FlashFeed

Full text

NORTH KARELIA, Finland — Bears, wolves and moose still cross the frontier freely, but for the border guards patrolling this stretch of fields and forest, this is where NATO ends.

A line of wooden poles and painted markers cuts through the light green grass, separating Finland from Russia along the alliance’s longest border with Moscow — 1,343 kilometers (835 miles) of increasingly militarized territory. The crossing has been closed since 2023, the year after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the other side lies land Finland lost to the Soviet Union when it was left to fight largely on its own in the early months of World War II.

Reporters from Axel Springer’s Global Reporters Network traveled to three exposed stretches of Europe’s eastern frontier — Finland’s forested border with Russia, Poland’s fortified line with Kaliningrad and Belarus and Lithuania’s vulnerable edge near the Suwałki Gap — to see how ready NATO’s frontline states are for the possibility that Moscow will attack the alliance.

What we observed was a continent racing to harden its eastern edge against a threat it can no longer assume Washington will handle. As U.S. President Donald Trump questions old security guarantees and looks to reduce America’s military footprint in Europe, the countries closest to Russia are building fortifications, expanding reserves, buying tanks and drones and preparing for the possibility that the first days of any conflict may be theirs to fight largely alone.

Since his reelection in 2024, Trump has repeatedly called into question Washington’s commitment to NATO’s Article 5, the foundational clause under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. The uncertainty only deepened after the war in Iran, when the president and his team threatened to reassess U.S. membership in NATO in response to European allies’ refusal to join the conflict.

Meanwhile, satellite imagery shows that Russia has built up its armed presence along its border with Finland and other EU countries, building barracks and staging military vehicles in what the head of Swedish military intelligence has described as preparation for a possible confrontation with NATO.

“Russia is a superpower, and we’re a small country,” said Col. Matti Pitkäniitty, commander of Finland’s North Karelia Border Guard District, while driving to the border. “You have to be careful when you sleep next to a bear.”

Finland never forgot the lessons of what it calls its Winter War, when it halted an unprovoked attack in 1939 by the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin but lost roughly a tenth of its territory. While much of the rest of Europe spent the decades after the Cold War cutting armies and cashing in the peace dividend, Helsinki kept conscription, maintained vast reserves and built its defenses around the assumption that Russia might one day come back.

“In the Winter War, Finland felt very alone, with very little help from other countries,” said Pitkäniitty.

A dozen Finnish defense officials, military officers, lawmakers and analysts interviewed for this article described their nation as unsurprised by Russia’s 2022 assault on Ukraine. And even after Finland joined NATO in 2023, Helsinki has continued to view the alliance as a reinforcement of its own defense, rather than a substitute for it.

“We’re happy to be in an alliance, but we still understand that we will take the first blow alone, before NATO’s Article 5 is activated,” said Jukka Kopra, a Finnish lawmaker who chaired the parliament’s defense committee, referring to the mutual defense clause that underpins the alliance.

“We trust the U.S. as our ally, a member of NATO, but we realize they have crucial interests elsewhere,” Kopra said.

FINLAND

Total Defense

A British paratrooper, right, lays prone with a Finnish soldier and Italian forces as NATO troops take part in Exercise Northern Star in southeastern Finland near the border with Russia, on May 27, 2026. | Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images

Over decades, Finland built its preparedness around the concept of “total defense” — a mobilizable population, civil resilience, shelters and a military designed to keep fighting with or without allies. The country can mobilize nearly 870,000 reservists out of a population of 5.6 million, a figure set to reach one million by 2031.

“It’s fair to say Finland is more ready to fight alone than other frontline countries. The U.S. wind-down doesn’t impact its readiness,” said Eoin Micheál McNamara, a postdoctoral fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Finland spends nearly 3 percent of its GDP on defense and, in line with its commitments to NATO, it intends to raise that figure to 5 percent by 2035. Its air force expects to receive U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets in the coming months. Like most European militaries, the Finnish armed forces are still catching up on drone warfare, but on land they have one of Europe’s largest artillery arsenals.

“Stalin called artillery the god of war,” said McNamara. “Unlike a lot of Western countries, Russia never forgot about artillery. Finns never forgot either.”

One of Finland’s greatest military assets is the land itself. An army invading from the east would have to move through a country of few roads, dense forests, deep snow and freezing temperatures, with little light in winter and almost none of the darkness that conceals movement in summer. In the woods, long, slender gray-white trunks stand so close together that it is impossible to see more than 50 meters ahead. In spring, when the leaves turn bright green, visibility drops even further.

Even without the U.S., it’s unlikely Finland would have to fight entirely on its own. Several European countries have an interest in keeping Russia off NATO’s northern flank, according to Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Helsinki-based Nordic West Office think tank, referring specifically to Norway, Sweden and the U.K.

Still, Finland would face a Russian army with more manpower and a willingness to use sheer numbers in ways the alliance cannot easily match. “Since the Winter War, the very basics haven’t changed,” said Pitkäniitty, the border guard commander. “We have to be able to use the terrain, operate the environment better than anyone else — then, we have leverage,” he added. “Is the forest a typical Russian battle environment? I would say no. Their lessons are learned in more open environments.”

