far more serious contagion than Beijing wanted told, slowing the world’s preparedness and response. To this day, Beijing refuses to fully cooperate with the rest of the international community trying to definitively pinpoint the precise cause of the disease so it can head off and prepare for any new disease.
China has eclipsed Russia as a space leader and is poised to compete with the United States as the world’s leader in space by deploying increasingly capable interconnected multi-sensor systems and working toward ambitious scientific and strategic goals. China has achieved global coverage in some of its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) constellations and world-class status in all but a few space technologies.
Counterspace operations will be integral to PLA military campaigns, and China has counterspace-weapons capabilities intended to target U.S. and allied satellites. China already has fielded ground-based counterspace capabilities, including EW systems, directed energy weapons (DEWs), and antisatellite (ASAT) missiles intended to disrupt, damage, and destroy target satellites. • China also has conducted orbital technology demonstrations, which, while not counterspace weapons tests, prove its ability to operate future space-based counterspace weapons. China has also conducted on-orbit satellite inspections of other satellites, which probably would be representative of the tactics required for some counterspace attacks.
Russia
(A few select snippets)
Regardless of how and when the war in Ukraine ends, Russia’s current geopolitical, economic, military, and domestic political trends underscore its resilience and enduring potential threat to U.S. power, presence, and global interests. Despite having paid enormous military and economic costs in its war with Ukraine, Russia has proven adaptable and resilient, in part because of the expanded backing of China, Iran, and North Korea. President Vladimir Putin appears resolved and prepared to pay a very high price to prevail in what he sees as a defining time in Russia’s strategic competition with the United States, world history, and his personal legacy. Most Russian people continue to passively accept the war, and the emergence of an alternative to Putin probably is less likely now than at any point in his quarter-century rule.
Russia has shown it can navigate substantial economic challenges resulting from the ongoing drains of the war, Western cost imposition, and high inflation and interest rates, for at least the near term by using financial and import substitution workarounds, maintaining low debt, and continuing investments in the defense-industrial base. Russia’s economy remains the fourth largest in the world (based on GDP at purchasing power parity).
The war in Ukraine has afforded Moscow a wealth of lessons regarding combat against Western weapons and intelligence in a large-scale war. This experience probably will challenge future U.S. defense planning, including against other adversaries with whom Moscow is sharing those lessons learned.
Moscow will contend with long-term challenges such as troop quality and corruption, and a fertility rate below what is needed for replacements, but its investments in personnel recruitment and procurement should allow it to steadily reconstitute reserves and expand ground forces in particular during the next decade. Nevertheless, the war in Ukraine will be a drag on those efforts as long as it persists. Moscow will have to continually balance resource allocation between large-scale production of equipment to sustain the war with modernization and recapitalization efforts.
Russia’s advanced cyber capabilities, its repeated success compromising sensitive targets for intelligence collection, and its past attempts to pre-position access on U.S. critical infrastructure make it a persistent counterintelligence and cyber attack threat. Moscow’s unique strength is the practical experience it has gained integrating cyber attacks and operations with wartime military action, almost certainly amplifying its potential to focus combined impact on U.S. targets in time of conflict.
Russia continues to train its military space elements and field new antisatellite weapons to disrupt and degrade U.S. and allied space capabilities. It is expanding its arsenal of jamming systems, DEWs, on-orbit counterspace capabilities, and ASAT missiles designed to target U.S. and allied satellites.
Russia is developing a new satellite meant to carry a nuclear weapon as an antisatellite capability. A nuclear detonation in outer space could cause devastating consequences for the United States, the global economy, and the world in general. It would harm all countries’ national security and commercial satellites and infrastructure, as well as impair U.S. use of space as a driver for economic development. • In February 2022, Russia launched a satellite, which its Ministry of Defense claimed at the time was for testing on-board instruments and systems under the influence of radiation and heavy charged particles.
While Russia’s S&T ecosystem has been constrained in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow continues to deploy nascent AI applications on and off the battlefield and has deepened technical cooperation with partners such as China in support of long-term R&D goals. Moscow’s use of AI to augment military operations probably will further hone Russian tactics and capabilities in the event of future conflicts with the United States or NATO allies. • Russia is using AI to create highly-capable deepfakes to spread misinformation, conduct malign influence operations, and stoke further fear. Russia has also demonstrated the use of AI-enabled antidrone equipment during its ongoing conflict with Ukraine. • Russia’s few domestic microelectronics manufacturers have only mastered production of chips down to the 65nm level and has goals of mass producing 28nm chips by 2030, significantly behind global leaders.
