Europe

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Russia handed over some bodies of its own soldiers to Ukraine under the guise of Ukrainian casualties during a recent exchange of the deceased, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko announced on June 19.

"Yes, we have facts. We have established the names of these soldiers and officers who are unwanted by their homeland," Klymenko wrote on Telegram.

The discovery was made after the handover of remains under an agreement reached during the June 2 talks in Istanbul. In total, Ukraine received 6,057 bodies of its fallen soldiers as part of the phased exchange. Russia, according to Kremlin aide and negotiator Vladimir Medinsky, took back 78.

One of the bodies returned to Ukraine, labeled No. 192/25, was dressed in a Russian military uniform and carried a Russian passport issued to Alexander Viktorovich Bugaev, born in 1974.

Alongside the passport, officials found a military ID indicating Bugaev had served in the 1st Battalion of the 39th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade.

According to Klymenko, Bugaev went missing during heavy fighting near Novomykhailivka in Donetsk Oblast in March 2025. His family had been searching for him for months. Klymenko said Russia had located Bugaev's body but chose to "dump" it among the Ukrainian dead.

"This is yet another proof of how Russia treats its people with contempt, throwing their bodies onto the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers," Klymenko said.

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Kyiv has consistently called for an "all-for-all" exchange of prisoners of war, but Moscow has so far refused to agree to a comprehensive swap.

Archived

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Researchers from the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy sought to assess when the European Union and the United Kingdom might be prepared to respond to potential Russian aggression by 2030. Multiple Western intelligence reports suggest that Russia might test Europe’s resolve even earlier.

The think tanks previously concluded in September that it would take the bloc several decades to adequately prepare – and in their latest update, released on Thursday, the researchers found that “the situation today is even more concerning”.

That is partly due to a much-weakened US commitment to European security, following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

But the researchers also found that Russian industry continues to significantly outproduce European factories, despite substantial increases in investment. Military procurement across the EU remains slow, bureaucratic, and focused on relatively expensive weapons systems.

Russia’s military spending reached €130 billion in 2024, or 7.1% of its GDP. While combined EU and UK expenditures exceed that figure, the study found that Russia’s military purchasing power remains comparable.

To deter – or, if necessary, fight – Russia without relying on US support, European production of various weapon systems “must increase by a factor of around five”, the report states. Air defence systems, in particular, would need to multiply even more to match Russian capabilities.

“Europe thus remains highly vulnerable and dependent on the US,” the report states.

The researchers conducted a detailed analysis of military procurement data from Germany, Poland, the UK, and France to understand broader European trends. They found that production still lags, and the volume of military hardware being acquired “remain low compared to Cold War periods or Russian numbers.”

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The EU’s €800 billion ReArm Europe plan, for instance, “will be too small, if equipment is bought at current high prices,” the authors caution.

Archived

This is an ope-ed by Robbin Laird, a military and security analyst.

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Europe finds itself confronting an unprecedented dual challenge to its critical infrastructure: immediate military threats from Russia requiring urgent port and transportation upgrades, while simultaneously grappling with long-term strategic vulnerabilities created by decades of Chinese and Russian investment in European infrastructure.

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The urgency of Europe’s infrastructure challenge became starkly apparent in recent NATO planning discussions. At the upcoming NATO summit, alliance members are targeting a dramatic increase in military spending from 2% to 5% of GDP, with 1.5% specifically allocated to what officials term “nonlethal domains” – cybersecurity, infrastructure, roads, railroads, and critically, ports.

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European officials and NATO planners have identified 500 critical locations across the continent requiring immediate upgrades to ensure rapid troop movement to eastern borders. The challenge extends beyond mere logistics – it encompasses the fundamental question of whether Europe’s commercial infrastructure can serve dual civilian and military purposes without compromising either function.

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The infrastructure crisis reveals what defense analysts call the convergence of cyber and physical vulnerabilities. As one expert noted, “Critical infrastructure is an area where the cyber and physical worlds are converging – the operation of digital systems affects our physical world, and so a cyber incident can have direct and serious physical impacts on property and people.”

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While Europe races to address immediate military infrastructure needs, a parallel challenge has been building for over a decade through Chinese and Russian exploitation of European free market mechanisms. Authoritarian states have systematically invested in and gained control over key European infrastructure, creating dependencies that could be leveraged during future crises.

The scope of this challenge is staggering. Chinese companies now control 29 ports and 47 terminals across more than a dozen European countries, including a 67% stake in Greece’s strategically crucial Port of Piraeus. In France, a Chinese consortium owns nearly 50% of Toulouse airport, located at the heart of the country’s aerospace industry.