Finland is now trying to teach its NATO allies how to fight on that ground. In May, two multinational exercises in southeastern Finland — Northern Star 26 and Karelian Sword 26 — were designed in part to show troops from countries including France and the United Kingdom how to operate in Northern Europe’s forests, lakes and swamps. U.S. soldiers from the Virginia National Guard also took part.

Karelian Sword — conducted in Finland’s Vekaranjärvi region — involved some 10,000 soldiers in a simulated invasion of the country. One main takeaway from days of drilling in the woods was that armored vehicles and drones are ill-adapted for Finland’s forests. “It’s also very hard for commercial drones to find Finnish troops in the forest because of the leaves, unless you have a thermal camera,” according to Col. Ari Määttä, the Karelian brigade’s deputy commander who commanded the exercise.

The Nordic country is also preparing to add another obstacle. Alongside Poland and the three Baltic states, Helsinki withdrew last year from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, arguing that Russia never joined the treaty and is already using the weapons in Ukraine.

Several Finnish military officers confirmed to the Global Reporters Network that the country’s defense forces plan to purchase anti-personnel landmines in the coming months. The mines would not be deployed in peacetime, they said, but would be available if the threat of a Russian invasion became more imminent.

“We have quite a long border with Russia,” said First Lt. Terra Tevajärvi, a 33-year-old reservist and trained mechanized infantry officer who works as a filmmaker. Standing in a clearing, with the sounds of gunshots in the distance, he added: “Landmines would help slow [an attacker] down and make our lives easier.”

‘Nuclear IQ’

There is one domain where geography, conscription and military readiness offer little protection: nuclear weapons. While Finland has practiced for a conventional defense for decades, it is only since it joined NATO three years ago that it has had to incorporate nuclear deterrence into its calculations.

Since joining the alliance, Helsinki has participated in its Nuclear Planning Group, taken part in nuclear exercises and begun rewriting laws that still reflected its long history outside the alliance. In June, Finnish lawmakers lifted restrictions on the transport and storage of nuclear weapons on Finnish territory, a legacy of its non-nuclear posture before NATO membership.

Changing that framework had proven more contentious than the discussion about joining NATO itself. Opposition parties resisted lifting the restrictions, while officials and analysts argued that Finland could not be a full participant in NATO defense planning without understanding how nuclear deterrence works. “Readiness in that regard is being learned,” said McNamara. “You hear the phrase: ‘Finland needs to upgrade its nuclear IQ as a society.’”

Finland’s nuclear debate highlighted an uncomfortable truth. While the country is better positioned than most frontline countries to defend its territory without American ground forces, it’s no more able than the rest of Europe to replace Washington’s nuclear umbrella.

While the U.S. has not publicly questioned that guarantee, the Trump administration’s unpredictability has pushed Helsinki and other European capitals to examine whether Europe can build a stronger deterrent of its own.

After meeting with France’s top general in the Finnish capital in June, the country’s Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen acknowledged talks with Paris about French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to broaden his country’s nuclear deterrent to include other European countries . The French president, who officially proposed the idea in March, has left what he means by it purposefully ambiguous. Paris has floated joint exercises and temporary deployments of nuclear-capable French fighter jets, but not a formal European nuclear guarantee. For Finland, it is still unclear what participation in the scheme would mean.

In the meantime, Helsinki is hoping that hosting troops from two nuclear-armed allies — France and the U.K. — will add another layer of deterrence, even if the force itself is conventional. Paris and London have expressed interest in participating in a NATO battalion that will be based in Sweden but operate in northern Finland. Designed to strengthen the alliance’s presence in the high north, the force will be led by Stockholm, another formerly neutral government that joined the military alliance after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We’ll be on high alert, with high readiness to act,” said Col. Daniel Rydberg, who leads Sweden’s NATO mission in northern Finland. Along with Finnish border guards, NATO troops would be among the first responders if Russia decided to test Finland, he said in a phone interview the day before the force’s inauguration in June. “The message to Russia is deterrence,” he said.

Just what that would mean in the case of an attack by the Kremlin will depend on people like Nuutti Kurikka, a 20-year-old conscript whose great-grandfather fought in the Winter War.

Deep in the Finnish forest, Kurikka, a platoon leader, stood in front of a tank. The lesson of that war, he said, is “a mentality that we can overcome very hard things.”

Unlike officials in many European capitals, he is not anxious about the Trump administration’s ambiguity regarding NATO. “It’s not good that the relationship is a bit shaky, but Finland is prepared to defend itself alone if needed,” he said. “We did it before in the past.”

POLAND

In November 2024, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited the small village of Dąbrówka, near his country’s border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, to inspect the first stretch of a new fortification system known as the Eastern Shield. Standing before reinforced concrete anti-tank barriers known as hedgehogs, Tusk delivered a message aimed at both Poles and Moscow. “I don’t have to explain to anyone that this border must be guarded exceptionally carefully,” he told reporters.

At the time, Polish television reported that the first section had been completed ahead of schedule. And yet, a year and a half later, with the project roughly halfway to its 2028 deadline, the hedgehogs still stand behind Dąbrówka — but only a few hundred meters farther on, the visible fortifications end abruptly. A local resident said the activity around the border surged before Tusk’s visit, then disappeared. “Before the prime minister’s visit, dozens of trucks, cranes and troops passed through here day after day, week after week,” the resident said. “After the visit, complete silence. The operations simply stopped.”

