BRUSSELS — The European Union is under pressure to keep Ukrainian troops fully online after Elon Musk’s Starlink was restricted amid volatile U.S. support for Kyiv.
“It was a very dangerous and unpleasant surprise,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters after EU leaders met in Brussels, referring to Starlink speed limitations experienced by military troops in recent days. “We were using Starlink to intercept jet-powered Shaheds [combat drones] that are attacking our civilian infrastructure and killing our families … When the speed limits were lowered, we became incapable of shooting [them] down.”
Ukraine has long relied critically on Musk’s satellite constellation for wartime efforts. Reuters reported Friday that the order to slow Ukraine’s military-grade Starshield service came from the White House, days after Washington pressed Kyiv to halt strikes on Russian refineries, amid soaring energy prices and ahead of November’s midterm elections.
“It is unacceptable for Ukraine’s defense — and therefore Europe’s security — to depend on the goodwill of a single American billionaire or on Donald Trump’s decisions,” French centrist Member of the European Parliament Christophe Grudler told POLITICO.
Ahead of Thursday’s high-level meeting, European lawmakers had been calling on the EU executive to fast-track Kyiv’s access to satellite capabilities already pooled under the bloc’s Govsatcom program — which gives participating governments secure communications capabilities.
Negotiations between the EU executive and Ukraine over this access have been ongoing since March, with no breakthrough. Norway and Iceland secured such an agreement earlier this year.
“What I don’t understand is why the European Commission and the Member States have not done everything possible to quickly reach an agreement that would allow Ukraine to benefit from it,” added Christophe Grudler, who wrote to EU leaders.
He also called on them to speed up work on IRIS² — the EU’s in-house, planned satellite network and full-fledged match to Starlink, which is only expected to come online in 2030.
Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier confirmed in a statement that it is “currently in talks with Ukraine to fully associate” the country with the EU’s Govsatcom program. “The war in Ukraine shows that our security also depends on space. And the EU has been doing quite a lot. We are ready to support Ukraine where we can support Ukraine,” he added.
Calls to crack down on dependence on foreign providers and boost alternatives to Starlink also come at a time when legislators are negotiating a series of laws that could tame Musk’s ambitions in Europe.
“Ukraine’s dependence on Starlink highlights the vulnerability of European defence systems that rely on U.S. technology, Another reminder that Europe must reduce its dangerous technological dependencies — ASAP,” center-right Finnish lawmaker Aura Salla said on social media.
Policymakers across Europe have been joining forces to curb Starlink’s dominance in low-Earth orbit, where satellites fly close to Earth to deliver faster connections.
“As legislators, we must ensure that European operators are well positioned in the market and limit the dominance of foreign players,” German center-left lawmaker Matthias Ecke said. In Brussels, lawmakers, including Ecke, are backing European telcos gunning for prized satellite frequencies, currently licensed to U.S. operators until next year and eyed by Starlink.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was working bilaterally with EU countries to secure more capabilities, citing France. He also expressed hopes that Starlink restrictions could be lifted. “My partners told me there were signals from the White House that they would return these capabilities.”
SpaceX — Starlink’s parent company — didn’t respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
An Israeli surveillance technology firm has run a large-scale operation to infect mobile phones with spyware using online advertisements to hack the devices, researchers said on Thursday.
An investigation by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and cybersecurity firm Confiant Threat Intelligence laid bare an ad-based infection technique developed by an Israeli company that researchers named “AdFection.” The hacks weaponized legitimate online ad systems for espionage purposes, allowing spyware manufacturers to connect to millions of devices and identify, track and target victims.
“Plugging into the online ads ecosystem provides the mercenary spyware industry a stealthy delivery system,” said Bill Marczak, senior researcher at The Citizen Lab. He said the findings were “surely just the tip of the iceberg” of how online ads are abused for espionage.
Researchers discovered critical details of the hacking tools by analyzing devices belonging to journalists and staff at the Al Jazeera media network, finding that 45 devices of journalists and staff were targeted and some infected with Israeli-made spyware known as Candiru.
At the heart of the hacking campaign is the Israeli company Discover-Tech that describes itself as an advertising business. Citizen Lab researchers said the company facilitated surveillance for commercial spyware operators. Its platform, called Controlium, allegedly allowed spyware makers like Candiru — which in 2025 was acquired by Integrity Labs — to identify, track and target devices by loading advertisements on websites and apps.
Discover-Tech and Integrity Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The scale is striking: An analysis of four billion advertising records found that Discover-Tech’s ads appeared across nearly 200,000 websites and mobile apps in dozens of countries over four months. Among the websites that featured the ads were institutional sites of NATO, the United Nations, the European Parliament, European Commission and Council of the EU.
The technique exploits real-time bidding — the automated system used by platforms such as Google to sell advertising space and target users. Rather than persuading victims to click a malicious link, attackers can exploit advertisements to identify and potentially infect devices without any interaction from the user — a technique known as “zero-click” infections.
Discover-Tech’s advertisements directed millions of devices to servers associated with Candiru, potentially enabling large-scale surveillance and reconnaissance, researchers said. That does not mean all those devices were infected.
The findings triggered calls for further investigation on Thursday. “The possibility that EU institutions have been exposed should set off alarm bells across Brussels,” said Hannah Neumann, a German European Parliament lawmaker of the Greens group. Neumann herself was the victim of a cyber-espionage operation by an Iranian hacking group.
“Europe cannot claim to defend democracy while leaving its own democratic institutions vulnerable to spyware,” Neumann said.
Ukraine’s strikes on data centers inside Russia aimed to disrupt military planning and communication services. There were also reports of another kind of disruption: to customers waiting for their dinner from food-delivery apps.
