Amb Veronika Wand-Danielsson

@AlinejadMasih @Kasparov63 👌💪🏼🙏

Piers Morgan asked why Iranians aren’t back on the streets for regime change. I told him: this is not a moral question when people face guns and military force. Ask Europeans protesting safely why not chant “Free Iran”? Ask UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer why his government attended a celebration at the Islamic Republic’s embassy right after the massacre of over 32,000 people. And I invite Piers Morgan to let his audience hear from the women of Iran, women who lost their eyes for showing their hair, instead of hosting angry men shouting over our stories.

Es bricht einem das Herz! Wir könnten zum Schutz den Taurus liefern - wie Merz versprochen hatte. Wir könnten die Schattenflotte einkassieren - wie FRA, BEL & SWE. Wir könnten den Luftraum über der West-UA sicher machen - wie Selenskyj uns bittet. … WANN Union & SPD, WANN?

JUST IN: The country that learned to shoot down Iranian drones over Kyiv is now teaching the Gulf to shoot them down over refineries. Nobody asked Trump. The Gulf asked Ukraine. President Zelensky confirmed at the UK Parliament on March 18 that 201 Ukrainian military specialists are already deployed across UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with teams en route to Kuwait and 34 more ready to go. These are active-duty government military personnel, not private contractors. They are sharing combat-proven expertise from three years of intercepting Iranian Shahed drones over Ukrainian cities, power grids, and civilian infrastructure. The Gulf states requested the assistance. Saudi Arabia explicitly approached Ukraine. The arrangement is reciprocal: Ukraine provides the expertise that no other country possesses at this depth of operational experience, and the Gulf provides what Ukraine needs most, funding, technology, and air defence systems. Zelensky specifically highlighted Patriot missiles as part of the exchange. The country that cannot get enough Patriots from the West is earning them from the Gulf by teaching drone interception. Trump did not request this deployment. No reporting in any outlet, from Reuters to Al Jazeera to the Kyiv Post, indicates American coordination or approval. The recent Trump-Zelensky tensions over aid disputes and public friction are well documented. This is not a Washington-orchestrated move. It is a bilateral arrangement between Ukraine and Gulf capitals that bypasses Washington entirely. Zelensky built a parallel channel to the Gulf that gives Ukraine what America has been reluctant to provide while giving the Gulf what America’s $23.5 billion arms surge does not include: the people who know how to fight Shaheds because they have been fighting them every night for three years. The expertise is specific and irreplaceable. Ukraine has intercepted thousands of Shahed-136 and Shahed-238 drones since 2022. It has developed detection protocols, jamming techniques, acoustic tracking, small-arms interception methods, and integrated air defence coordination that no training manual teaches. The Gulf states purchased Patriot batteries, THAAD radars, and anti-drone systems through the $23.5 billion arms package. The hardware is American. The operational knowledge of how to use it against the exact Iranian drone variants now striking Gulf refineries is Ukrainian. Israel views this positively. Anything that strengthens Gulf air defences against Iranian drones reduces the threat environment for every country in the region, including Israel. Ukrainian-Gulf cooperation reinforces the anti-Iran alignment that the Abraham Accords established. Israel and Ukraine share a common adversary’s weapons system: Iran builds the Shaheds, Russia deploys them against Ukraine, and the IRGC deploys them against the Gulf. The expertise flows in one direction. The threat originates from the same factory. The Putin dimension is real but secondary. Iran supplies Russia with Shahed drones for use against Ukraine. Ukraine now teaches Gulf states to destroy those same drones when Iran uses them directly. The feedback loop is elegant: every Ukrainian lesson learned from shooting down Russian-deployed Shaheds over Odesa is now applied to IRGC-deployed Shaheds over Ras Laffan. Putin’s Iranian drone supplier is being countered by the country Putin is fighting, on a battlefield 4,000 kilometres from the front line. The irony is structural. The aggravation is intentional. Two hundred and one experts. Government military, not contractors. Gulf-requested, not Trump-directed. Shahed-specific, not generic. And the country with the most relevant expertise on Earth got there before the $23.5 billion in hardware arrived. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

A speech by @moritzkoerner, European Parliament MP, directed at PM Orban: Mr. Orbán, you are not a patriot. You are just a useful idiot of Russia and China. That's the reality. Instead of focusing on strengthening the defence of Europe, you went to Moscow to shake hands with Putin, the man who wants nothing else than to destroy Europe. He is the man who has launched a war of aggression against your own neighbour, Ukraine. And instead of ensuring a strong external border and increasing the internal security of the Schengen area, your government have decided to make it easier for potential Russian spies and saboteurs to access the Union. That is the truth of what is happening. We have no problem to discuss your priorities. But I would argue that the citizens of Hungary and Europe deserve better.