If Finland’s answer to uncertainty is national readiness, Poland’s is concrete barriers, sensors, drones and one of Europe’s fastest-growing armies. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Warsaw has recast itself as NATO’s frontline state: buying weapons at a pace few allies can match, expanding its army, and pouring billions into new defenses along its borders with Belarus and Kaliningrad.

The message is meant to be unmistakable — to Moscow, to Washington and to Europe — that Poland is preparing not for a distant theoretical threat, but for the possibility that war could come sooner than many Western capitals assume. Yet along parts of the very frontier where that deterrent is supposed to take shape, the gap between Poland’s military ambition and the physical reality on the ground remains visible: fortifications appear, then stop; materials sit in warehouses; and local residents say the building frenzy has given way to quiet.

Poland is the largest country on NATO’s eastern flank and the alliance’s biggest defense spender by share of GDP. Warsaw had already exceeded NATO’s 2 percent target before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine; this year, it is set to spend 4.8 percent of GDP on defense even as its economy continues to grow.

At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Poland sent more than 300 tanks from its own stocks to Ukraine, then moved to replace and expand its arsenal with off-the-shelf tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, support vehicles and rocket artillery from the United States and South Korea. Its army is NATO’s third largest, behind the U.S. and Turkey.

The sheer mass of the Polish military, combined with Warsaw’s role as one of the world’s largest buyers of U.S. weapons, has earned Warsaw a reputation in Washington as a model ally. Even U.S. President Donald Trump, while berating other European countries over defense, has regularly praised Poland. The U.S. keeps thousands of troops in Poland, the vast majority on a rotational basis, an arrangement the Polish government is keen to keep as a deterrent to any Russian attack.

The country’s importance to NATO is not just a matter of spending; its size and location make it the alliance’s central frontline state in any potential confrontation with the Kremlin. During the Cold War, West Germany was NATO’s conventional bulwark against the Warsaw Pact. Today, Poland plays a similar role on NATO’s eastern edge.

“While Germany has long focused on quality, Poland stands for mass and speed,” said Carlo Masala, a professor at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Munich and one of Germany’s most renowned security experts. “Because Warsaw does not rule out having to fight tomorrow. It is what is called ‘fight tonight.’”

Tusk’s Eastern Shield project is Warsaw’s attempt to reinforce its defenses along its 800-kilometer (500-mile) frontier with Belarus, a close ally of Moscow’s, and Kaliningrad, the heavily militarized Russian territory wedged between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea. Designed as a network of obstacles meant to slow an attack, channel Russian forces and buy time for NATO to respond, the system includes anti-tank and infantry trenches, concrete barriers, bunkers, drones, thermal cameras, mines and nearby military units, while also using natural obstacles such as swampy terrain. When completed, it is expected to cost about €10 billion ($11 billion) according to Poland’s defense ministry.

Poland’s military buildup is part of a large-scale, multi-billion-dollar new deterrence and defense system along NATO’s eastern border. Known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, it is planned to stretch from Finland to Romania. Brig. Gen. Thomas Lowin, deputy chief of staff for operations at NATO Land Command in Izmir, says the alliance will build up much larger stockpiles of weapons, ammunition and equipment in border states, while establishing an “automated zone” of sensors and robotized weapons to help halt Russian forces early in any attack.

Cezary Tomczyk, Poland’s deputy defense minister and the official overseeing the project, called his country’s part of the effort the largest fortification effort in Europe since World War II. “We are building a border that sees further, reacts faster and makes it harder for the enemy to act at every stage,” he said. “Russia must know one thing: Every kilometer of potential aggression will cost more time, more equipment and more resources. The Eastern Shield is intended to raise the price of aggression to an unacceptable level.”

‘NATO’s Achilles’ Heel’

So far, however, along parts of the border, the Eastern Shield is still more promise than reality. Polish officials are reluctant to discuss delays, and not every element of the system is meant to be visible. But large sections of the border are not visibly fortified. A military facility near Dąbrówka warehouses large numbers of hedgehog anti-tank barriers, but since Tusk’s visit to the village, none have been placed along the border.

Poland’s defense ministry told the Global Reporters Network that engineering troops, using pre-positioned material from warehouses, would be able to erect fortifications along the entire border within seven to 14 days. But a logistics expert who has held senior military positions said some elements cannot be moved into place so quickly.

“Laying one kilometer of reinforced concrete hedgehogs takes anywhere from several weeks to several months, depending on terrain conditions,” said the logistics expert, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive defense matters. “It took the army three weeks to fortify a relatively short section.”

A short distance from Dąbrówka, an agritourism farm named “At the End of the World” welcomes visitors looking for a rural retreat. At the Russian border, less than 100 meters away, the only obvious protection is a simple concertina-wire fence and a scattering of warning signs.

The owner, Wioletta Bornejko, does not want the new fortifications to reach her meadow. “I hope they don’t put up those concrete hedgehogs here,” she said. “Even barbed wire scares away tourists. A neighbor recently closed down a similar business.” Others in the area say the constant talk of war has already hurt local businesses.