Kyiv’s drone strikes on three Yandex data centers in Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir saw delays and interruptions for thousands of businesses and households that rely on Yandex’s cloud infrastructure, including e-commerce, digital payment platforms and apps of food delivery and car services. Ukrainian drones on Wednesday targeted a major Sberbank data center in Russia’s Saratov region, though a senior company executive said it hadn’t affected operations.
After the strikes on Russian data centers, Kyiv noted that Moscow has already repeatedly targeted its digital infrastructure. “Ukrainians wanted to show Russians that two can play this game,” a senior official familiar with the operation told POLITICO, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The attacks and counter-attacks point to a new frontline in war: the infrastructure powering the digital economy.
The attacks on the buildings that supply compute power are akin to striking a power plant supplying the electricity, heating and fuel that both militaries and civilians depend on. It may weaken an enemy’s war effort but can also bring everyday life to a standstill.
Experts say the cost of rebuilding in Russia will be particularly high as the centers require scarce materials that must be imported. “Obtaining a large amount of equipment to replace what was destroyed is not going to be easy,” said Oleg Shakirov, a cyber policy and international security researcher, noting that most hardware needs to be imported and that is complicated by high global demand and sanctions on Russia.
“To be honest, no one really knows what’s the actual damage. Since two data centers are still offline, we can assume that it’s significant,” said Shakirov.
Joseph Jarnecki, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, warned that normalizing strikes to data centers could have a new set of dangerous consequences.
“These strikes likely breach International Humanitarian Law and it’s a big risk when global populations increasingly rely on digital services,” he told POLITICO.
When servers become targets
Data centers have entered the crosshairs of other recent armed conflicts. During the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran earlier this year, drone strikes hit three Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Since data centers can serve civilian and military purposes simultaneously, the legal status of targeting them is far from straightforward.
Kubo Mačák, an expert on international humanitarian law, said a data center must meet two conditions to qualify as a military objective under the Geneva Conventions: it must make an effective contribution to military operations and destroying it must offer a “definite military advantage.”
A delivery robot from Russian tech giant Yandex moves through Moscow. | Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images
“If you know that they are storing military intelligence or that they’re using the data center to power military artificial intelligence tools,” Mačák said, there could be grounds to consider it a military objective.
Following the most recent strikes of the Yandex data centers, users on social media platform X reported a sudden drop in automated bot activity, including from accounts associated with pro-Russian, pro-Trump and Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) narratives.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seized on the reports to boast that the strikes had made social media less toxic, even as independent researchers and national research institutes found no evidence they specifically disrupted any Russian disinformation campaigns.
Mačák said that even if a data center is being used to “let’s say, run some trolls or these bot farms to interfere with elections abroad … that would not be sufficient.” In other words, hosting propaganda bots does not, by itself, make a data center a lawful military target.
The dual-use quandary has often focused on the targeting of energy infrastructure, which has been frequent in the Russia-Ukraine war. On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries, blaming the attacks for rising fuel prices. He has since called for both sides to halt attacks on energy infrastructure, although the existence of any ceasefire agreement remains disputed.
As data centers become increasingly central to national economies, they will become more consequential targets. A senior NATO official granted anonymity to discuss the matter told POLITICO that data centers are already considered potential targets and that the alliance is factoring their vulnerability into its planning.
NATO allies recognize that their data centers could come under attack in a conflict, the official said: “We would get it in a fight.”
Veronika Melkozerova in Kyiv contributed to this report.
BRUSSELS — European leaders came for the budget. They’re staying for everything else.
A two-day European Council starting Thursday was supposed to be all about the money. Instead, leaders of the 27 EU member countries are heading into one of their most crowded summits in years, with a succession of geopolitical crises threatening to hijack the EU’s carefully laid plans.
European Council President António Costa originally wanted the gathering to accelerate negotiations on the bloc’s next seven-year budget, hoping to seal a deal before elections in France, Italy and Poland in 2027 make an already difficult agreement even harder.
But the world had other plans. Soaring energy prices, tensions with China, Russia’s war in Ukraine (and U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambiguity over it), migration and turmoil in the Middle East have all elbowed their way onto the agenda.
The result is a two-day marathon covering virtually every major challenge facing the EU, from keeping European factories competitive to ensuring the world’s most important shipping lanes stay open.
For anyone trying to follow the action without spending 48 hours glued to Brussels, here’s your guide to what matters.
With the usual warning: EU leaders are notorious for letting discussions drag on or reshuffling the agenda — that’s what our liveblog is for.
Thursday at dawn: The pre-match warm-up
Before the summit even starts, Europe’s political families will gather at the crack of dawn.
The European People’s Party meets from 7:30 a.m. at the Sofitel Brussels Europe — the place to be if you can get in, given how many center-right leaders will be at the summit table.
The Socialists gather from 8:30 a.m. at PES headquarters, with Costa, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen expected.
Renew kicks off at 8 a.m. at the Palais d’Egmont, with French President Emmanuel Macron and top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas among those expected.
Even without leaders in the summit room, the far-right Patriots got a head start Wednesday, with Marine Le Pen delivering a scathing attack on the state of the EU.
Thursday morning: The energy blame game and China
Leaders kick off with discussions on Europe’s struggle for economic competitiveness, starting with energy — potentially the most politically explosive debate.
Governments want immediate relief from soaring energy prices as a result of the war in Iran, and will push the Commission to introduce new measures on top of the wide-ranging but somewhat toothless package it announced back in March.
Expect finger-pointing between capitals and Brussels over who should act, and for climate policies like the upcoming Emissions Trading System on heating and transport to come under fire.
Next comes China. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will brief leaders on efforts to tackle the EU’s enormous trade imbalance with Beijing, following trade chief Maroš Šefčovič’s negotiations with Chinese officials.