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Der ungarische Premierminister Viktor Orban war überzeugt, dass der rechtsextreme Kandidat George Simion bei den Präsidentschaftswahlen in Rumänien gewinnen würde, und unterstützte ihn stillschweigend.
Das Problem ist jedoch, dass Orban die starke ungarische Minderheit in seinem Nachbarland gegen sich aufgebracht hat, und er folglich seine Wette verloren hat.
Der pro-europäische Kandidat Nicusor Dan gewann am Sonntag mit der massiven Unterstützung der Magyaren (Ungarn), wie im Kreis Harghita in Siebenbürgen, wo er sein landesweit bestes Ergebnis erzielte (über 90%).
In Mitteleuropa, haben sich die Grenzen im Laufe der Geschichte immer wieder verschoben, Als Folge davon leben in dieser Region eine Million Ungarn.
Sie wurden seit 2010 von einem Viktor Orban verwöhnt, der um die Stimmen von Doppelbürgern buhlte, und waren in der Zwischenzeit verblüfft, als sie hörten, wie ihr Beschützer ihren schlimmsten Feind, George Simion, lobte.
Denn der Chef der nationalistischen Partei AUR propagiert dieAssimilation der Magyaren und spricht ihnen jegliche Sonderrechte ab.
2019 war er sogar in Auseinandersetzungen um einen österreichisch-ungarischen Soldatenfriedhof aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg in Valea Uzului verwickelt, den gewalttätigsten interethnischen Vorfall in Rumänien seit Jahrzehnten.
Der russische Militärgeheimdienst (GRU) hat Tausende von Überwachungskameras in Rumänien und anderen NATO-Ländern, die an die Ukraine grenzen, ins Visier genommen, um den Fluss von militärischer und humanitärer Hilfe nach Kiew zu überwachen.
Dies geht aus einer aktuellen Untersuchung hervor, an der die Vereinigten Staaten und mehrere europäische Staaten beteiligt sind. Die weitreichende Cyberspionage-Kampagne, die der berüchtigten GRU-Einheit 26165 zugeschrieben wird, begann, nachdem Russland im Februar 2022 seine groß angelegte Invasion der Ukraine gestartet hatte.
Die GRU-Einheit 26165, auch bekannt als APT28 oder Fancy Bear, ist eine Cybergruppe, die für hochkarätige Spionagekampagnen gegen westliche Regierungen, Verteidigungs- und Logistikunternehmen verantwortlich ist. Die Ermittler gaben an, dass von den etwa 10.000 kompromittierten IP-Adressen fast 1.000 zu Überwachungskameras in Rumänien gehörten, das damit nach der Ukraine das am zweitstärksten betroffene Land war.
Schadsoftware, die in pornografischem Material versteckt war
Zu den weiteren Zielländern gehörten Polen, Ungarn und die Slowakei. Die russischen Hacker setzten eine ausgeklügelte Spear=Phishing-Taktik ein, d. h. sie verschickten personalisierte E-Mails, um die Benutzer zur Preisgabe ihrer Anmeldedaten auf gefälschten Websites zu verleiten, so die Ermittler. In einigen Fällen verteilten sie Schadsoftware, die in pornografischem Material versteckt war.
Sobald der Zugriff erfolgt war, konnten die Angreifer sensible Metadaten von den Kameras sammeln, darunter Standort, Modell, Softwareversion und Benutzerinformationen. Dieser Zugang ermöglichte es russischen Agenten, strategische Orte wie Grenzübergänge, Militäranlagen und Bahnhöfe in Echtzeit zu überwachen.
Den Ermittlungen zufolge bestand das Ziel darin, Informationen über die Routen und den Zeitpunkt westlicher Hilfslieferungen zu sammeln, die über die Grenze in die Ukraine strömten, die sich gegen die eindringenden russischen Truppen zur Wehr setzte.