The quiet is deceptive. Travel east from Dąbrówka and you’ll reach the so-called Suwałki Gap. Ben Hodges, a retired general who served as the commander of U.S. Army Europe, has described this short stretch of Polish and Lithuanian territory separating Kaliningrad from Belarus as NATO’s Achilles’ heel. The fear is that a Russian attack could try to close the corridor from both sides, cutting Poland and the rest of NATO from the Baltic states to the north.

Farther east, Poland’s border with Belarus stretches some 420 kilometers (260 miles). There, the limits of the current defenses are even more evident. “I don’t see any other fortifications here,” said one soldier from a brigade serving on the border.

Much of the border is protected only by a 4-meter-high (13-foot-high) fence built in 2022. Erected to stop migrants from crossing into Poland, it would offer little protection against tanks. Poland’s defense ministry told the Global Reporters Network that it currently “has material resources that allow it to secure border sections with a total length of over 140 kilometres” — less than a third of the length of the frontier.

‘Drone Wall’

Tanks and other traditional forces aren’t the only thing Poland would have to worry about in case of a Russian attack. Anti-tank measures are of limited use when the weapons of choice fly far overhead and are cheap enough to exhaust conventional air defenses. And so the country is busy developing an anti-drone system it calls SAN.

Its development gained urgency after 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace last year, forcing NATO aircraft to shoot them down with missiles from F-16 and F-35 jets — a response that cost millions of euros against drones worth a fraction of that. SAN is meant to allow Poland to defend against drones without relying on fighter jets. The system, sometimes described as a “drone wall,” could cost up to €4 billion — accounting for about 40 percent of the entire Eastern Shield. “Russia is watching Ukraine,” said Tomczyk, Poland’s deputy defense minister. “So are we. We draw our conclusions faster.”

Tomczyk said SAN would be Europe’s largest and most advanced anti-drone effort. Within 24 months, he said, the Polish army is expected to receive 18 battery modules, including about 700 combat vehicles, radars, sensors and effectors, and roughly 350 systems to detect and counter aerial threats.

“It is not a single system,” he said. “It is an entire architecture for drone defense.” Construction of SAN began at the start of the year and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2027, after which it will be permanently deployed on Poland’s eastern border.

For Masala, the security expert, the drone wall and the Eastern Shield are part of the same strategy: to slow a Russian attack long enough for NATO to react. “It is clear that the USA is withdrawing from Europe and that the Europeans currently lack deep-strike capabilities,” he said. “So we have to ask ourselves which strategies make sense in the event of conflict.”

“One is to aim at delaying the Russians. This is possible with the installations that Poland is building,” he added. “The lesson from Ukraine is that not everything always has to be at 150 percent, but that 80 percent is sometimes enough.”

LITHUANIA

The Baltic Defense Line

Lithuanian Chief of Defense Raimundas Vaikšnoras points to Lithuania’s border with Belarus on a map in his office during an interview in February 2026. | David Körzdörfer/WELT

In the office of Raimundas Vaikšnoras, Lithuania’s chief of defense, a map of the country lies spread across a table. Marked on it are the positions of German and American troops near the Belarusian border — a reminder that, for Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors, national defense depends on allies being close enough to quickly join the fight.

Vaikšnoras, who has led Lithuania’s armed forces since 2024, does not think a Russian surprise attack is likely. NATO warning systems, he said, make large troop movements difficult to hide. Lithuania watches rail hubs, logistics sites and when Russia and Belarus hold military exercises across the border, its armed forces respond in kind. “We organize exercises with equally strong or even stronger forces,” Vaikšnoras said. “We mirror the movements of the other side.”

But if Finland is preparing to fight alone if it has to and Poland is building an army capable of doing the same, the Baltic countries do not have that luxury. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are too small, too exposed and too close to Russia and Belarus to trade territory for time. Connected to the rest of NATO by the roughly 65-kilometer-wide (40-mile-wide) Suwałki Gap, they are vulnerable to being cut off by a lightning assault.

Their defense rests on a narrower calculation: Make sure that NATO comes to their rescue. That makes them the most vulnerable to the Trump administration’s unpredictability. And so the Baltic states have set out to bind their security as tightly as possible to the rest of the continent — through border fortifications, pre-positioned obstacles, allied troops on their soil and, above all, a German brigade meant to ensure that any Russian attack would immediately become a European war.

In any conflict in the region, the Kremlin would enjoy a clear advantage. Russian troops would be fighting virtually on their own doorstep, while NATO reinforcements would have to move across Europe — and in some cases across the Atlantic — before reaching the front. Kaliningrad compounds the problem. One of Europe’s most militarized areas, the Russian territory is packed with air-defense systems, missiles and surveillance technology. In wartime, Russian military units based there could threaten NATO supply routes in the Baltic Sea and along the Polish-Lithuanian border.

Lithuania’s vulnerability is on display near the village of Lavoriškės, where a red sign warns Lithuanian citizens not to travel across the frontier: “Do not risk your safety — do not travel to Belarus. You may fail to come back.” The government closed the crossing in early 2024 on national security grounds. The border is lined with dense coils of razor wire, and rows of triangular concrete blocks — known as dragon’s teeth — stand ready to stop enemy tanks.

The fortifications are part of the Baltic Defense Line, a joint defense project by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Along NATO’s eastern frontier, the three countries are preparing anti-tank ditches, bunkers, defensive obstacles and — more controversially — minefields. Like Finland, the Baltic countries have moved to leave the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits such weapons.