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The Nordic Model: Hardened Infrastructure as Standard

Some European nations are pioneering approaches that address both immediate military needs and long-term infrastructure security. Norway’s reconstruction of its F-35 air base at Ørland provides a template for how infrastructure development can prioritize security from the ground up.

The Norwegian approach emphasizes hardened facilities, secure supply chains, and workforce security. As Lt. Col. Eirik Guldvog explains: “The Armed Forces Estate Agency has built camps on the base to house workers to work on the base. Because of classifications, only Norwegian workers are being used.”

This model of “security by design” in infrastructure development contrasts sharply with the ad hoc approach of retrofitting existing commercial infrastructure for military use – the challenge now facing most European ports.

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Europe’s current infrastructure crisis represents more than a response to immediate military threats – it reflects a fundamental awakening to the intersection of economic openness and national security. The continent that pioneered free trade and open markets is learning to defend these achievements against authoritarian powers that view economic integration as a vulnerability to exploit rather than a mutual benefit to preserve.

The success of Europe’s infrastructure security initiative will depend on its ability to maintain the delicate balance between openness and security, competitiveness and resilience. The stakes extend far beyond military logistics – they encompass the fundamental question of whether democratic societies can maintain their openness while defending against authoritarian manipulation.

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The German military deems Russia an "existential risk" to the country and Europe, according to a Spiegel news magazine report that cites a new Bundeswehr strategy paper.

The confidential document warns that the Kremlin is aligning both its industrial and leadership structures "specifically to meet the requirements for a large-scale conflict against NATO by the end of this decade."

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Russia is verifiably preparing for a conflict with NATO, particularly by strengthening forces in western Russia "at the borders with NATO," the report cites the strategy paper as saying.

As early as next year, Russia could have around 1.5 million soldiers on active duty, according to the paper.

Germany can only counter this threat "with a consistent development of military and society-wide capabilities," the document concludes.

Military personnel and experts developed the strategy paper over the past 18 months to serve as a guideline for the future direction of Germany's Bundeswehr, the Spiegel report said.

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Some universities accepted money from companies and institutions with ties to the People’s Liberation Army in China, including those which are sanctioned by other countries.

Other universities took funding from institutions and tech firms accused of helping the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spy on and target users, spread misinformation and abuse human rights.

The director-general of MI5 last year warned vice-chancellors that China and other states the UK Government views as adversaries are attempting to steal technology from universities that can “deliver their authoritarian, military and commercial priorities”.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China said The Ferret’s research suggests that funding from CCP-linked organisations in Scottish higher education is particularly prevalent. This, it claimed “should be a matter of deep concern for ministers and the wider Scottish public”.

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Ten universities collectively received at least £39.7m of funding. Of that, £5.5m came from organisations allegedly linked to the military, human rights abuses or spying, or was used to fund controversial Confucius Institutes. These are CCP-funded educational and cultural programs on UK campuses which have been accused of monitoring and censoring UK students, and pushing propaganda.

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Some universities accepted money from Chinese organisations with military ties.

Strathclyde university received £130,000 in research funding from Wuxi Paike New Materials Technology, which makes metal forgings for the Chinese military.

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Strathclyde also accepted £22,100 for “research studentship/knowledge exchange” from the Chinese Academy of Sciences on an undisclosed date. The academy is designated “medium risk” by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), due to its alleged weapons research. ASPI is a defence think tank founded by the Australian Government.

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In 2020, a drone submarine developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences was found by an Indonesian fisherman in the South China Sea and thought to be on a possible covert mission by military observers.

The following year, in October 2021, Robert Gordon University (RGU) was given £46,820 by the academy to research spectral imaging – a method of capturing highly detailed images.

An RGU spokesperson said the research collaboration was transferred to the university in 2021 after it appointed a professor from Strathclyde who was working on the project. The collaboration ended in 2023.

In April this year, The Times reported that RGU, Aberdeen and Strathclyde universities were among 23 UK institutions to have signed an agreement with Chinese institutions with alleged military links, despite warnings from MI5.

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Some universities accepted money from tech firms, including those accused of helping the CCP to spy on users, and spread misinformation.

Heriot-Watt University received between £150,000 and £200,000 from tech firm Huawei to research wireless communications hardware between November 2020 and November 2021.