Rumänien mit seiner 650 Kilometer langen Grenze zur Ukraine ist ein wichtiges Transitland für Flüchtlinge und Hilfsgüter. An wichtigen Grenzübergängen wie Siret, Sighetu Marmației und Galați sowie an Donauhäfen herrschte seit Beginn des Krieges vor über drei Jahren reger Betrieb. Während die genauen Routen der Militärhilfe geheim bleiben, stellt die Aufdeckung der Überwachungsinfrastruktur ein ernstes Sicherheitsrisiko dar - RFE/RL
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“Without the US it is impossible to change the balance. [And over time] it will push the balance to Russia. We will still be alive but we will pay a huge price.”, a senior Ukrainian official told the Guardian.
The Ukraine war resembles a fight between two mortally wounded champions, each one wounded in a different way. Ukraine is running desperately short of soldiers and ammunition; Russia is facing a slow but inevitable economic collapse.
The world is watching: who of the two antagonists is going to break down first, thereby enabling the opponent to claim victory and survival?
Russia’s problems are less visible than those of Ukraine. The situation resembles that of France and Germany at the end of World War I: France was destroyed by years of heavy battles on its own territory, especially along the Somme and Marne rivers; Germany had not experienced any destruction and yet, it lost the war, much to the surprise of the hawks among its population. (The surprise resulted in a decade of stubborn German efforts to undo the Versailles treaty and, ultimately, gave rise to Hitler. But this is a different story)
A sign of weakness: sending 273 disposable drones instead of attacking with an army of 273 tanks, or else. Still, the figure 273 shows that Russia is making a desperate effort within the limits of its potential to impress on Ukraine and its Western allies that the “21 years” of war it promised to conduct are no empty threat hiding weakness.
The fact that Russia feels it is now necessary to beef up its military presence along the Finnish border is another sign of nervousness and goes at the expense of its potential in the Ukraine war.
Today we share alarming evidence – in the form of extensive satellite imagery – that Russia is shoring up its military presence to threaten Nato’s eastern flank. It’s a concerning indication of where Putin’s swollen army could be moved after a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Finnish officials said that so far, the build-up is small scale. But it is likely being done in preparation for tens of thousands of troops and military assets to be redeployed in the event of a ceasefire in Ukraine. “We joined Nato, so we anticipated this,” said Maj Gen Sami Nurmi, chief of strategy of the Finnish Defence Forces. The military, he said, is watching Russia’s movements closely. “What we are seeing are the preparations for the future” when Russia will bring back the forces fighting in Ukraine, he said. “But the troops on our borders will grow.”
Marc DeVore and Alexander Mertens explained in Foreign Affairs that Russia, hitting the limits of its war economy, will be forced to invade other countries and loot their riches in order to finance its excessive armaments and warfare expenses.
War leads to more war, for this and other reasons. In the desperate situation into which Putin has steered Russia, peace is no option anymore. A sad destiny for Ukraine: learning to somehow survive in a permanent war, hoping for Russia’s economy to implode.
Burkhart FürstUpdate(German) Major General Christian Freuding: Putin can no longer win this war militarily. This is also shown by the minimal forward movements of the Russian army in recent months and years.Bridget Brink, who recently resigned her post as US Ambassador to Ukraine: Interest rates in Russia are at 21%. Inflation's at 10%. Russia's economy is really hurting, and Putin's looking for ways to relieve that pressure, and that's why he's dragging out this process and dragging out this war. If he were as strong as what I think he wants to portray, he would have been successful a long time ago. So Russia's much weaker than people think, and Ukraine is much stronger.“It is not our war,” said Vice President JD Vance earlier. Reprising his role as the harbinger of very bad news for European security, Vance held out again this remarkable non-threat: that the United States might pull out of the war – presumably from both diplomacy and aid to Ukraine – unless Russia takes steps toward a peace deal it adamantly does not want. Washington backing off is exactly what Russia yearns for, and to earn this dream outcome, it seems Putin has to do absolutely nothing, bar continue to wage a brutal war.
Although the Kremlin has claimed some nominal territorial gains, Russian forces are yet to cement any major breakthroughs. In particular, the battle for Pokrovsk has typified the slow-moving war of attrition this conflict has snowballed into, taking tens of thousands of lives in the process.
Western estimates suggest Russian casualties are nearing one million. With Ukrainian drone strikes multiplying and morale on the home front waning, Putin is locked in a war of attrition with no clear exit.