“These obstacles make it harder for an attacker to simply roll through,” said Ralph Thiele, a retired colonel and chairman of the Political-Military Society in Berlin. “They have to stop, bring in combat engineers and clear a path.”

If Russian forces break through, they would have “open terrain,” Thiele added.

‘Strong Allies’

Vaikšnoras, Lithuania’s chief of defense, does not pretend his country can defend itself alone. The border fortifications are intended to slow Russians down, channel enemy forces onto predictable axes of advance and buy time for a response.

The defense of the Baltics relies on how long they can hold out — and, crucially, how quickly NATO can reinforce them.

There are already about 3,000 soldiers from other NATO countries in Lithuania, he said in February, including German, Norwegian, Dutch and American troops. Since then, however, the rotational deployment of more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers has ended. Unlike previous rotations, no follow-on force has yet arrived, as Washington reviews its military posture in Europe.

This, again, underscores the role European allies are playing on NATO’s eastern flank. The most important addition is the German brigade, due to be permanently stationed in Lithuania by the end of 2027, when it is expected to consist of around 5,000 personnel.

For years, NATO’s presence in the Baltic states was largely based on so-called tripwire forces — that is, multinational units whose purpose was to ensure that any attack on the region would automatically draw the entire Alliance into the conflict. Today, NATO relies on forward defence. The aim is to defend every inch of Alliance territory from the outset. Still, the strategy continues to rely on reinforcements. It is unlikely that the troops stationed in Lithuania at present will be able to fight on their own indefinitely. How long they could hold out depends on how quickly additional NATO troops arrive, as well as on the scale and nature of a possible Russian attack.

The German presence is important because the old NATO assumption — that the U.S. would automatically lead any response to a Russian attack — is no longer one Europe can take for granted. “I very clearly feel that we have strong allies by our side,” Vaikšnoras said. “The fact that Germany has assumed a leadership role in NATO here is an important signal, including to our own population.”

What such a leadership role could mean in practice was revealed by the outcome of a wargame conducted late last year by WELT, part of Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, together with the German Wargaming Center at the Bundeswehr University in Hamburg. The exercise tested how Germany would respond if Russia used a post-Ukraine ceasefire to threaten Lithuania — and if Washington declined to play its traditional role as NATO’s leader.

For one day, former senior politicians, military officers, intelligence officials and security experts took on the roles of the German government, its allies and the Kremlin. The scenario began with Russian troops remaining in Belarus after an exercise instead of withdrawing as announced, then concentrating near Lithuania’s border.

The result was sobering. While Team Russia moved quickly toward a limited invasion, the German side held crisis meetings and focused on recruiting allies and building political support — rather than preventing Moscow from achieving its military objectives.

‘The Dissolution of NATO’

In the old NATO, German hesitation would have mattered less. The U.S. would have been expected to take command politically and militarily, moving troops, aircraft and ships while European governments aligned behind it. But as the U.S. reduces its role in Europe, the defense of the eastern flank increasingly depends on a question the alliance has not yet fully answered: Is Europe ready to fight on its own?

Hodges, the former U.S. Army Europe commander, has warned that, in a worst case — if NATO is caught by surprise and Polish troops are unable to provide support — the Baltic countries could have to fight for up to two weeks without additional reinforcements from more distant allies. That is the window of time in which their allies would have to react. German and Lithuanian officials reject the notion that such a scenario would come as a surprise. A Russian attack, they say, would be preceded by visible military preparations, allowing NATO reinforcements early on. Which indicators would trigger such a response is classified. According to that logic, however, reinforcement would require political leaders to act before an attack has actually started.

“What we are witnessing is the dissolution of NATO,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary-general, has argued . Europe must rethink its defense plans and build the capabilities to act without waiting for Washington. Europe needs “new defense plans and new military capabilities,” he said.

That calculation is already shaping defense planning across NATO’s eastern flank. Finland is making itself more difficult to invade. Poland is building up its military forces, fortifications and drone defense. And the Baltics are working to ensure they won’t be left to fight on their own. Europe may not yet be ready to defend itself alone. But on its eastern frontier, it is already preparing for the day when it may have to start.

In Finland, Col. Ari Määttä, the Karelian brigade’s deputy commander, was asked whether, with America’s disengagement, NATO needs to become more European. “That’s not a concern I have for my brigade,” he said. “I focus on military preparedness. Ask the politicians.”

The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.

Full text

For years now, vendors have been competing on benchmark scores, inference speed and model capabilities as businesses try to work out where AI can fit in with their daily workflows, but experimentation has evolved into actual deployment and what’s important is changing.

Accuracy and measurable business outcome is now more important than ever, with questions around return on investment, accountability and governance being raised across all sectors.

This is especially important in ecommerce, for example, where AI-generated imagery must be totally accurate. Marketers no longer have any qualms over using AI to produce ad variants and subtle market tweaks, but the quality of the output needs to be consistently high to ensure that the product is being accurately reflected.

Even the smallest changes in color, texture or dimensions can have major reputational risks, like a drop in customer trust or a rise in product returns. We already know that poorly executed AI strategies reduce customer trust, and that a lack of branding consistency also undermines the perception of a brand.

AI usage patterns are changing buying habits

But this challenge is also playing out as pricing models for AI subscriptions evolve. The boom started off with seat-based pricing and token consumption models, but we’re entering a new era where wasted AI is no longer being chargeable.

