Germany Boosts Massive European Defense Spending for Ukraine: How Will the Money Be Spent? | DW News

Mar 21, 2025 | German lawmakers have agreed to provide an additional 11 billion euros in support for Ukraine in the coming years. The agreement includes an additional 3 billion this year alone. Germany's Conservatives, Social Democrats, and Greens agreed on a deal to loosen debt restrictions on military spending. Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz had made the relaxation of the so-called debt brake a prerequisite for the additional Ukraine aid.

Can Europe Unite to Defend Ukraine? Fmr. British Defense Secretary Weighs In | Amanpour & Company

Feb 26, 2025 | Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is gearing up to visit Washington to sign a deal with President Trump over its rare earth minerals and reconstruction. Will the agreement give Ukraine what it desperately needs — guaranteed security against another Russian invasion? For the past week, Trump has publicly aligned the United States more with America's adversary, Vladimir Putin, than with its allies, Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Since Monday, the third anniversary of the war, the U.S. sided with Russia, Belarus and North Korea at the U.N. in voting against a resolution that condemned Russia's invasion. With the newly elected German chancellor talking about gaining security independence from the United States, NATO leaders are already ramping up their defense spending. Ben Wallace was the U.K.'s Defense Secretary during Russia's invasion in 2022 and has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine. Wallace joins Christiane in London. | Originally aired on February 26, 2025

‘Heavy Military Deterrent Force’ Needed to Defend Europe against Russia

Feb 17, 2025 | “Ukraine and the international European deterrent force will have the responsibility to protect Ukraine against possible future Russian advances.”

Rather than a Nato peacekeeping force, Europe needs to unite and deploy a “heavy military deterrent force” on the ground in Ukraine, says Jamie Shea, former Nato deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges.

Can Europe Defend Itself Alone? | ARTE Europe Weekly

Nov 15, 2024 | When it comes to defence, Europe is dependent on the US. But now Donald Trump will be returning to the White House in 2025, and he’s threatened to pull out of NATO in the past. Meanwhile, the military threat from Russia is growing. Can Europe learn to defend itself without America?

As Putin Threatens, Despair and Hedging in Europe

THE NEW YORK TIMES: There is a dawning recognition that the continent urgently needs to step up its own defense, especially as the U.S. wavers, but the commitments still are not coming.

As the leaders of the West gathered in Munich over the past three days, President Vladimir V. Putin had a message for them: Nothing they’ve done so far — sanctions, condemnation, attempted containment — would alter his intentions to disrupt the current world order.

Russia made its first major gain in Ukraine in nearly a year, taking the ruined city of Avdiivka, at huge human cost to both sides, the bodies littered along the roads a warning, perhaps, of a new course in the two-year-old war. Aleksei Navalny’s suspicious death in a remote Arctic prison made ever clearer that Mr. Putin will tolerate no dissent as elections approach.

And the American discovery, disclosed in recent days, that Mr. Putin may be planning to place a nuclear weapon in space — a bomb designed to wipe out the connective tissue of global communications if Mr. Putin is pushed too far — was a potent reminder of his capacity to strike back at his adversaries with the asymmetric weapons that remain a key source of his power.

In Munich, the mood was both anxious and unmoored, as leaders faced confrontations they had not anticipated. Warnings about Mr. Putin’s possible next moves were mixed with Europe’s growing worries that it could soon be abandoned by the United States, the one power that has been at the core of its defense strategy for 75 years. » | David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger, Reporting from Munich | Sunday, February 18, 2024

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is absolutely right, Europe must be able to defend itself. It needs its own military as soon as possible. Visitors and followers of my blog will be aware that I have stated the same many times over the years. Europe needs to unite; and it needs to be able to defend itself – properly. This is not rocket science; rather, it is common sense. Unity brings strength; division brings weakness. To use an Arabic expression, Europe needs to work as one hand! That means to say, in harmony and in co-operation.

Britain should be part of this, too. That is why we should never have left the EU. In doing that, we Brits played right into Putin’s hands. Our exit from the EU was exactly what Putin wanted: he wanted to sow chaos and disunity in Europe. Our British politicians were too blinkered to be able to see it, too blinkered to see that they were being manipulated. This is why this stupid move needs to be reversed as soon as possible. By now, even the most blinkered and dense of our politicians should be able to see how important it is for Europe to have a full-scale military to be able to defend itself. Especially with people like Trump hovering on the horizon, ready to inflict full-scale damage on his own country and the world with his ridiculous policies and stated lack of willingness to defend "delinquent" NATO countries, and quite possibly, nay probably, dragging the US out of NATO altogether! – © Mark Alexander