Leaders are expected to renew their demand for Brussels to “urgently” tool up with further trade defenses to prevent further deindustrialization of the bloc and to shield further industrial sectors from Chinese competition.
There’s also time for the familiar fight over EU red tape, with calls for Brussels to stop legislating.
The positions are well known: The self-styled “modernists” — essentially the old frugals in disguise — want to contain costs, while countries benefiting from EU spending are determined to defend their allocations, under the less glamorous banner of “friends of cohesion.” Positions on new EU-wide taxes are similarly entrenched.
But the real story is timing.
Governments have watered down a commitment to secure an agreement by December, according to draft conclusions seen by POLITICO. Costa wants a deal before a series of high-stakes elections in 2027 complicate negotiations; capitals fear a deadline could weaken their bargaining power.
Most importantly, Costa is moving into the driving seat as budget talks enter their most politically sensitive stage. Watch for clues about a possible extraordinary summit in late November — and whether December remains a credible deadline or leaders quietly start preparing for negotiations to spill into 2027.
Thursday dinner: Making room for new members
Over dinner, leaders will tackle enlargement and the EU reforms needed to accommodate new members — after all, October’s summit has historically been devoted to the bloc’s hopefuls.
Montenegro is edging closer to completing accession negotiations, while progress elsewhere raises questions about whether the bloc is institutionally and financially ready to grow.
The Commission has outlined proposals to prepare the EU for enlargement, and leaders will discuss how internal reforms should accompany the accession process. Watch for a positive signal to Montenegro and commitments on reforming the bloc itself.
Friday morning: Ukraine’s wish list
The second day begins with Ukraine and an expected appearance by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Declarations of European solidarity are all but guaranteed. The more interesting question is what leaders are actually prepared to do.
Kyiv needs air defense systems, interceptors and financing as Russian attacks intensify. Leaders could discuss tougher action against Moscow’s shadow fleet and visa restrictions for Russians. And while EU financing for Ukraine has already been agreed for 2026, the country’s needs beyond that remain an increasingly pressing issue.
Could this mean reopening the debate on using frozen Russian assets to plug future funding gaps? That remains a question mark — although no immediate breakthrough is expected.
Friday pre-lunch: Defense and three dangerous waterways
Before breaking for lunch, leaders will turn to Russian hybrid attacks, maritime security and the Middle East.
In the Black Sea, recent attacks on civilian shipping threaten Ukraine’s crucial grain export route. Turkey has floated new protected shipping corridors, while countries including Romania and Bulgaria are pushing to give the issue more attention.
Will leaders back concrete measures or stop at condemnation? That’s the question.
Discussions then turn to the Middle East and two other critical shipping routes: the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. The fallout from the Iran–U.S. war, increased Iranian attacks around Hormuz and renewed Houthi threats in the Red Sea have disrupted global trade and energy flows.
The EU’s Aspides naval mission is short of vessels, and Kallas wants governments to contribute more. Watch whether leaders put ships behind their promises.
The broader Middle East discussion will also touch on Iran, Yemen, the West Bank and Lebanon.
Friday lunch: The migration showdown
Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen are worth watching as leaders discuss migration over lunch, following the crisis in Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta.
Irregular arrivals have been declining, but disagreements remain over border crises, solidarity and tougher migration controls.
And with an election looming in Spain on Nov. 29, this could be Sánchez’s last tango — and a final chance to defend his government’s handling of the crisis while venting his frustration over the lack of European solidarity.
Watch whether the debate produces agreement or another political clash, as happened last time.
Bonus: Two pressers are better than one
With such a packed agenda, leaders won’t wait until the end of the summit for the usual joint press conference by von der Leyen and Costa. An additional one is planned for Thursday, after the budget debate.
On Thursday, watch Costa’s language on the budget deadline and whether von der Leyen offers any concrete measures on energy prices.
On Friday, look for promises of additional support for Ukraine, whether commitments on maritime security come with actual ships and resources — and commentary on how the migration showdown over lunch went.
BRUSSELS ― Political pressure is leaving Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz poorly placed to break the deadlock over the EU’s next seven-year budget.
As EU leaders gather for a two-day summit in Brussels from Thursday, the heads of the bloc’s two largest countries hold the keys to breaking the impasse between capitals that has persisted for months, as a Germany-led group advocating a smaller budget clashes with those like France which are resisting reductions.
“Delays and persisting divisions in the Council [representing EU governments] are worrying,” said Siegfried Mureșan, co-leading the European Parliament’s work on the MFF, the multiannual financial framework. “The EU budget can only be built through compromise … The faster we adopt the budget, the faster we can implement it and become more competitive, safer, help farmers and researchers and protect our borders and cyberspace.”
Sealing agreement on the EU’s long-term central budget, worth approximately €2 trillion, is the biggest challenge over the next few months facing leaders, all of whom must sign up to the final numbers. While it isn’t just up to Macron and Merz, getting the chiefs of the bloc’s two most powerful countries to overcome their differences would be a massive step in making all the pieces of the jigsaw slot into place.
But with Macron soon to leave office and Merz under severe pressure domestically, officials and diplomats in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin are playing down hopes of a Franco-German breakthrough this week.
“If the French and German leaders come hand in hand, I think that could change the game,” an EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said. “You need [Italian Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni and [Polish Prime Minister Donald] Tusk, but it starts with Merz and Macron.”
While Merz and Macron may talk bilaterally during the summit, according to an Elysée official, there were no firm plans for a more formal sit-down, two EU diplomats said, adding they were expecting them to use the two-day meeting to hash out positions.
Domestic political weakness makes both leaders less likely to yield ground, three EU diplomats said.