Zendesk, for example, recently announced that it would only be charging its customers when they realized verified outcomes, and Photoroom CEO Matt Rouif believes this pricing strategy could be a big hit for AI customers as customers shift from capability-led adoption to assurance-led adoption.

To explore how enterprise attitudes toward pricing and generative AI outputs are shifting, how organizations are measuring success, and why assurance and accountability are growing in importance, I spoke with Rouif.

How are enterprise buyers’ expectations of generative AI changing as adoption matures?

As generative AI moves from experimentation into production, enterprise buyers are becoming far more focused on control, accountability and measurable business outcomes.

The first phase of adoption was largely about proving that AI could generate a credible output, whereas the current phase is about whether those outputs can be trusted inside commercial workflows, where accuracy and reliability directly influence customer experience and business performance.

Increasingly, enterprise leaders are asking more about governance than model capacity, assessing how outputs are evaluated and where accountability sits when something goes wrong.

In e-commerce, this is significant because a product visual is a central part of the buying decision. If an AI-generated image changes a colour, or alters or removes a detail, the issue moves beyond creative quality and becomes one of product fidelity, with direct implications for consumer trust, returns and commercial performance.

Our marketplace research reflects that changing expectation, with 55% of consumers saying poorly executed AI-generated or heavily edited product images make them trust an online marketplace less, while 77% expect marketplaces themselves to ensure product listings are accurate and trustworthy.

The same thinking is increasingly shaping enterprise procurement, where organisations are moving beyond asking whether AI can generate an output and toward whether those outputs can meet agreed commercial standards at scale.

That broader shift is turning assurance into a procurement consideration, with enterprise buyers increasingly expecting AI vendors to define quality standards upfront and stand behind outputs once they are operating inside live commercial workflows.

What are organisations using to measure whether AI initiatives are delivering meaningful business value?

The way organisations measure AI is changing significantly, with early adoption often judged by visible output and perceived model capability, while today the discussion sits much closer to traditional business performance.

Leadership teams are now focused on whether AI can make production materially more efficient, less resource-intensive and more commercially useful. The question is no longer how much AI can produce, but how much of that output is genuinely usable inside a live enterprise workflow.

In e-commerce, that distinction becomes particularly important because production does not end when an image is generated. If teams still need extensive manual review, correction and quality assurance before an asset reaches a customer, the bottleneck has simply moved downstream rather than disappeared altogether.

Enterprise buyers are therefore placing much greater emphasis on output readiness than output volume, measuring whether AI-generated assets are accurate enough to be deployed with confidence rather than simply generated at scale.

Similarly, commercial standards are becoming a more meaningful measure of AI maturity than generation quality alone, reinforced by our March 2026 buyer analysis, which reflects 37% of enterprise buyers name inaccurate visuals as their top pain point in AI visual production.

The analysis reflects a clear organisational requirement for a distinct framework determining whether outputs are fit for purpose before they become customer-facing.

What challenges remain when deploying AI-generated content in commercial environments at scale?

The biggest challenge is that commercial deployment exposes the difference between generating content and governing it. A single AI-generated image can appear convincing in isolation, but enterprise commerce depends on thousands, and often millions, of assets being accurate enough to support purchasing decisions.

Scale magnifies small inconsistencies, and those inconsistencies quickly become operational and commercial risks rather than creative ones. As a result, enterprise organisations are increasingly investing in validation as much as generation.

Small changes to a product’s colour, shape or packaging may pass a superficial creative review while still misrepresenting the product itself.

Our marketplace research reflects the commercial importance of that challenge, with 63% of consumers saying variation in product imagery, branding or presentation makes a seller or marketplace appear unreliable, while 51% believe marketplace listings often look acceptable but still fail to give them complete confidence in what they are buying.

At catalogue scale, those numbers represent a significant volume of assets that look passable on review but carry real commercial risk once they reach customers.

The unresolved enterprise challenge is therefore not simply producing better AI outputs but building systems capable of catching and correcting failures before they become customer-facing.

How should businesses balance creative flexibility with consistency, accuracy and reliability in AI-generated outputs?

Businesses should think of product truth as the fixed foundation, with creative flexibility built around it rather than replacing it. AI is exceptionally good at adapting content for different channels, audiences and formats, but those creative decisions should never compromise the factual attributes of the product itself.

The practical way to operationalise that distinction is to define upfront which product attributes are locked - colour, dimensions, materials, key details, and which elements sit within the creative range.

That gives teams a clear framework for evaluating outputs rather than relying on subjective review at the point of approval.

Our research suggests consumers are already making that distinction themselves, with only 33% of UK consumers saying they are comfortable with AI-enhanced product images if clearly labelled, while 41% disagree.

That result matters because it shows transparency alone is not sufficient - the more important question is whether customers believe the image accurately represents what they will receive. For enterprise organisations, that means the governance framework has to be built around factual accuracy as the primary standard, with creative flexibility operating within those boundaries rather than alongside them.

Where do specialist AI tools add value compared with more general-purpose AI models for enterprise workflows?

General-purpose models have dramatically expanded what AI can create, but enterprise deployment depends on much more than generation capability alone.

