Is Europe ready to defend itself?
That was the central question at the Euronews Defence and Space Summit, which brought together policymakers, lawmakers and industry leaders as Europe grapples with the need to rearm and deter potential threats.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has transformed Europe’s security landscape, exposing longstanding weaknesses and forcing governments to rethink defence spending, military capabilities and industrial capacity.
As Russia continues its war in Ukraine and hybrid attacks against European allies increase, the pressure to act is growing.
Here are five key moments from Wednesday’s summit.
Radev raises the alarm
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev was among the day’s most anticipated speakers. On Wednesday, he challenged the EU’s strategy of supporting Ukraine, describing it as a failed attempt at “peace by force”.
“The war in Ukraine challenged our critical thinking and realistic approach,” he said.
“It challenged our ability to assess the strategic centre of gravity of the opponent. It challenged most of all our ability to design feasible political objectives and to translate them into a sound military strategy and to define a desired end state.”
Radev called for greater diplomatic engagement with the Kremlin to end the war and avert what he described as the “worst-case scenario” of a nuclear attack against Europe.
Russia controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, with an estimated 4,400 stockpiled warheads, including 1,796 strategically deployed.
“There is a nuclear card,” Radev said.
“We need to have this into account. We cannot close our eyes (to the fact) that there are nuclear weapons on our continent, there are nuclear weapons in the arsenal of Russia. And this is part of the game calculation.”
His remarks came hours after Reuters reported that Russia had sent a document threatening to “use the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons” to defend its territory.
Rutte reassures allies
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte followed Radev with a very different message for Moscow: “Stop the nuclear threats.”
Rutte declined to comment on the reported document but offered a glimpse of NATO’s response to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin knows he can never win (against) NATO, so I don’t take this seriously,” he said. “Of course, we had to reply and make clear to him that NATO is a defensive alliance.”
“I think the best way to deal with this is to have a bit of calm,” he added.
Rutte also addressed the rise in hybrid attacks targeting Ukraine’s allies, including an arson attack at a robotics defence company in Estonia and an attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport in Germany.
He described the incidents as attempts by Putin to divert attention from the stalled battlefield, fracture Western unity and weaken military support for Kyiv.
Seeking to reassure allies, Rutte said: “There is no immediate threat to NATO territory.”
“We will defend every inch of NATO territory, every square kilometre, square mile,” he said. “There’s no doubt Putin knows this. So that threat is not there. And if anything happens, we are ready to counter it.”
Rutte praised Ukraine’s gains on the battlefield and its deep strikes inside Russia, but highlighted a critical weakness: air defence.
Russia has used sustained aerial attacks to pummel Ukrainian cities, putting pressure on Kyiv’s stocks of air defence interceptors.
“It is crucial now to keep Ukraine strong,” Rutte said, urging allies to provide Patriot interceptors. “But Ukraine is not doing worse (now) than some time ago.”
Francken warns of ‘dark winter’
Despite the reassurances, concern over Europe’s security is growing.
Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken warned that Europe was facing a “dark winter” of increasing interference.
“Russia, air attack, air attack, air attack. This is the biggest threat. So we need air defence, air defence, air defence,” Francken told the summit.
“We need to have more stocks, more production, scale up production, and a large industrial base. Everything has to go faster.”
Francken said Russia had decades of experience in hybrid warfare and argued that Europe should draw on Ukraine’s battlefield expertise to keep pace with rapidly changing technology.
“I don’t want to have 200,000 drones somewhere in a stock, and in two months you cannot even use them because they’re outdated. So we have to adapt,” he said.
Francken also acknowledged Belgium’s long-standing underinvestment in defence.
“We were like the worst pupil of the NATO class. We had 1% of GDP in defence spending,” he said, adding that spending had since doubled.
“But I cannot do in 18 months what has been neglected for 40 years.”
Puzder aims at ‘Made in Europe’
European security remains closely tied to the United States, NATO’s largest military power.
Relations between Washington and European capitals have faced repeated tensions since Donald Trump returned to the White House and pursued an “America First” agenda.
Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to NATO, sought to reassure European allies that Washington remained committed to their security.
“We’re not stepping back. We’re just asking our allies to step forward and join us,” he said. “We have continued to say that we’re going to stay engaged in Europe.”
Andrew Puzder, the US ambassador to the EU, struck a more confrontational tone, criticising the bloc’s push to prioritise “Made in Europe” products in public procurement, including defence.
The policy, which originated in France, has gained support in other EU capitals, although its precise scope remains contested.
“When lives are on the line, capability and availability should determine the solution, not geography,” Puzder said.
“One attack by a powerful adversary on a member state, and we’ll all be glad that we focused on weapon superiority rather than regional economics.”
Puzder instead promoted a “Made in NATO” approach, which would give US defence companies greater access to EU procurement.
“We’re stronger when we work together,” he said, calling for an alliance that confronts its adversaries with “unity and strength rather than division and self-interest”.