Backfiring
For the French president, who leaves office next year, the fear is that making big concessions — like accepting cuts demanded by Berlin — could be weaponized by presidential candidates vying to replace him.
“Macron should not appear too conciliatory” in budget talks, said an ally of the French president. “It would backfire in the presidential campaign.”
Indeed, Macron may be wary of striking a deal that could lead to attacks from far-right leader Marine Le Pen or far-left rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon, both of whom argue that France receives too little value for its contributions to the EU pot.
During a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday evening, Le Pen accused negotiators of speeding up talks as “an attempt to stifle future democratic choices before they even take place” — effectively warning Macron against locking in an agreement before France’s April presidential election and votes in other major EU countries, such as Spain, which goes to the polls next month, and Italy, which is due to hold a poll next year.
“All this is not serious,” Le Pen told reporters on the 26th floor of The Hotel in Brussels.
It’s complicated
Merz faces similar political pressures.
Following humiliating state election defeats to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, the Chancellor is wary of concessions that could be framed as sending more taxpayer money to Brussels. Berlin prefers no deal at all to one that increases the overall budget, Merz said.
But Paris and Berlin’s positions may not be as far apart as public statements suggest.
“It’s complicated because France and Germany both need to step outside of their comfort zone,” said the Macron ally. “But it will end with a deal between France and Germany,”
France’s Europe minister Benjamin Haddad told reporters on Tuesday that discussions should focus on raising money via taxes, or “own resources” as they’re known in the EU —such as online gambling levies—rather than “massive cuts.”
However, Paris also wants to “stabilize national contributions” ― in other words, keep its own payments level.
Berlin was “open to examine new own resources, but we are more skeptical than the French that it will generate enough money,” a German official said.
France is betting that when push comes to shove, Merz will give in to pressure from other countries — and German captains of industry — to abandon his demands for far-reaching cuts.
“I see that there is also a real debate in Germany as well on the fact of having a position that would only be focused on cuts to the detriment of future policies,” an Elysée official said Wednesday. This week, Germany’s industrial lobby BDI and top industry groups urged their government to defend a more ambitious EU budget.
Macron and Merz showed unity earlier this month by jointly urging the European Commission to toughen its stance on China. But they still struggle to agree on another major deal—first reported by POLITICO in July—where Berlin accepts stronger “Made in Europe” rules in exchange for France backing relaxed car emission targets and the 2035 combustion engine ban.
EU Industry chief Stéphane Séjourné told POLITICO on Tuesday he supported the deal to finalize both files. Macron recently called the agreement “imminent,” suggesting progress depended on German coalition talks. But their failure to present an agreement at this week’s Paris car show confirms Paris and Berlin still disagree on terms, with the Elysée confirming negotiations remain ongoing.
Ukrainian frontline soldiers are alarmed that Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service is reportedly being restricted on fast-moving military platforms, warning of severe operational consequences.
“This is comparable to a nuclear strike against us. All operations are on hold. This will cost many of us our lives,” an experienced Ukrainian officer told POLITICO and the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.
The officer commands a medium-range drone strike unit in southeastern Ukraine. The unit relies heavily on Starlink for the operation and navigation of its American-made Hornet drones, used to strike targets at a range of up to 150 kilometers.
“Since last night, all Starlink and Starshield terminals used by our forces have been subject to a speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour,” the officer said.
POLITICO talked to three frontline soldiers, who all spoke on condition of being granted anonymity, as well as a Ukrainian defense ministry spokesperson and the EU’s top defense official.
The reported restrictions have revived a question Ukrainian commanders have worried about for years: how much of the country’s battlefield communications can rely on a service controlled by a U.S. company.
Ukrainian soldiers say the restrictions have halted some medium-range drone strikes over Ukraine, disrupting attacks on Russian logistics and leaving frontline Ukrainian troops with less support. The scale of the disruption — and whether it was deliberate — remains unclear.
In a comment on X, Musk said: “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” referring to the Starshield division of Starlink that is used for military purposes.
“Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX,” he added. “Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister who has good contacts in Silicon Valley, said late Wednesday: “Starlink connectivity at speeds of up to 160 km/h is being restored. Removing Starshield’s speed limit entirely is now critical for Ukraine’s defense.”
The White House and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The restrictions have brought “all medium-range strike operations to a complete halt,” the officer said, including those using mesh-based systems. These rely on a single Starlink-equipped UAV to receive and relay signals to other drones connected through a mesh network, allowing them to strike targets deep inside Russian-held territory or in areas heavily protected by Russian electronic warfare systems.
Such targets include the Donetsk region, the strategically important Novorossiya highway linking Russia to Crimea, the Crimean Peninsula itself, the Kerch area and the Black Sea.
“We can no longer fight effectively to support our infantry on the battlefield. We can no longer strike multiple-launch rocket systems, North Korean-supplied heavy self-propelled artillery positioned deep behind enemy lines, ammunition depots, command centers and other targets,” the officer said.
“The Ukrainian frontline is very much dependent on Starlink-operated mid-strike drones,” Iryna Terekh, CEO of Ukrainian missile-maker Fire Point told POLITICO.
Ukraine’s devastating campaign
For months, Ukrainian medium-range strike drones have inflicted significant damage on Russian logistics in frontline regions. They have disrupted the supply of fuel, ammunition and other military equipment, slowing Russia’s advance.
Members of a special operations unit pilot a reconnaissance drone in the Kharkiv region on Feb. 27, 2026. | Chris McGrath/Getty Images
The officer said he feared that the Starlink restrictions will give Russian troops a critical opportunity to strengthen their positions.
“Starting today, the enemy will build up its logistics routes to Crimea to reinforce its forces there,” he warned.