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In 2022/23, Edinburgh university accepted £127,973 from tech firm, Tencent, to fund a research project called “serving big machine learning models”. Allegations of mass surveillance and human rights abuses by Tencent were reported years earlier.

CCP committees within Tencent ensure that the state’s “political goals are pursued”, according to a 2020 study from ASPI.

A 2022 report from Human Rights Watch claimed that via its messaging app, WeChat, Tencent “censors and surveils” users on the CCP’s behalf and “hands over user data to authorities when ‘sensitive’ information is discovered”.

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A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Universities are autonomous institutions and are expected to understand and manage the reputational, ethical and security risks associated with international partnerships.

“This includes conducting appropriate due diligence before entering into new partnerships, and monitoring existing partnerships to ensure they comply with relevant legal requirements”.

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To comply with a Trump executive order, Microsoft recently helped suspend the email account of an International Criminal Court prosecutor in the Netherlands who was investigating Israel for war crimes.

https://archive.is/2025.06.21-110858/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/technology/us-tech-europe-microsoft-trump-icc.html

Archived version of phys.org article (archive.org)

I haven't heard anything about him lately and wonder if he's still protesting?

Apparently "Wednesday [was] always the worst day of the week because we knew what we were going to be subjected to." according to a tory staffer.

It's he still there? How are the protests going?

Well written article.

https://archive.is/a2U6t

ArcelorMittal said it would turn down €1.3bn in public subsidies aimed at supporting it in adapting facilities in Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt to use hydrogen rather than coal in its steel furnaces.

It has also warned that it could shut its flagship green ethanol plant in Belgium because of restrictive EU regulation defining biofuels and emissions reductions that means that it would have to sell its output at a loss.

France will participate in a capital increase by satellite operator Eutelsat to the tune of €717 million (US$826 million) to help the company finance the expansion of its constellation of low-orbit communication satellites and create a sovereign European alternative to Starlink.

The European Union should immediately suspend its trade agreement with Israel as long as Israel’s atrocity crimes persist, Human Rights Watch and over 110 organizations and trade unions said in a joint statement on June 19, 2025. This would be the first measure taken by the EU in the last two years to ensure some accountability for Israeli authorities’ egregious abuses of Palestinians.

EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the EU-Israel Association Agreement on June 23, when they will receive an assessment of Israel’s compliance with article 2 of the agreement, which qualifies “respect for human rights and democratic principles” in “internal and international policy” as an “essential element” of the agreement. The review was initiated on May 20, when 17 out of 27 EU foreign ministers supported a proposal by the Dutch government. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and suspending the trade pillar of the agreement would reinstate tariffs on bilateral trade.

I wanted to spotlight a quietly massive success story in European digital sovereignty: GendBuntu - France’s custom Ubuntu distribution used by the National Gendarmerie.

The GendBuntu project derives from Microsoft's decision to end the development of Windows XP Back in 2005, France’s Gendarmerie began switching from Microsoft products to open-source software - starting with OpenOffice. Fast forward to 2024, and GendBuntu(Linux) is now running on 97% of their workstations (over 103,000 computers!).

France has shown what’s possible when a government actually backs open-source, in-house, and EU-grown solutions.
More countries should follow suit.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37084496

Archived

Thousands of North Koreans are entering Russia, posing as students on “practical training” but instead coming to labor under slave-like conditions [...] The practice directly violates UN sanctions — sanctions that Russia itself has agreed to. The workers toil six days a week, sometimes for up to 20 hours a day, while their wages are divided between the North Korean regime and Russian companies. Among those profiting from the forced labor system is an organization linked to Artem Chaika, the son of Russia’s former prosecutor general.

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Pyongyang uses its labor force as a vital source of hard currency. In 2015, Marzuki Darusman, the former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, reported that foreign employers paid the regime in Pyongyang “significantly higher amounts” than the workers themselves were told they were earning, allowing the government to collect an estimated $1.2 to $2.3 billion annually.

Meanwhile, the workers themselves often received little or nothing in exchange for working grueling shifts of up to 20 hours a day — all while living in conditions of constant surveillance and with insufficient food. In one of his messages, Tkachuk noted that each group of North Korean workers must include a designated “senior” supervisor — a minder tasked with overseeing and controlling the group on behalf of the regime.

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According to Cedric Ryngaert, Head of the Department of International Law at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, given the findings of The Insider’s investigation are correct, Russia is likely to violate UN Security Council resolutions 2375 and 2397, both adopted in 2017. These resolutions, among other conditions, require member states to stop issuing work permits to North Korean labourers and repatriate all of them to their home country within 2 years.

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