Defence in focus in downtown Brussels: NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Bulgarian Prime Minister Ruman Radev and European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius are among the headline guests at Euronews’ Defence and Space Summit, taking place today at Brussels’ Albert Hall.
Europe on alert: The summit comes as Ukraine heads into its fifth wartime winter and European officials warn of escalating Russian hybrid warfare, including sabotage, arson, and frequent drone incursions.
Just yesterday, Estonia accused Russia of carrying out an arson attack in August against a major drone manufacturer, prompting the NATO alliance to vow not to let the escalating threats curb support for Kyiv.
Follow the summit live on Euronews, and keep an eye out for breaking news from the summit on euronews.com.
Kyiv’s budget gap: The summit also comes amid growing urgency over Ukraine’s finances. On Tuesday, Kyiv urged the EU to tap into immobilised Russian assets to help plug the country’s financial and military shortfall next year, which could hit a staggering $78 billion (€68.77 billion) if allies fail to step up their contributions, my colleague Jorge Liboreiro reports.
Sergii Marchenko, Ukraine’s finance minister, made the push on Tuesday as he met with representatives from allied donors and financial institutions in Brussels. He argued that using the pool of Russian assets would be both a practical and fair solution to meet Ukraine’s wartime costs, protect its debt sustainability and ensure accountability for Moscow’s aggression, according to officials with knowledge of the private discussions.
The EU holds €210 billion of these sovereign assets, most of it in Euroclear, a depository in Brussels. The minister recognised the topic was politically difficult and encouraged the bloc to consider a centralised, legally sound framework. Jorge breaks down the dire financial situation.
VDL on Western Balkan tour: Meanwhile, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen kicks off her annual Western Balkans tour in Albania today, before heading to Kosovo and Montenegro on Thursday and North Macedonia on Friday, my colleague Luca Bertuzzi reports.
The reduced itinerary this year will see the President skip both Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina due to upcoming elections in both countries. But that decision also comes after von der Leyen used her annual agenda-setting speech in Strasbourg to express horror at the glorification of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić in his Belgrade funeral.
EU officials noted that she delivered that part of her speech in French, interpreting it as a pointed message to French President Emmanuel Macron, who warmly welcomed Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in early September.
The visit also comes at a pivotal moment for EU enlargement, Luca explains. To accommodate the trip, the Commission has postponed the publication of its pre-enlargement policy reviews – plans to reform the accession process and prepare the EU’s decision-making for a larger bloc – from 30 September to 6 October.
Montenegro, the accession frontrunner, faces a crunch period to resolve its bilateral dispute with Croatia if it is to meet its ambition of becoming the EU’s 28th member by 2028. The Commission is seeking to mediate between the two countries.
Albania, meanwhile, is expected to receive formal backing for its ambition to complete accession preparations by the end of 2027, with an upcoming roadmap designed to keep Tirana’s reform momentum on track.
Von der Leyen will also face questions in Kosovo and North Macedonia over why the accession roadmaps she announced in her State of the Union address will cover only Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine, leaving the two countries out.
Exclusive: Ukraine’s partners could gain access to new jet-drone interceptor technology, Budanov says
Countries that have signed drone cooperation agreements with Ukraine could also gain access to its newest technology for intercepting Russian jet-powered drones, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, told Euronews’ Sasha Vakulina in an exclusive interview from Kyiv.
Budanov said the cooperation could extend beyond specific interceptor models already developed to counter conventional Shahed drones, opening the way for partners to negotiate access to newer Ukrainian technologies.
“This isn’t about any specific product. It’s, in principle, about cooperation between countries on similar products,” Budanov said.
Euronews also gained exclusive access to Ukrainian air-defence troops protecting the Kyiv region, as they confront the growing threat from faster and higher-flying Russian attack drones.
Crews told Euronews they can sometimes have just 10 to 15 seconds to react when a jet-powered drone approaches Kyiv. Some said the intensity of recent attacks had left them with as little as an hour and a half of sleep.
More from our newsrooms
Pressure grows within EPP to expel Vučić’s SNS party over Mladić funeral. The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) is under mounting pressure to expel Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), after the party’s political assembly condemned Serbia’s handling of the funeral of convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić. “There is not an inch of Vučić’s policies that would fit into the EPP,” a senior MEP told Euronews. Vincenzo Genovese has the full story.
Albanian PM says fate of Kushner-linked luxury project will be decided by ‘science’, not ‘ideology’. The fate of a proposed Trump family-linked luxury resort which sparked mass protests in Albania during the summer will be decided by the results of an environmental impact assessment, not “streets and ideology”, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has told Euronews.
UK PM Burnham to lay out ‘options’ for EU relations later this year. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the Labour Party’s annual conference on Tuesday that he will set out “different options” for the UK’s future relations with the European Union around a planned UK-EU summit later this year, adding that Brexit had “done more harm than good”. Nathan Rennolds has more.
We’re also keeping an eye on
- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen kicks off her tour of four Western Balkan candidate countries in Albania. Press conference with Prime Minister Edi Rama at 17.30.
- Euronews Defence and Space summit takes place in Brussels, with interviews with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev, European Commissioner for Tech, Henna Virkkunen, and for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius. Full agenda here.
- European Commissioner for Trade Maroš Šefčovič attends a G20 trade ministers’ meeting in Milwaukee, the US.
That’s it for today. Sasha Vakulina, Jorge Liboreiro, Luca Bertuzzi and Vincenzo Genovese contributed to this newsletter.
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