Two other Ukrainian frontline soldiers operating ground robots and conventional first-person-view drones in the Donbas confirmed to POLITICO that Starlink services for Ukrainian units were abruptly restricted on Wednesday.
“On the night of October 14, without prior notice to the Defense Forces, SpaceX unilaterally restricted the operation of Starshield terminals while in motion,” a Ukrainian defense ministry official told reporters in Kyiv.
The official added that the problems occur at speeds varying from 72 kph to 161 kph, “depending on the specific vehicle and unit.”
The slowdown in Starlink terminals comes as U.S. President Donald Trump exerts fierce pressure on Ukraine to stop attacking Russian refineries. That follows his deal with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to release diesel onto global markets — part of Trump’s effort to reduce fuel prices ahead of next month’s U.S. midterm elections.
“Obviously, this action cannot be a coincidence and is associated with the current political situation,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov said in a Facebook post.
Asked about the rising American pressure on Ukraine, EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said at a POLITICO event on Wednesday: “Political development sometimes makes strange influence. Elections are coming.”
“We are quite dependent on American space capabilities,” Kubilius acknowledged. “The answer to that situation is to develop our own capabilities.”
The Starlink slowdown was condemned by one of Ukraine’s key European allies.
“Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again? As your European customers, we are watching you,” wrote Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.
Ukraine depends on Starlink
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Starlink has become central to Kyiv’s war effort. In the spring of 2022, Ukrainian defenders trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol used satellites operated by SpaceX to send messages to the outside world. Ukrainian units relied on the system to coordinate operations during the fierce urban fighting around Bakhmut in 2023.
To this day, soldiers use Starlink to rapidly adjust artillery fire and navigate naval drones during attacks on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine’s former army chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, once praised the terminals for their “extraordinary utility.”
That reliance always carried risk. In the early months of the war, Starlink reportedly shut off terminals that were going to be used in a naval attack on the Russian fleet.
But SpaceX has also acted to favor Ukraine. In February, SpaceX shut down access to Starlink terminals being used illegally by Russia, causing immediate chaos. Ukraine then ramped its own use of the terminals.
Kyiv’s armed forces began widely equipping medium-range strike drones with Starlink terminals. Without them, operations would become considerably more complex. The military would, for example, have to calculate terrain elevations and antenna availability itself and install additional communications equipment.
“Starlink allows you not to have to deal with radio physics,” a Ukrainian officer with the call sign Jura said in August. “Starlink allows operators to maintain a live video connection with a drone until shortly before impact.”
Starlink can also provide so-called “synthetic GPS coordinates,” which can help drones navigate when conventional GPS signals are jammed.
A Ukrainian serviceman assembles a drone ahead of a combat mission in the Kharkiv region on May 22, 2026. | Diego Fedele/Getty Images
But Ukrainian officers feared that decisions made in Washington or in the executive offices of American companies could suddenly weaken Ukraine.
“Many of my colleagues and I myself are very nervous about the question of how we would operate without Starlink,” Jura said. “We have discussed this question several times among our officers: ‘What if Elon Musk or someone at SpaceX switches it off?'”
As Trump has ramped up pressure on Kyiv in recent weeks, Ukrainian officers reported growing problems with Starlink.
One Ukrainian drone pilot, who operates medium-range strike drones, reported severe connectivity problems on Sept. 11 and 12, as well as further disruptions on Sept. 17. He said soldiers from several Ukrainian units had experienced similar problems.
The incidents occurred shortly after U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had concluded visits to Kyiv and Moscow. “After few days, the normal work with Starlink come back. But I believe that was the signal,” the pilot said.
He argued that Russian jamming equipment could not plausibly have produced such geographically consistent disruptions across multiple sectors of the front.
“So that was, I guess, administered from some office,” he said. POLITICO could not independently establish whether the disruptions resulted from deliberate restrictions imposed by the American satellite provider or another technical cause.
The incidents have reinforced concerns among Ukrainian military personnel about their dependence on American-controlled technology.
“The reason is politics and the American option to ‘switch off’ or critically decrease” U.S. systems, the pilot said.
Veronika Melkozerova reported from Kyiv.Daniella Cheslow and Audrey Decker contributed reporting.
BRUSSELS — The European Commission’s cybersecurity division is rolling out a plan to use artificial intelligence to respond to high-risk cyberattacks, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.
The undated document, written by the Commission’s IT department, sets out how to prepare the EU executive’s cyber defenses for “emerging AI-driven threats.” It proposes an action plan to shore up defenses in light of AI, with the most urgent move being the speed of response to attacks.
Governments have rushed to grapple with the rising threat brought by AI’s ability to expose and exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Incidents like OpenAI’s accidental intrusion into Hugging Face have prompted calls, including at the highest political level, to be more wary of advanced AI models.
Being able to respond quickly to cyberattacks is most crucial in “high-risk scenarios,” the EU executive’s internal cyber defenders warned, saying that the ability to detect an attack is “not sufficient if containment measures cannot be taken quickly enough.”
Officials at the in-house IT department, DG DIGIT, are planning to use automated “protective measures” in specific high-risk scenarios, it said. Those scenarios were redacted in the document, which was provided to POLITICO in response to a freedom of information request.
The plan does not amount to “uncontrolled automation” and there will be strict controls in place including human oversight, according to the document.
As well as laying out the response plan, the document sets out the cybersecurity challenges the Commission faces from AI.
The most advanced AI models are expected to “significantly increase the speed, scale and adaptability of cyberattacks” and the Commission must therefore have defenses in places for an environment where “attacks are likely to become faster, more frequent and more scalable,” it said.
Risks include situations where “malicious activity occurs outside EC [European Commission] normal working hours, spreads more rapidly across systems, or results in large-scale exfiltration or operational disruption before manual intervention can be organized by EC,” they said.
