🇺🇦🇷🇺 Amid the noise of the pandemic, one issue has been ringing alarm bells across Europe and the West: Russia’s military build-up on the Ukrainian border.
US intelligence has warned that Russia may be preparing an invasion, but Moscow denies it.
🇷🇺 Many ask what Putin’s real intentions are and whether, if Russia does attack, what NATO and the West can do to respond in a sufficiently robust manner.
🇫🇷 The crisis has called into question Western unity. It has also put the spotlight back on NATO in particular, two years after President Macron famously called the transatlantic military alliance "brain dead".
📜 In December, Moscow set out its security demands in a proposed treaty with the US and an agreement with NATO.
Essentially, it wants guarantees that NATO will halt its expansion after it sent troops to countries vulnerable to Russia following the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
🇷🇺 Some experts put Russia's intentions in starker terms.
For historian Françoise Thom, a specialist on Russia, Moscow's demands amount to "an orchestrated blackmail".
🇷🇺 Moscow is also demanding that Ukraine not be offered NATO membership, and a draft treaty with the US banning it from sending forces to areas such as the Baltics and the Black Sea.
🇬🇪🇺🇦 NATO leaders promised future membership to Ukraine and Georgia back in 2008.
🇷🇺 So how should NATO respond to Russia?
"Obviously, Ukraine and Russia are aware that there is no real option of any military involvement from NATO's side,” said Peter Dickinson, a specialist on Ukraine at the Atlantic Council.
🇺🇦 "NATO is revealing little of how it would react to Russian territorial aggression," says Geoffrey Van Orden of the Gold Institute for International Strategy, noting that the alliance has pledged "political and practical support" for Ukraine.
🇷🇺 Politicians say that NATO must be united against Russian aggression, but such unity has been lacking in recent years.
When in 2019 he labelled NATO "brain dead", Emmanuel Macron accused the alliance of lacking a clear political strategy in the multipolar post-Cold War world.
🇫🇷 France has recently though become more of a spearhead for a unified European defence plan.
🇪🇺 As France takes over the EU presidency, Macron has called for "a stronger and more capable European defence" that contributes to transatlantic security and is complementary to NATO.
🇪🇺 Others are not so optimistic, with Peter Wahl of the alter-globalisation organisation Attac, arguing that European aspirations for enhanced military autonomy are unrealistic and an example of "Brussels' wishful thinking".
🇷🇺 It’s also difficult because, when it comes to Russia, the EU and its member states speak with multiple voices.
🇵🇱🇫🇷 Whereas the likes of France, Germany and Italy promote dialogue with Moscow, Poland and the Baltic states want stronger sanctions.
🇺🇦 Geoffrey Van Orden of the Gold Institute for International Strategy says the need for Western unity is urgent, and "Ukraine needs tangible support".
🇺🇦🇷🇺 How should NATO and the West respond to Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine?
From Friday, all travellers, regardless of the vaccination status, will have to present a negative test (PCR or antigenic) no older than 24 hours to enter France.
Vaccinated people will however no longer be required to justify a compelling reason to visit the country and will no longer have to submit to a period of self-isolation.
🗳 Voters in Finland will later this month cast their ballots in the country's first regional elections that will revolutionise the way the Nordic nation provides health and social care.
🏥 It's the result of the biggest reform to the country’s public health system for decades and transfers responsibility for healthcare and emergency services from 294 individual municipalities to a streamlined 21 new regional authorities whose boards are directly elected.
🇫🇮 Voting takes place in all parts of Finland except the capital Helsinki, and the semi-autonomous Åland Islands.
The SNP hopes it can capitalise on the 'perfect storm' of a damaging Brexit, Boris Johnson's scandal-prone Westminster government and the perception that Sturgeon has has handled the COVID pandemic reasonably competently. 🏴🇬🇧 euronews.com/2021/12/09/aye…
Since Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party won another term in office at Scottish Parliament elections in the spring, with an increased vote share, there’s been a steady uptick in diplomatic outreach. 🏴
Foreign diplomats have recently been keen to engage officials in Edinburgh as well as London. 🏴
And Sturgeon boosted her own international profile by holding talks with world leaders and activists during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. 🌍
After Merkel’s long tenure, people have questioned exactly what direction he will take Germany in.
Experts reckon that while Scholz is like Merkel, Germany is not necessarily headed for more of the same, as he's far more decisive than his predecessor.
🇪🇺 With Germany’s status as an EU powerhouse, Scholz’s chancellery might also significantly alter the course of the EU as the bloc deals with significant challenges such as rule of law, the climate crisis and relations with Russia.
After the ECB announced its decision to redesign euro banknotes, Euronews asked you what new theme you’d like to see represented on the currency. 💶
Scroll through the thread for the most popular choices 👇
Many of you voted for prominent European politicians, including German chancellor Angela Merkel. 🇩🇪
Also popular were older politicians seen to have contributed to European unity, including ex-UK prime minister Winston Churchill and ex-EU Parliament president Robert Schuman. 🇪🇺
Some want to see other prominent Europeans throughout history featured, such as Marie Curie, Giuseppi Garibaldi and Julius Caesar. 💶
When animal welfare officers in the Polish city of Krakow were called out to a sighting of an unusual animal squatting in a residential area, their initial reaction was this must be a late April Fool's joke. euronews.com/2021/04/16/mys…
Earlier this week, authorities in Krakow said in a Facebook post that a woman called them to report a creature sitting in the tree across from her house.
"People aren't opening their windows because they're afraid it will go into their house," the woman added.
When the officers arrived, the beast wasn't a bird of prey as they hypothesised, but... a croissant.