EU defense agency says Europe is rearming too slowly to be ready to defend against Russia by 2030

The EU is not rearming quickly or effectively enough to be ready to defend itself against Russia by 2030, according to a summary of a report prepared by the European Defense Agency for the bloc’s leaders and seen by Reuters.

EU leaders commissioned the report last year to assess progress in strengthening Europe’s defenses. Amid concerns about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s calls for Europe to take on more responsibility for its own security, they set a goal of making Europe ready to defend itself by 2030.

But European countries’ current plans “do not seem to meet” the goal of closing gaps in areas including air and missile defense, ground combat, naval forces, ammunition stockpiles, and drones, the European Defense Agency says.

“Tackling the challenges of a contested and deteriorating security environment and the threat posed by Russia’s aggression requires moving further and substantially faster than now to reach defense readiness by 2030,” the report says.

The summary cites progress in EU defense spending, capability development, and industrial readiness. Even so, “the current momentum and increased investment do not yet translate into sufficiently deployable, sustainable and interoperable forces,” it says, and “critical capability gaps remain.” “What has been achieved so far, although unprecedented, is not yet enough,” the report’s authors say.

EU defense ministers are expected to discuss the European Defense Agency’s report in Brussels on Monday, September 28, before it goes to the bloc’s leaders for consideration.

Ukraine

Russia has stepped up strikes on Ukrainian data centers and telecommunications facilities, the Financial Times reports. The strikes have disrupted internet service in Kyiv and raised concerns among Ukrainian officials that Moscow is trying to undermine Ukraine’s digital economy.

In recent days, Russian forces have struck infrastructure belonging to the internet providers Pavutyna, Etherlink, Crazy Network, and Utels, as well as the hosting companies Cityhost and MiroHost. Data centers in Kyiv have also come under attack. One was in a complex that housed Volodymyr Zelensky’s campaign headquarters in 2019.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces struck the “Kyivstar” and “Parkovyi” telecommunications centers overnight on September 24, claiming they provide “communications services and computing capacity for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

According to Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Ministry, strikes on September 23 and 24 temporarily left about 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region without internet access.

Ukraine’s national communications commission warned of “temporary disruptions to networks and access to telecommunications services.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the strikes had also disrupted attack alerts sent to mobile phones.

Ukrainian officials and company executives warn that Russia may be trying to cause wider outages that could threaten the digital infrastructure used by banks, online payment providers, businesses, government services, and the military.

The Financial Times notes that, unlike strikes on individual communications networks, an attack on a data center can affect large numbers of users at once if a single facility is damaged.

The war in photos: Russia’s latest strike on Kyiv