The Commission’s cyber division has sought approval internally to move ahead with the plans, it said, though it’s not clear whether the plans have yet been put in place.
The Commission didn’t respond to a request for comment.
BRUSSELS — Privacy regulators want people wearing smart glasses in public to look and sound like a truck backing down a road.
Europe’s powerful data regulators have made stringent new recommendations on how smart glasses should alert people that the wearable devices are filming, including a combination of flashing lights, audio alerts and notifications sent to the phones of people nearby.
The statement is not legally binding but will guide how privacy regulators in Europe assess whether smart glasses users and manufacturers are complying with EU privacy rules like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The regulators said smart glasses manufacturers should implement a combination of transparency measures to make other people aware that they are being recorded.
The measures may include lights or sounds when users are recording, requiring smart glasses users to activate them with an audible voice command, sending notifications to the smartphones of people nearby and other design “clues” to help people spot smart glasses.
The group of privacy regulators said that not only should users of smart glasses respect other people’s privacy but that the devices’ manufacturers and people providing connected apps or services may also be responsible for making sure they comply with privacy rules.
The GDPR applies to companies and organizations, and doesn’t apply when people process personal data in a household context. The regulators said this household exemption should be “narrowly interpreted” when it comes to smart glasses, and would not apply when someone shares photos or videos of others “to an indefinite number of persons on a public social media account.”
Tech firms like Meta have pitched their smart glasses to consumers on the basis that they are sleek and discreet. Meta has included an LED light in its smart glasses, which activates while recording, which it has said is a key privacy safeguard.
Samsung and Google have also recently announced that they’re collaborating on a new line of “intelligent eyewear” set to launch later this year, and Apple is reportedly aiming to hit the market with its own smart glasses by the end of 2027.
The regulators’ statement could now force smart glasses manufacturers to reassess whether and how they sell smart glasses to European consumers. The EDPB called for industry-wide standards to be developed to make sure people are able to spot smart glasses and understand how they process data.
The European group of privacy regulators also commissioned a study into the social acceptability of smart glasses, published today.
The French government is closely watching a cybersecurity crisis at supermarkets after they were forced to throw out food due to an attack that knocked out refrigerators.
The office of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told POLITICO that he is “personally monitoring the situation” after cyberattacks targeted the refrigeration systems of several major supermarket chains. Lecornu has asked the country’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI to look into it, his office added.
News reports on Monday said that hundreds of supermarkets were affected. Intermarche and Cooperative U, two French supermarket chains, told AFP that they had been affected. Intermarche told AFP that affected stores will have to throw away affected fresh and frozen food.
Dominique Schelcher, the CEO of Cooperative U, confirmed on X that a cyberattack hit “the cold production facilities of several stores in our network” since Sunday night.
EU agriculture and food commissioner Christophe Hansen condemned the attack, also mentioning Leclerc, France’s largest supermarket chain, which has not yet publicly confirmed that it is affected.
French news reports state that the attack hit refrigerators manufactured by Danish company Danfoss. Prime Minister Lecornu’s office said ANSSI has found a flaw in software provided by “a Danish company” and has contacted it. The agency is coordinating with European counterparts as other countries may be affected, the office said.
Danfoss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
EU cybersecurity agency ENISA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s cybersecurity agency and in-house research center have each begun experimenting with open artificial intelligence models from China, three EU officials have told POLITICO.
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) — the EU’s in-house scientific research center — is evaluating “publicly available open-weight models” originating from China, European Commission spokesperson Maciej Berestecki confirmed. The head of ENISA, the bloc’s agency responsible for cybersecurity, also said in an interview that his team was now testing Chinese AI.
The experiments with Chinese models at the JRC are part of a broader research project to evaluate artificial intelligence that also includes leading models from the United States and Europe, Berestecki said. “Models from different origins are included in a comparative scientific evaluation of their capabilities, performance, limitations and risks,” he said, adding that the JRC is also looking into their potential scientific applications.
AI safety and security — topics currently under intense scrutiny following a series of incidents in which advanced AI models hacked real-world networks during testing activities — are not the core focus of the JRC’s testing activities, according to a different Commission official, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive material.
Open-weight models are those whose core components are publicly released, allowing anyone to run the model and study how it works. China’s approach to AI has leanedmore towards open models than the United States. Some major U.S. tech and AI companies, including chips giant NVIDIA, are investing in open-weight models.
Forced to choose
The U.S. and China are locked in a race to dominate in the technology, with Europe largely sitting on the sidelines. Without a viable European frontier model, European private and public organizations may be left to choose between American and Chinese providers for advanced AI applications.
In a recent speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested Europe should not try to win the frontier AI race. A top German tech company told POLITICO this week it was dropping Europe’s leading AI lab Mistral in favor of open-source Chinese models.
The JRC has not entered into any “bespoke access” or licensing negotiations with the relevant Chinese developers, Berestecki said. The models are run on the center’s “secure, on-premises scientific infrastructure” and the Commission is not intending to use Chinese models for its own purposes, he added.
EU cyber agency ENISA — which has gained access to advanced models from top U.S. AI firms Anthropic, OpenAI and Google — is also experimenting with “a couple” of open-weight Chinese models, its executive director Juhan Lepassaar confirmed in an interview on Wednesday.
JRC and ENISA have been tasked with working together to set up an AI testing platform under a recent EU action plan on AI and cyber, the European Commission’s attempt to respond to the growing concerns after a series of incidents involving AI systems breaking out of testing environments and breaking into other organizations’ digital systems.
The former head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service built a lucrative second career trading on his security expertise. Now prosecutors accuse him of profiting from secrets belonging to the state.