Organisations increasingly need systems that understand the commercial context in which those outputs will be used and can support quality evaluation, workflow integration and consistency at scale.

The value therefore shifts from the model itself to the operating system built around it. A general-purpose model may produce an attractive product image, but enterprise teams also need confidence that the product remains accurate, consistent at catalogue scale and that failures can be identified before assets become customer-facing.

The long-term value of specialist AI therefore comes less from producing visually impressive outputs and more from solving repeatable commercial problems. In visual production, that means building systems capable of evaluating product fidelity, reducing manual review and creating structured validation processes that organisations can rely upon consistently at scale, rather than depending solely on subjective human approval.

What forms of accountability or assurance are enterprise customers increasingly looking for from AI vendors?

Enterprise buyers are increasingly looking for AI vendors that can operate within clearly defined commercial standards rather than simply offering more capable models. That means agreeing success criteria before deployment, evaluating outputs transparently and creating clear processes for handling exceptions when outputs fall short.

As AI becomes embedded within operational workflows, assurance is becoming every bit as important as capability. A failed AI output during experimentation is largely an inconvenience, whereas a failed output inside a live commercial environment can affect customer trust, listing performance and revenue.

Our marketplace research reinforces why this is becoming a board-level discussion, with 51% of consumers saying they would switch to a different marketplace entirely if another platform offered clearer, more accurate product images, while 62% believe marketplaces should actively help sellers improve listing quality.

That expectation increasingly extends beyond marketplaces to the technology providers supporting them, with buyers beginning to look for accountability mechanisms that resemble those expected from other enterprise software providers.

Looking ahead, what do you see as the next major shift in enterprise AI adoption over the next 12–24 months?

Over the next 12 to 24 months, I expect enterprise AI adoption to move decisively from capability-led adoption to assurance-led adoption.

Businesses will continue to care about model quality, speed and efficiency, but those attributes will become increasingly expected rather than differentiating.

The organisations creating the greatest value will be those capable of embedding AI into revenue-critical workflows with confidence, governance and measurable accountability.

In practical terms, that means much greater emphasis on evaluation, validation and operational trust. Enterprise buyers will increasingly ask how outputs are verified, how failures are handled, how responsibility is shared and how AI systems integrate into existing governance frameworks.

Commerce is likely to be one of the first industries where that transition becomes visible because consumers remain cautious about AI within the buying journey. Our research found that only 24% of consumers already use, or are happy to use, AI tools to help them shop online, while 59% remain uncomfortable doing so.

The next chapter of enterprise AI will therefore be defined less by what models can generate and more by whether organisations can deploy those outputs repeatedly, responsibly and with confidence.

Full text

quick facts

What it is: A collection of "red, white and blue" images to celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States.

Where it is: Between 11,000 light-years and 19 million light-years from Earth

When it was shared: June 30, 2026.

NASA has marked the 250th birthday of the U.S. with a striking new collection of cosmic images from its Chandra X-ray Observatory, presenting four deep-space objects in red, white and blue.

The image set combines X-ray data from Chandra — which has been orbiting Earth since 1999 — with observations from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes (JWST), as well as multiple ground-based observatories. Together, the images showcase some of the universe’s most dramatic environments, from the remains of an exploded star to a massive galaxy cluster shaped by dark matter — each rendered in patriotic colors.

Arguably the image most reminiscent of Fourth of July fireworks is that of Cassiopeia A , a famous supernova remnant about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia (top left). Chandra’s X-ray data, shown in blue and purple, reveal the blast wave from a massive stellar explosion and trace elements such as iron, calcium and oxygen. Meanwhile, infrared data from JWST has been overlaid in red and white, highlighting the expanding shell of debris and cosmic dust. It’s all the result of a massive star that exploded about 340 years ago, according to NASA .

On the top-right is NGC 3603, a giant nebula 20,000 light-years away in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way . Here it appears as a glowing field of highly active, newly formed stars. Chandra’s X-ray observations reveal the light coming from the nebula, while Hubble data in optical, infrared and ultraviolet light show its glittering array of stars, as well as dust and gas. NGC 3603 is the largest nebula seen in visible light in our galaxy.

NGC 4736, also known as M94, is something else entirely. Pictured bottom-right, it’s a spiral galaxy about 19 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. Its famed for the faint arms outside of its oval-shaped core region — known as a "starburst ring," where new stars are forming. It’s shown here with Chandra’s X-ray data layered with visible-light imagery captured by ground-based astrophotographers.

The final image features ZwCl 0024+1652 (bottom-left), a distant galaxy cluster where Hubble data has helped astronomers infer the presence of dark matter . About five billion light-years away in the constellation Pisces, Chandra’s X-rays reveal a vast reservoir of superheated gas in ZwCl 0024+1652 — shown in red — that contains more mass than the cluster’s galaxies combined.

The release of the new photos also includes novel sonifications for NGC 3603, NGC 4736 and ZwCl 0024+1652, transforming astronomical data into sound. The project allows audiences to experience space through both sight and hearing.

See more space photos of the week:

'Human minds should not go through this'

The Artemis II crew recalls the unreal moment when Earth disappeared

Hidden structure in 1st Vera Rubin image

First-light images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory reveal a 163,000-light-year stream of stars emanating from a nearby galaxy.

