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Morning opening: All eyes on European security
Jakub Krupa
EU commissioners are meeting today for a “security college” discussion on defence and security issues, where they will be joined by the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte.
Their meeting comes amid growing concerns about drones appearing in European airspace, causing continuing disruption in parts of the Nordics. It remains unconfirmed who or what is behind them, but still prompted a strong reaction in the region. Denmark, which will host two major European summits this week, moved to immediately strengthen its air defences to safeguard the meetings.
Earlier this month, a number of central and eastern European countries also reported Russian violations of their airspace, most notably when over 20 drones crossed into Poland, and three MiG fighter jets violated Estonian airspace.
Speaking in Brussels in the last few minutes, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said “Europe must deliver a strong and united response to Russia’s drone incursions at our borders,” stressing the need to press ahead with building a “drone wall” to increase security.
Nato’s Rutte agreed with the urgency, stressing that while the alliance is still assessing who – or what – is behind the drone incursions in Denmark, “when it comes to Poland and Estonia, it is clear that it is the Russians.”
“Still, we are assessing whether it is intentional or not. But even if it is not intentional, it is reckless and it is unacceptable.”
Von der Leyen also spoke about Ukraine, hailing its resilience and stressing it has ceded “virtually no territory this year”, despite continuing conflict. She said the EU’s sanctions “are working” and the bloc will want to push further with the upcoming, 19th package of measures against Moscow.
The EU has agreed with Ukraine that “a total of €2bn will be spent on drones,” which “allows Ukraine to scale up and to use its full capacity.” Crucially, von der Leyen indicated the EU will want to push ahead with what it calls “reparation loans,” based on the frozen Russian assets – a part of which will be used to fund EU defence industry, too.
She offered a bit more detail on how the scheme is supposed to work, saying:
“The loan would not be disbursed in one go, but in tranches and with conditions attached. And we will strengthen our own defence industry by ensuring that part of the loan is used for procurement in Europe and with Europe.
Importantly, there is no seizing of the assets. Ukraine has to repay the loan, if Russia is paying reparations. The perpetrator must be held responsible.”
We are expecting more security discussions to come today, including those happening during the second day of the Warsaw Security Forum, where we are going to hear from ministers and US special envoy Keith Kellogg, among others.
I will bring you all the latest here.
It’s Tuesday, 30 September 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
Key events
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‘Look at world not as we wish it to be, but how it is,’ UK’s former defence secretary tells of his lessons from Russian invasion on Ukraine
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Finland to help Denmark raise its defences ahead of two European summits, president Stubb says
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Putin ‘in his heart of hearts realises he can’t win this,’ US Kellogg says
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‘His drug is power’: Lukashenko reaches out to the west
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Poland detains Ukrainian man wanted over alleged involvement in Nord Stream explosions – report
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Copenhagen residents to see ‘massive invasion of police officers’ as capital prepares for two major summits after drone sightings
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UK, France, Germany, Sweden to help Denmark increase security after drone incursions
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Former aide to German AfD lawmaker jailed for spying for China
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US focus is to ‘stop the largest land war in Europe since second world war,’ Kellogg says
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US deal with Belarus was primarily on ‘ensuring lines of communication’ to Putin, not freeing prisoners, Kellogg says
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‘No decision’ made on reviewing US training posture in Baltics, CEE, Latvian foreign minister says
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Morning opening: All eyes on European security
Wallace also makes an interesting point about the challenge faced by politicians, as they have to level with the public about the threats their countries face or could face, and associated costs.
“We don’t tell them all the time what’s going on, partly to protect intelligence, but also we shield them, and it also allows the politicians of the day to not have to make difficult decisions,” he says.
Here is his argument in full:
“But actually, if the public knew what many of our statuses or readiness levels were, or our ammunition stocks, the parliaments and the public would be outraged.
So it’s very convenient that everything is classified in the national security space.
If we don’t tell you that, let’s say the Russians have hacked ministry a or ministry B … you won’t demand I do something about it, and also you won’t demand that I might have to cut something else in public policy that will make me unpopular, and therefore, spend it on our own national security, and I think that is something we have to level with the public about.”
‘Look at world not as we wish it to be, but how it is,’ UK’s former defence secretary tells of his lessons from Russian invasion on Ukraine
Former UK defence minister Ben Wallace is now speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum, discussing his lessons from leading the UK’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
He says “the first lesson is we must look at the world not as we wish it to be, but in the way it is.”
He also calls out the initial reactions in some countries, as he says:
“I remember going to Mariupol when I was the government security minister, not long after the Salisbury poisoning, … I remember, when it came to even early military aid to Ukraine, there was a country in Europe that wouldn’t even allow diggers to be exported to Ukraine – diggers, not guns, not missiles, but diggers! – just because that could have been potentially provocative to President Putin.”