By ANTOANETA ROUSSI
Photo-Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO
August Hanning spent seven years at the top of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, with access to some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets. Then came a second act: private consulting, corporate intelligence and business stretching across Europe, into Russia and Asia.
Now, the 80-year-old former spymaster is himself at the center of an espionage investigation, after German federal prosecutors arrested him Tuesday on suspicion of treasonous espionage, attempted treason and other espionage offenses. They allege he obtained a stream of secret intelligence from his former chief of staff and used the material to benefit his private consulting business.
“It’s catastrophic for Germany and for Western intelligence services. Everyone is in shock. The scale of it is enormous, especially at a moment like this,” said one EU intelligence official, who — like others in this report — was granted anonymity to discuss a clandestine arena. “And given that investigators stumbled across this while working on an entirely separate case, we’re likely to learn much more.”
For the BND, the case comes at an uncomfortable moment. Just last week, German parliamentarians began debating a new law proposed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government to grant the agency sweeping new authority, as part of an effort to return Berlin’s foreign intelligence service to the top ranks of global espionage. The timing is equally awkward for European intelligence more broadly. With Russian hybrid attacks continuously targeting Europe, governments across the bloc are rewriting decades-old security laws to give their spy agencies greater powers and be taken more seriously.
Prosecutors say Hanning’s former chief of staff, identified under German privacy rules as Manfred D., supplied him with roughly 2,000 BND documents between 2010 and June 2022. Many contained classified information intended exclusively for internal intelligence work, including material used to brief senior German officials.
In comments to German newspaper WELT, a lawyer representing Hanning said some of the allegations against the ex-spymaster were true but that he did not harm Germany.
“He was in possession of confidential documents. Incorrect, however, is the accusation that he had passed on information contained therein to the detriment of the Federal Republic of Germany — let alone [for] payment. Further investigations will show that,” he said.
In one case, prosecutors suspect Hanning used classified material to prepare an analysis for an employee of foreign intelligence service. They also allege he maintained a relationship with a representative of another foreign intelligence service for several years, passing along political information that was partly based on material obtained from Manfred D.
Prosecutors have not publicly identified either foreign service but German media has named Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan has denied any connection.
“In intelligence services, everything is logged — who accesses which documents and when. If an analyst working on right-wing extremism suddenly started looking at intelligence on China, that would raise red flags. But the position of chief of staff has access to virtually everything, so it wouldn’t look suspicious because of the seniority of the position,” said a second EU intelligence official.
Chiefs of staff often stay on when directors change, unless they don’t get along with the incoming boss, the official added.
“Every intelligence service will now be looking at what information it shared with the BND and assessing what damage may have been done,” he said.
Revolving door
Hanning led the BND from 1998 to 2005, before serving as state secretary at Germany’s interior ministry until 2009. Once out of government, he wasted little time entering the private sector.
In July 2010, Hanning and his wife established Hanning Consult. It was in the spring of that same year that Manfred D. agreed to provide him with intelligence from inside the BND in exchange for payment, according to the prosecutor’s statement. Hanning then used that information in his private consulting activities, they added.
Roderich Kiesewetter, a Christian Democrat lawmaker on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German parliament, said that within Germany there is a “very widespread network” of people who use the contacts and knowledge acquired while they were in service to influence Berlin’s policy on behalf of foreign governments like Russia and China.
“It’s not only sad, it’s damaging the reputation of Germany,” Kiesewetter told POLITICO. “You could also say if you want to talk to Russia, take former members of the government or former members of the secret services.”
Hanning also became involved with Samuel Danilowitsch, a German businessman, who led the Swiss corporate intelligence consultancy, Pluteos. There, Hanning eventually became chairman and the two were listed as attending a 2019 Moscow gathering focused on Europe-Russia relations, attended by Russian political and business figures, where the annexation of Crimea was brought up as a “necessity” rather than a choice. Pluteos did not respond to a request for comment.
From around 2014, Hanning joined British consultancy G3 as a senior adviser, according to archived web pages seen by POLITICO. He later oversaw its work involving Russia and the former Soviet republics, according to German media outlet Correctiv. G3 did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2019, Hanning was invited as a “guest of honor” to a gathering organized by Russia’s Security Council of officials and experts from Arctic Council countries. It was chaired by former secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, one of the most powerful figures in President Vladimir Putin’s security orbit. As part of the cultural program, the group visited the remote Valaam Island monastery where Hanning was pictured next to Patrushev.
Delegates from Arctic Council countries visited the Valaam Island monastery on Oct. 2, 2019. August Hanning stands on the far right of the front row, next to senior Russian security official Nikolai Patrushev. | Valaam monastery
Hanning has also publicly ventured into some of the more politically explosive questions surrounding Russia’s war on Ukraine.
In 2024, he told WELT TV that he considered it “very likely” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy knew about the 2022 operation that destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines. Days later, Hanning went further, suggesting an agreement between senior Ukrainian and Polish figures was behind the attack. Germany has since charged a Ukrainian national it identified only as Serhii K., with his trial due to begin in Hamburg in October.
None of those business relationships, contacts or statements establishes a connection to the espionage case now facing Hanning, though they paint a picture of the influence he continued to amass after leaving the German government. Prosecutors have not accused him of spying for Russia.
The steakhouse heiress
Investigators got onto Hanning’s trail starting with an extraordinary custody dispute involving Christina Block, an heiress to a German steakhouse empire.
Block is accused by the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office of orchestrating the abduction of her two youngest children from their father in Denmark. Prosecutors in that case say Block and two men commissioned an Israeli security team to seize her children, then aged 10 and 13, from their father, Stephan Hensel.
According to the indictment, masked men beat Hensel and took the children across the Danish-German border, to southern Germany. The children were reunited with their father in Denmark four days later, under a court order. Block denies knowing about the abduction.