JWST peeps the 'Eye of God'

A spectacular James Webb telescope image reveals intricate structures inside the Helix Nebula.

Full text

VIENNA — The top brass of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe huddled in the Austrian capital this weekend to celebrate ALDE’s 50th anniversary — and debate how to face the far-right surge.

The gathering in Vienna served as an opportunity for national parties — including Austria’s NEOS, the Netherlands’ D66, Belgium’s Reformist Movement, Romania’s USR and Germany’s FDP — to schmooze and scheme in the grand ballrooms of the Habsburg’s Hofburg Imperial Palace while debating current topics like social media restrictions, EU institutional reform, and the single market’s competitiveness.

So who’s up in the liberals’ world, and who’s down? POLITICO reads the runes.

WINNERS

— Valérie Hayer

Renew Europe leader Valérie Hayer was one of the biggest winners of the congress, quietly launching her campaign for reelection this autumn — despite not even belonging to ALDE.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance has always refused to join the European liberal party, yet it has led the European Parliament’s liberal group for years. Every leadership race revives the same question inside ALDE: Should the French lose the job? This year was no different. But despite the grumbling, few expect change.

“She is doing a good job, there’s no appetite for change, and there’s also no real challenger,” said one MEP granted anonymity to speak freely.

The only name mentioned was Sophie Wilmès, Belgium’s former prime minister and current European Parliament vice president. But neither she nor her party leader, Georges-Louis Bouchez, attended the congress.

— Rob Jetten’s ego

Rob Jetten may not have made it to the congress because of political turmoil back home, but he was still its biggest talking point. Still riding high off D66’s sweeping election victory in October, the Dutch prime minister embodied the optimism Europe’s liberals had been searching for after years of electoral setbacks — earning him ALDE’s Liberal of the Year award.

His campaign against the far right, built around positive messaging and broad promises of a better future, became the dominant theme in Vienna. “We’re liberals because we believe change is possible,” Jetten said in a video message. “Authoritarians can sell fear, populists can sell anger, but we liberals, we can offer progress … the kind that makes people’s lives safer, freer and more prosperous.”

Jetten’s victory also strengthened the socially liberal camp, which sees liberalism as about more than free markets, placing equal emphasis on civil rights, climate action and progressive social policies. D66, the U.K. Liberal Democrats and Progressive Slovakia all won vice presidencies, while Belgium’s liberals, backed by the party’s more classic market-oriented wing, lost out. MEP Svenja Hahn was reelected ALDE president, but none of the adopted resolutions reflected the German FDP-led camp’s push for sweeping deregulation.

— The party’s donors

Amid dozens of side events at the congress, only a few were held behind closed doors and by invitation only, including two “stakeholder roundtables” bringing together senior party officials and liberal MEPs with executives from companies that also happen to be ALDE’s biggest corporate donors.

One session on Friday — “strengthening Europe’s pharmaceutical attractiveness” — included top executives of the EU-wide pharma association (EFPIA), Eli Lilly, Amgen and Bristol Myers Squibb, according to a guest list seen by POLITICO. A second session the following day — “made in Europe” — featured executives from the same three companies, joined by Vodafone.

So far in 2026, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb and Amgen have each donated €18,000 to ALDE.

“Our relationships with corporate stakeholders are governed by fully transparent agreements and comply with the EU rules applicable to all European political parties,” said Elena Linczenyiova, ALDE’s head of communications. “Dialogue between policymakers and stakeholders is a normal and legitimate part of the democratic process.”

LOSERS

— Kristen Michal and social media

Estonia’s Prime Minister Kristen Michal was left with egg on his face after a majority of delegates backed a resolution calling for a minimum age for access to social media.

The vote exposed one of the deepest divides within Europe’s liberal family, with 59 percent of delegates supporting the proposal and 38 percent opposing it. The issue dominated closed-door discussions throughout the congress.

The split was on full display during a joint press conference with Michal and Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, who also leads NEOS.

“People need the skills to cope and also the most important is to retain the critical thinking,” said Michal, whose Reform Party opposes a ban and instead focuses on educating minors.

Meinl-Reisinger’s party disagrees, and Austria’s government is preparing to introduce a ban while seeking to protect users’ privacy. “We have to make sure that this doesn’t lead to the end of anonymity in social media,” she said.

— The Lib Dems

Every ALDE congress is another reminder for the staunchly pro-EU U.K. Liberal Democrats that, after Brexit, they are no longer fully part of the club. “For them, every congress is a therapy session,” quipped one participant from an EU party.

This year’s congress delivered another blow. Delegates approved reforms cutting the voting rights of non-EU parties and barring them from ALDE’s top leadership, implementing a new EU law designed to curb the risk of foreign interference in European parties that influence Brussels politics and policy.

— Real debate

This was a feel-good congress, with largely consensual resolutions on issues the party has long agreed on: backing Ukraine, defending the rule of law, reforming the EU, and boosting competitiveness and European technological sovereignty. Speeches were heavy on vague rhetoric — “reform,” “renewal” and “the future” — but light on hard debates, leaving some delegates frustrated as Europe’s far right continues to surge, topping the polls in countries including Germany, Austria, Romania and the Netherlands.

“We need more tactical strategy planning, to talk about what we disagree on, what works and what doesn’t with voters — I already know the broad slogans,” said a senior attendee from a national party.