He says the other challenge is to “to change a sort of mindset that I think has become frighteningly endemic in our foreign ministries around Europe, which is, we look at our adversaries as if they are the same as us.”
“I remember one senior member of an intelligence service in Europe saying to me that Putin wouldn’t invade because it wouldn’t be logical. Well, no, it’s not logical by any benchmark. What Putin has done is illogical, disastrous within country, and has killed millions of people. But these people aren’t always logical.”
He continues:
“They’re not us. They don’t have democracies in the same way, they don’t have checks and balances that we have. And we have lost that skill, that deep skill that we might have had for the last, you know, hundreds of years ago or 50 years ago, to recognise and read your adversary. Read the room. …
So then we had to move to this stage of accepting that Putin was not, you know, what we might think he is, and then doing something about it. And there were a lot of people in this country and in the east of Europe who were warning us for many years, and people were not listening.”
Finland to help Denmark raise its defences ahead of two European summits, president Stubb says
Miranda Bryant
Nordic correspondent
Finland’s president has pledged to help to defend Denmark as Copenhagen prepares to host two European summits this week amid ongoing drone incursions.
Alexander Stubb said on Tuesday that Finland had deployed an anti-drone system to Denmark and that the Finnish Border Guard would provide support.
Support provided by Finland, Sweden and Norway to Denmark was, he said, “an excellent example of the type of concrete Nordic cooperation we need today.”
Stubb wrote on X:
“Finland stands fully behind Denmark in its efforts to secure the airspace and countering hybrid activities of the kind we have seen in the last days and weeks.
To make this support concrete, Finland has today decided to deploy a Counter-UAS contingent to Denmark. The Finnish Border Guard will also support with its own capabilities.
I see this as an excellent example of the type of concrete Nordic cooperation we need today. Going forward, we’ll keep aligning our approaches to countering hybrid threats and pushing the capability development in Europe.”
Putin ‘in his heart of hearts realises he can’t win this,’ US Kellogg says
US special envoy Keith Kellogg is back on stage at the Warsaw Security Forum.
Speaking about Ukraine, he says that Russia was “not winning this war.”
“I think probably in his heart of hearts he realises he can’t win this. This is an unwinnable fight for him, long-term. It’s not going to happen.”
Asked about the recent incidents involving Russia in Europe, he appears to signal his support for the idea of shooting Russian drones or jets crossing into Nato airspace.
He says:
“The way you respond to something like this, from a military background, I would say sometimes you raise what is called the risk level to do it.
I will give you a good example. … A few years ago, 2015, the Russians had a Russian fighter invade Turkish airspace. What did the Turks do? They shot it down.
Okay, that will get you attention really fast, won’t it?
Now, that’s what I mean about raising your risk level. I know it’s the dangerous thing to do. I’ve got it. I understand that. But sometimes you have to ask yourselves, where do you go? …
Look, this is serious business. For those of you sitting in uniform in this room, you know that.”
He specifically references Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski’s speech at the UN security council, in which he warned Russia that Poland would shoot any jets down in the future.
“– So the Russians have been warned?
– I think they have.”
Pressed about how to get to a trilateral meeting between Zelenskyy, Putin and Trump, Kellogg says “the way you reach [it], sort of like what Ukraine is doing right now, is you make this almost cost prohibitive.”
He says that Ukraine is making progress on that target by “hitting the refineries, which cut 20% of their oil production down.”
“We are working on people not buying … on secondary sanctions … on buying their oil. Unfortunately, some in Europe are still buying it.”
He argued that Russia “is a petrostate, and if you take away the petrodollars, they have got an enormous problem.”
“I think the calculus is on Putin, … and basically the pain level he is willing to accept,” he says, pointing to Russia’s growing frontline problems with the Russian army “taking tanks out of museums to bring into the frontlines.”
“I think we don’t need to draw any more red lines. He’s got the problem, not the West, and he’s got to make that call, not the West. The West is going to be it’s aligned very, very well, and I have great confidence in it.”
‘His drug is power’: Lukashenko reaches out to the west
Pjotr Sauer
If you are keen to understand the dynamics between the US and Belarus a bit better (10:08), here’s a brilliant story from our own Pjotr Sauer, who recently visited Minsk.
Since Trump took office, Lukashenko, an authoritarian strongman who has ruled Belarus since 1994, has been edging out of the diplomatic freeze, cautiously probing for space beyond Moscow, which sees Belarus as both its closest ally and a vital buffer.
Sensing a political opening with the new Trump administration, Lukashenko has regularly met US officials and even held a call with the US president, who has floated the idea of a direct meeting.