In September 2025, Hamburg investigators searched Hanning’s home and business premises in connection with the Block case, according to local media. Prosecutors suspected Hanning and a retired police officer had accepted a contract worth more than €100,000 to intercept the children on their way to school in November 2022. The plan ultimately failed as their father noticed suspicious figures and alerted Danish police.
German broadcaster Taggeschau reported that the investigators, in the search of Hanning’s premises, discovered around 2,000 digital BND documents that ultimately triggered scrutiny of his handling of sensitive government information. Federal prosecutors took over the resulting investigation in May 2026.
Manfred D. had been Hanning’s chief of staff at the intelligence service and subsequently served several of Hanning’s successors, remaining in a senior position until March this year.
Both men are now in custody.
“He’s reflecting the Germany between 1998 and 2011, so he has not the feeling of having done something evil,” said Kiesewetter. “He was just mirroring [the] state policy of the center-right Christian Democratic and conservative political alliance.”
The Trump administration pressured diplomatic officials from the EU, Canada and Lithuania to pull out of an international conference on disinformation after organizers announced panels warning of the threat posed by American government officials and the country’s influence broadly, according to excerpts of a State Department cable seen by POLITICO.
The conference, titled #Disinfo2026, included sessions that described the U.S. as a “foreign information manipulation and interference” actor, or “FIMI,” which bothered the Trump administration, according to the cable. The conference is being held Wednesday and Thursday in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
The State Department asked American embassies in several European countries and the EU to express Washington’s concerns and “assess” whether the governments involved in the conference agree with the U.S. being characterized as a FIMI actor, according to the cable.
FIMI is an EU term used to describe activities that try to distort public information, such as spreading disinformation online, usually by foreign actors such as Russia. The conference conflates the U.S. with “foreign adversaries like Russia and China,” which is a “false equivalence” that “obscures the scale and nature of Russian and Chinese interference in our democracies,” the cable states.
The demarche request appears to be an unusual administration effort to use allied government pressure to silence criticism from European citizens and Americans abroad (three U.S. citizens appeared on one of the panels that prompted the cable). It also marks an acceleration of the Trump administration’s years-long pressure campaign on the continent, which includes U.S. criticism of perceived EU censorship.
The recipients of the cable included U.S. embassies in France, Norway, Romania and Poland. The embassies each were told to tell their hosts — verbally, not in writing — that the U.S. was unhappy with the panels on American disinformation, according to the cable and a U.S. official, who, like others, was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation.
One of those panels, titled “USA as a FIMI threat: acknowledge, adapt, push back” featured two American researchers and a former CIA official and looked at how the U.S. had become a disinformation threat to Europe. Another, titled “Under attack: How the counter-disinformation community is dealing with US government pressure,” asked legal experts to weigh in on the threat of U.S. government travel bans against European figures.
The State Department asked some of those countries — but not all — to reconsider participating in the event, said the U.S. official familiar with the cable, which came from the secretary of State’s office.
Officials from Norway, Romania and Poland still appear on the conference agenda. Spokespeople for the ministries of foreign affairs in Norway, Romania and Poland did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. officials also contacted France’s Foreign Ministry, but it did not withdraw from the conference.
The Trump administration and its allies have repeatedly tried to pressure EU allies to align with Washington’s standards of free speech, which some in Europe consider to be too broadly defined. These efforts have included public criticism, closed-door lobbying against EU laws and visa restrictions for Europeans.
Republicans have also taken issue with some European laws that force social media platforms to be more active in combating false information online, such as laws requiring age verification for potentially harmful content, which some have said amount to censorship.
As of Monday, Canada and Lithuania asked organizers to remove their ministry logos from conference materials, according to a conference participant, and the European External Action Service followed on Tuesday. European news site Rapporteur first reported on the removal of the foreign ministry logos.
“To me, I see a very strange reaction from the State Department to a conference of researchers using our First Amendment free speech rights to talk about how to stop lying and manipulation that undermines democracy and hurts our families and hurts our children,” said Adam Fivenson, who works for the Center for Security, Innovation and New Technology at American University and was on one of the panels the Trump administration took issue with. This panel still proceeded as scheduled.
The cable also notes that top officials in the State Department’s global public diplomacy section reached out directly to Canadian officials to express frustrations with Ottawa’s participation in the conference. This part of the State Department, led by Sarah Rogers, handles the public-facing aspects of diplomacy that are aimed at building support for U.S. goals among foreign populations.
Asked for comment, the State Department said in a statement: “While we are unable to comment on the details of diplomatic conversations, it should not be a surprise that countries would disaffiliate from this conference upon learning that it labeled the U.S. a ‘FIMI threat.’ Labeling the United States a ‘FIMI threat’ — a term normally reserved for describing influence operations of adversaries — undermines shared goals and should alarm those involved.”
After speaking with U.S. officials, Canada and Lithuania pulled their support from the conference, meaning they don’t appear on panels or in conference materials. The EU’s External Action Service, its diplomatic arm, was also removed from official programming.
Images reviewed by POLITICO show conference banners with the logos of all Canadian, Lithuanian, and EU diplomatic services covered. France remains the sole “main supporter.”
Spokespeople for the EEAS and Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry both said they withdrew because some of the conference programming didn’t align with their official positions, though they did not specify what those positions are.
The cable draws a clearer line between U.S. engagement with Lithuania and Canada and their decision to pull public support for the conference. After speaking to the local U.S. embassy, “Lithuania’s Foreign Minister [Kęstutis] Budrys stated the U.S.-focused sessions did not represent the views of the Lithuanian government and committed that no one from Lithuania MFA would participate,” the cable reads.
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