Russia has plan for 'long-term aggression' against Europe, Kallas says

Euronews

5 hours ago

Russia poses a direct threat to the European Union and its massive defence spending shows that the Kremlin has a "long-term plan for long-term aggression", the EU's foreign policy chief warned on Wednesday.
Kaja Kallas said that Russia was violating the bloc's airspace, attacking its pipelines, undersea cables and electricity grids, and recruiting criminals to carry out sabotage.
The EU and several member states have repeatedly accused Russia of conducting sabotage campaigns in the West. The Kremlin has strongly denied such allegations.
Kallas noted that Russia is already spending more on defence than the EU's 27 nations combined, and said the country this year will invest more "on defence than its own health care, education and social policy combined".
"This is a long-term plan for long-term aggression. You don't spend that much on (the) military if you do not plan to use it," Kallas told the bloc's lawmakers in Strasbourg.
"Europe is under attack and our continent sits in a world becoming more dangerous," she added.
Speaking ahead of next week's NATO summit in The Hague, Kallas said every European country should be thinking about defence.
At that summit, NATO will propose to alliance members an overall military spending goal of 5% of gross domestic product, up from the current target of 2%.
"Europe's collective economic might is unmatched," Kallas said. "I don't believe there is any threat we can't overcome, if we act together, and with our NATO allies."
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said that Russia is producing as many weapons and ammunition in three months as the alliance's 32 members collectively make in a year.
He believes that Moscow could be in a position to launch an attack on a NATO ally by the end of the decade.
Concern is mounting in Europe that Russia could try to test NATO's Article 5 security guarantee — the pledge that an attack on any one of the allies would be met with a collective response from all 32 members.
With the Trump administration having turned its sights to security challenges in the Middle East, Europe is under increasing pressure to fend for itself on matters of defence and support Ukraine without US assistance.
"We have to do more for Ukraine, for our own security too," Kallas told EU lawmakers.
"To quote my friend, Mark Rutte, if we don't help Ukraine further, we should all start learning Russian. The stronger Ukraine is on the battlefield today, the stronger they will be around the negotiation table, when Russia finally is ready to talk," she added.
Russia has intensified its aerial campaign in Ukraine and stepped up ground attacks along the more than 1,000-kilometre front line. Two rounds of direct peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv failed to make progress on ending the war, now in its fourth year.
Last week, the head of Germany's foreign intelligence service (BND), Bruno Kahl, warned against underestimating Russian intentions toward the West and NATO.
"We are very certain, and we have intelligence evidence for this, that Ukraine is just a step on the path to the West," Kahl told the Table Today podcast.
Indonesian police have arrested three Australian men on suspicion of murder over the fatal shooting of another Australian on the resort island of Bali.
Zivan Radmanovic — a 32-year-old from Melbourne — was killed just after midnight local time (6 pm CET) on 13 June at a villa near Munggu Beach in Bali's Badung district, local authorities said.
A second man — 34-year-old Sanar Ghanim from Melbourne — was left seriously injured in the attack.
"Three suspects have been arrested along with several pieces of evidence allegedly used to carry out the shooting," Bali police chief Daniel Adityajaya told reporters.
"The three suspects are Australian men and they are now being held and questioned for further investigation," he said.
Police had initially detained two suspects, but further investigation led them to arrest a third man who helped to organise the shooting, Adityajaya said.
Two of the men were arrested late on Tuesday in Singapore and at Jakarta's Soekarno Hatta International Airport, while trying to flee. Indonesian police did not say where the third suspect was apprehended.
The men face various charges — including murder and firearm offences — that could carry up to a life sentence or the death penalty if found guilty, according to Adityajaya.
Witnesses at the villa where the shooting occurred told investigators that two gunmen arrived on a scooter around midnight.
Radmanovic was shot in a bathroom of his room, where 17 bullet casings and two intact bullets were found, according to the authorities.
His wife Gourdeas Jazmyn told police that she suddenly woke up when she heard her husband screaming. She said she hid under a blanket when she heard multiple gunshots.
She later found her husband's body and saw the injured Ghanim, whose wife also testified to seeing the attackers, the police said.
Adityajaya said police are still investigating the motive and how the suspects would have obtained a weapon, as firearm ownership and use are heavily regulated in Indonesia.
"We are still investigating the possibility of other suspects," he said.