Some in Washington see Lukashenko as a potential interlocutor with Vladimir Putin on ending the war in Ukraine. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, has privately said he places a high value on Lukashenko’s insights into the Russian leader, according to a source familiar with the talks.
European diplomatic sources have meanwhile said there are tentative discussions in Brussels over whether the EU’s policy of isolating Belarus remains effective, and if offering Lukashenko a way out of Moscow’s shadow should be considered. Belarus has also signalled openness to talks, the two sources said.
Poland detains Ukrainian man wanted over alleged involvement in Nord Stream explosions – report
A Ukrainian man wanted by Germany over his alleged involvement in the Nord Stream explosion has been detained in Poland, RMF FM radio just reported.
The man, a scuba diving instructor known only as Volodymyr Z, was detained in Pruszków, just outside the Polish capital, Warsaw, the broadcaster said.
Copenhagen residents to see ‘massive invasion of police officers’ as capital prepares for two major summits after drone sightings
Miranda Bryant
Nordic correspondent
Copenhagen residents have been warned of a “massive invasion of police officers” as the Danish capital prepares to host two back-to-back European summits amid rising tensions after more than a week of drone incursions and accusations of hybrid attacks and sabotage.
Around 10,000 hotel rooms are understood to have been booked for police officers coming from outside Copenhagen for the events, including from Sweden and Norway.
Peter Dahl, head of emergency preparedness at the Copenhagen Police, told DR:
“Copenhageners will experience a massive invasion of police officers in the coming days. We will really be noticeable in the street scene.”
The numerous potential threats are “incredibly complex”, he said, with risks of demonstrations, terrorism and a “high” threat of espionage and sabotage.
“With up to 60 heads of state and government and with the security situation we have in the world today, it is an enormous task.”
There would also be, he added, a widespread use of drones and as he suggested that there would be officers positioned on roofs.
On Wednesday, the heads of state and government from 27 EU countries will meet at Christianborg Palace during the daytime before attending an event with the King and Queen at Amalienborg Palace.
On Thursday, Copenhagen will host a European Political Community event which will also include representatives of Nato, the EU, the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Domestic and international tensions have increased after several drone incursions across Denmark and the Nordics in recent days, including at airports and military sites.
The last time police faced an operation of this scale was during the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.
UK, France, Germany, Sweden to help Denmark increase security after drone incursions
Dan Sabbagh
Defence and security editor
Unidentified drones have disrupted Danish airspace on several occasions in the past week, and Danish forces have so far failed to shoot down any of them, which would allow an examination of the wreckage.
The UK, France, Germany and Sweden said they would help Denmark increase its security during two European summits in Copenhagen this week.
The capital is due to host EU leaders on Wednesday and the wider 47-member European Political Community on Thursday.
Britain has also sent a counter-drone system to Denmark, defence secretary John Healey said at a fringe event the UK Labour party conference.
Germany said it would send 40 soldiers to Denmark to help detect, identify and counter drones, while France will deploy a military helicopter plus another 35 troops. Sweden said it would sent a counter-drone system plus extra radars, as well as additional police to enhance security on the ground.
Former aide to German AfD lawmaker jailed for spying for China
In other news, a former aide to German far-right lawmaker Maximilian Krah in the European parliament was jailed for four years and nine months on Tuesday on charges of spying for China, AFP reported.
The court in Dresden found that Jian Guo was guilty of acting as an agent for a Chinese intelligence service while working for Krah, a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
US focus is to ‘stop the largest land war in Europe since second world war,’ Kellogg says
Closing the panel, US envoy Kellogg spelled out the US position on Ukraine, as he said:
“The biggest thing we want to do is stop the largest land war in Europe since the second world war.
And this is a war of industrial strength with over hundreds – not one thousand or two thousand, we’re talking hundreds, plural, of thousands – of killed in action there.
In Afghanistan, Russians came out after losing 18,000; we left Vietnam after losing 65,000. We’re now talking of the level of dead and wounded on both sides [that] have eclipsed a million.
Stunning. And so I think this war needs to come to an end to some way.”
US deal with Belarus was primarily on ‘ensuring lines of communication’ to Putin, not freeing prisoners, Kellogg says
US envoy Kellogg also offered a bit of tasty colour on the US relationship with Belarus, after a deal earlier this month to release some political prisoners in exchange for loosening some of sanctions on Minsk.
He stressed that the US focus on Lukashenko was because “we know he talks to President Putin a lot.” “We’re not sure what he says, but we know that he talks to him,” he says.
“But what we did, we established a relationship to ensure the lines of communication were open so we could make sure all of our messaging was being passed to President Putin. That was the reason we did it; we weren’t going in there initially to get political prisoners out,” he said.