Ukraine Won't Be Broken
Ukraine, for its part, has refused to break. Despite being outmanned and outgunned, it continues to innovate on the battlefield. The shift from conventional warfare to strategic, asymmetric tactics—particularly in drone and cyber warfare—has kept Russia from consolidating its hold on occupied territories. And while Ukraine’s economy suffers, its people remain fiercely defiant.
This resilience is not born of political calculation, but of survival instinct, reinforced by the brutality of Russian occupation.
Diplomatically, the Kremlin’s options are narrowing. Russia has failed to drive a wedge between Washington and Europe. On the contrary, the U.S. and newly assertive Germany, under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, have hardened their stance.
Moscow’s hopes of exploiting divisions in the West have largely evaporated, not least because of its well-documented indiscriminate bombing campaigns and scorched-earth tactics. Some reports even suggest that Putin’s generals are lying to him about the situation on the ground.
Despite widespread economic hardship among Russian citizens, Putin maintains a belief in his victory and demands "completely unreasonable" conditions for the cessation of hostilities, according to intelligence officials.
Russia expert Pleitgen (Frederik Pleitgen, correspondent CNN) warned against overestimating the effect of European economic punitive measures. The mood prevailing is not only very good in Moscow government circles, but also in parts of the Russian economy. They are less concerned about new sanctions and are instead thinking about how to take advantage of opportunities presented by the change in US policy. “They see themselves on the verge of being back on the American market,” said the journalist, describing his impressions from conversations with Russian entrepreneurs. There is also no need to hope regarding Putin's age and state of health, he added. After six bilateral meetings in one day, the Russian president made a good impression on him, Pleitgen reported from a press conference in the Kremlin. “He certainly seemed fitter than me,” said the 48-year-old media representative about the 72-year-old Putin.
t-onlineNATO is powerful enough to deter Russia and defensive enough to fend off an attack. No matter when. 400 million Europeans and 360 million Americans can defend themselves against 160 million Russians. We must not allow ourselves to be misled. As dynamic as the process in Russia is: we are more, we have more and we are better.t-online
NATO allies must commit to spending 5% of GDP on defence, as Russian threat looms, says NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Within three months, Russia develops four times the amount of ammunition NATO countries produce in a year, he said.
understandingwar.org/...Ukrainian Presidential Office Deputy Head Colonel Pavlo Palisa told reporters on June 5 that Russia likely seeks to seize the full extent of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by September 1, 2025, and create a buffer zone along the northern Ukrainian-Russian border by the end of 2025.[1] Palisa also stated that Russia intends to occupy the entirety of Ukraine on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River and seize Odesa and Mykolaiv oblasts by the end of 2026, depriving Ukraine of access to the Black Sea. Western sources published a map on June 4 and 6 that Palisa reportedly presented to US officials and journalists.[2] The map suggests that Russia intends to seize roughly 222,700 additional square kilometers of Ukrainian territory and hold a total of 336,300 square kilometers by the end of 2026 – almost doublGoatseFarmer
e the roughly 162,000 total square kilometers that Russia held as of the first month of Russia's initial full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The total area of Ukraine is roughly 603,500 square kilometers
'Invest in defence now or start learning Russian later' - NATO Secretary General
Mark Rutte reiterated NATO’s recent warnings that Russia could strike NATO territory within the next couple of years. “If we don't act now, the next three years, we are fine, but we have to start now, because otherwise, from three, four or five years from now, we are really under threat," he said, adding: "I really mean this. Then you have to get your Russian language course out, or go to New Zealand.”
“It’s good to have continuity about the US in NATO, but with Ukraine it’s a different story. I just don’t think Trump really cares about Ukraine," the US-based source told Euronews.
“Trump just doesn’t care about Europe – it doesn't make him richer or help him politically,” the source said.
«Nous avons besoin de faire un bond en avant dans notre défense collective (...) Le fait est que le danger ne disparaîtra pas, même avec la fin de la guerre en Ukraine», doit déclarer Mark Rutte, selon un communiqué.
In this world, Putin’s military is now the most battle tested, combat experienced and functionally prepared military in the world, and has the ability to at least briefly become the largest of Putin literally commits to a barbaric militaristic genocide. This military has tired elements; but many are considered to be human shields to protect the valuable ones, additionally this military now wields a considerable amount of NATO hardware and has service members trained to use them