Solidarity with the butchers or with the brave people who are murdered for crying out for freedom?

@SlawomirDebski @walberque Exactly so! 👏

My readers know I was not among Mark Rutte’s enthusiasts for the job. But the criticism now being thrown at him misses the point. The Secretary General of NATO is not a commentator, nor a political influencer. He is, quite simply, the system’s maintenance mechanism. His primary task is to keep NATO alive - coherent enough to function, flexible enough to survive the political cycles of its members, and relevant enough to deter its adversaries. That is what he was hired to do. In today’s conditions, this is an exceptionally difficult assignment. The Alliance is navigating diverging threat perceptions, electoral volatility, and a shifting transatlantic balance. In such an environment, rhetorical discipline and a degree of diplomatic accommodation are not signs of weakness; they are tools of institutional survival. The real constraint is not the Secretary General’s tone, but the political will of member states themselves. Blaming Rutte for not “taking sides” misunderstands the office. His role is not to satisfy audiences on social media or to correct the messaging of national leaders. It is to prevent fragmentation. And in that sense, he is doing precisely what the job requires- no more, no less.

Europäische Suveränitet impliziert, dass Europa auch eigene strategische Fähigkeiten besitzen muss. „Europäische“ Frühwarn- und Kontrollflugzeuge sind unverzichtbar für unsere gemeinsame Sicherheit. Auch die Entscheidung über die Kampfjets der nächsten Generation muss schnellstens getroffen werden. Die Zeit ist knapp. Schweden steht bereit, zusammen mit Partnern, diese Verantwortung zu tragen. @Saab #säkpol @nicolange_ @ischinger @AutorToto @n_roettgen

Europa muss beim Fähigkeitsaufbau auf größtmögliche Effizienz setzen und nach Dringlichkeit priorisieren. Denn wir müssen die konventionelle Verteidigung in Europa selbst stemmen und die Priorität auf strategische Enabler wie z.B. satellitengestützte Aufklärung und Fähigkeiten legen, bei denen aktuell eine sehr große Abhängigkeit von den USA besteht. Im modernen Drohnenkampf sollten wir von der Ukraine lernen: Rasante Entwicklungssprünge, eine laufende technologische Entwicklung nah an der Truppe, praxistaugliche und einfache Produkte schlagen unpraktikable und überteuerte Goldrandlösungen. Wir sollten die 5 Punkte von @MSchularick berücksichtigen: augsburger-allgemeine.de/politik/so-ver…

@Archer83Able @svitlanaza 👌

🇸🇪🇺🇦 Allegedly the first known video of a Swedish-supplied Saab 340 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) plane over Ukraine. The delivery of an unspecified number of Saab 340 AEW&C platforms to Ukraine was announced by the Swedish government back in May 2024.

Scoop: Moscow proposed a deal to the U.S. under which the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence information with Iran if Washington ceased supplying Ukraine with intel about Russia. U.S. said no. With @felschwartz, @diana_nerozzi and @jacopobarigazzi politico.eu/article/putin-…

Viktigt! Statsministern och energiministern har verkligen stridit för svenska intressen, och det blev en svensk seger i Europeiska Rådet om flaskhalsavgifterna: ”Vår rätt att bestämma är säkrad” - Ekot sverigesradio.se/artikel/svensk…

In all the coverage of Trump’s tirades about Europeans it should be noted that they are dealing with a much longer, harder, bigger and more consequential war in their own backyard, in Ukraine – a war that they didn’t choose, and one that Trump’s war on Iran has made worse by enriching Russia.

Trump says he's mad at NATO for not helping in the Strait of Hormuz. But the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands yesterday offered help. If the Trump team is serious, they'll run with it. If they don't, it suggests they merely want to gripe.

The Nordic-Baltic joint tree is gaining strength.

Finland, together with our close partners, today joined a joint statement regarding the situation in the Persian Gulf and, in particular, the Strait of Hormuz. The statement condemns Iran’s recent attacks on commercial vessels and attempts to disrupt commercial shipping. The statement also calls on all countries to respect international law and uphold the principles of international security. The countries participating in the statement express their readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait. presidentti.fi/joint-statemen…

@rumeliobserver @sigriddiana My two favourites!👏🫶🏻🤗

🇸🇪 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 2022-2026 Sweden contributed ~ 10 billion (!) Euro in military support to Ukraine. Plus more than 2 billion Euro in civilian aid. An inspiration to other Europeans. @sigriddiana