Kellogg stressed that the success in releasing some political prisoners was a positive side to that, but “the overall objective of that was not to free political prisoners – the overall objective was [to] find a resolution to the best way we can to the war between Ukraine and Russia.”
He said the US focus was on making sure “the messages were being sent to Vladimir Putin are consistent with the messages that have gone to other circles”.
“I don’t care if it’s Kirill Dmitriev, I don’t care if it’s [Yuri] Ushakov; I don’t care if it’s Lukashenko. The fact is making sure those messages come across,” he said.
He also said that US is not “naive” about Lukashenko’s rule, and “we know if he releases one [prisoner], he probably picks up two more”.
Kellogg also added that the deal with Belarus was to help the state-owned airline Belavia fix their aircraft as “the preferred option is that their aeroplanes don’t fall out of the skies,” but to make it clear they must not use them for “nefarious purposes” and flying migrants into Europe. “That’s the bottom line,” he said.
‘No decision’ made on reviewing US training posture in Baltics, CEE, Latvian foreign minister says
Speaking at the same event, the Latvian foreign minister, Baiba Braže, was also asked about reported US plans to review its support for training and US military presence in central and eastern Europe.
But she insisted that “for now, no decisions have been made on cutting something or eliminating something; quite the opposite”.
“We have heard some good things from Washington and that’s the way we intend to continue,” she said, stressing the region’s support for President Trump “in his quest for peace in Ukraine.”
Asked to be more specific about signals she heard from Washington, she said:
“They will be public when they become public.”
The senior Polish presidential aide Marcin Przydacz agreed with her, saying Poland “does not have any negative signals” from the US.
“We’ve heard public statements [from] President Trump that American troops will stay in Poland, and with a bit of strategic messaging towards Moscow, I think, President Trump also said there is a chance for further deployment of American troops.
We don’t know whether it will happen or not. It is also a job for us, for Polish diplomacy, to work on that.”
The US envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has distanced himself from his earlier comments on the US plans to respond to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s request for US Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles to conduct strikes inside Russia.
Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum, Kellogg stressed he was merely talking about public statements, and had no inside knowledge of the process or the final decision.
But he stressed the significance of Tomahawks, saying it’s a “very advanced missile system” and if it was authorised to be used, it would “change the dynamics of any military conflict” as it adds another layer of “uncertainty” because of its capabilities.
Morning opening: All eyes on European security
Jakub Krupa
EU commissioners are meeting today for a “security college” discussion on defence and security issues, where they will be joined by the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte.
Their meeting comes amid growing concerns about drones appearing in European airspace, causing continuing disruption in parts of the Nordics. It remains unconfirmed who or what is behind them, but still prompted a strong reaction in the region. Denmark, which will host two major European summits this week, moved to immediately strengthen its air defences to safeguard the meetings.
Earlier this month, a number of central and eastern European countries also reported Russian violations of their airspace, most notably when over 20 drones crossed into Poland, and three MiG fighter jets violated Estonian airspace.
Speaking in Brussels in the last few minutes, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said “Europe must deliver a strong and united response to Russia’s drone incursions at our borders,” stressing the need to press ahead with building a “drone wall” to increase security.
Nato’s Rutte agreed with the urgency, stressing that while the alliance is still assessing who – or what – is behind the drone incursions in Denmark, “when it comes to Poland and Estonia, it is clear that it is the Russians.”
“Still, we are assessing whether it is intentional or not. But even if it is not intentional, it is reckless and it is unacceptable.”
Von der Leyen also spoke about Ukraine, hailing its resilience and stressing it has ceded “virtually no territory this year”, despite continuing conflict. She said the EU’s sanctions “are working” and the bloc will want to push further with the upcoming, 19th package of measures against Moscow.
The EU has agreed with Ukraine that “a total of €2bn will be spent on drones,” which “allows Ukraine to scale up and to use its full capacity.” Crucially, von der Leyen indicated the EU will want to push ahead with what it calls “reparation loans,” based on the frozen Russian assets – a part of which will be used to fund EU defence industry, too.
She offered a bit more detail on how the scheme is supposed to work, saying:
“The loan would not be disbursed in one go, but in tranches and with conditions attached. And we will strengthen our own defence industry by ensuring that part of the loan is used for procurement in Europe and with Europe.
Importantly, there is no seizing of the assets. Ukraine has to repay the loan, if Russia is paying reparations. The perpetrator must be held responsible.”
We are expecting more security discussions to come today, including those happening during the second day of the Warsaw Security Forum, where we are going to hear from ministers and US special envoy Keith Kellogg, among others.
I will bring you all the latest here.
It’s Tuesday, 30 September 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
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