As US priorities move away from the EU, NATO faces a fragmented future shaped by Russia fears, French autonomy and Germany’s military revival

The headlines are filled with reports of growing discord inside NATO. Donald Trump openly questions the value of allies who, in his view, fail to carry their share of the burden. Western Europe complains about the unreliability of its American patron while simultaneously pledging loyalty to the Atlantic alliance. Beneath the daily noise, however, something far more significant is taking place: the gradual transformation of Europe’s political and military order.

For decades, the United States guaranteed Western Europe’s security while those Europeans concentrated on prosperity and welfare. That arrangement now appears increasingly unstable. Washington’s strategic priorities have shifted toward Asia and the confrontation with China. Europe remains important as a logistical and political platform for American power, but it is no longer the unquestioned center of US grand strategy.

Trump didn’t create this process, though he has accelerated it dramatically. His irritation with NATO is not simply personal caprice. It reflects a deeper American conclusion that the era of underwriting Western European security indefinitely has become too expensive and strategically distracting.

The alliance itself was built for another age and another purpose. NATO was designed to contain the Soviet Union and anchor American influence in Europe. It was never intended to become a global instrument for confronting China. Yet this is precisely the direction in which many in Washington would like to push it.

These Europeans, however, do not share America’s sense of urgency regarding Beijing. For most of them, China is an economic competitor, not an existential threat. Russia, by contrast, remains the central security obsession of much of the bloc, especially in Northern and Eastern members. 

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This divergence is beginning to reshape NATO from within.

France has emerged as the loudest advocate of greater Western European strategic independence. Paris retains a long tradition of military autonomy and still possesses something few other European powers can claim: a genuinely independent nuclear deterrent. France cannot realistically replace the American nuclear umbrella over Western Europe, but it increasingly seeks to position itself as the ideological leader of a more self-reliant bloc.

Britain, meanwhile, continues its traditional balancing act between the EU and the United States. London insists on its independence from Brussels while simultaneously searching for external support from Washington. Northern and Eastern states remain intensely hawkish and committed to confrontation with Russia, regardless of whether the Americans remain fully engaged. Southern Europe appears far less enthusiastic, distracted instead by migration, economic stagnation and domestic instability.

As so often in European history, however, the decisive factor will likely be Germany.

Much of post-war Europe was built around one central idea: Germany must never again become an independent geopolitical force. After 1945 the country was divided, militarily constrained and tightly integrated into Western structures under American supervision.

Even German reunification in 1990 was accepted partly because Germany remained embedded inside NATO. At the time, many believed that anchoring a unified Germany within the Atlantic alliance was the safest possible arrangement for Europe.

Ironically, that very decision became one of the starting points of today’s geopolitical crisis. NATO expansion eastward created a security architecture that Moscow increasingly viewed as hostile and destabilizing.

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Now, three and a half decades later, Europe may again face the prospect of a Germany becoming strategically autonomous, though this time under entirely different circumstances.

Former Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a “new era” in 2022 following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. For some time the slogan appeared largely symbolic. Under Germany’s current leadership, however, concrete changes are beginning to emerge.

Berlin is discussing accelerated rearmament, expanded military infrastructure and legislative changes aimed at increasing recruitment for the Bundeswehr. The debate over compulsory military service, once politically unthinkable, has returned to the mainstream.

Recent comments by Franz-Josef Overbeck, the Catholic military bishop of the Bundeswehr, are revealing. Overbeck openly called for Germany to send forces to the Strait of Hormuz and argued that compulsory military service should be restored not only for men but also for women.

His reasoning was blunt. Germany, he argued, can no longer remain on the sidelines in an increasingly dangerous world.

Many within Germany’s political establishment likely agree with him privately. Politicians, however, remain cautious because German society is still deeply uncomfortable with militarism and foreign deployments. Decades of post-war political culture have created a pacifist instinct that remains powerful among voters.

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The bishop, unlike elected officials, can speak more freely.

At the same time, Germany faces mounting economic difficulties. This is not merely a temporary downturn. The old German economic model rested heavily on cheap Russian energy and export-driven industrial growth, not to mention stable globalization. Much of that foundation has eroded.

As a result, discussions that would once have been politically toxic are now occurring openly. Militarization is increasingly presented not simply as a security necessity, but also as a potential engine of economic renewal.

Only a few years ago such arguments would have sounded extraordinary in Germany. Today they are becoming part of mainstream debate.

This is where the historical dimension becomes impossible to ignore.

German political culture has long been characterized by discipline and a tendency to follow strategic paths with remarkable determination once a consensus forms. In calmer periods this can be an enormous strength. In moments of geopolitical confrontation, however, it can become dangerous.

The path on which Russia once again serves as Germany’s principal antagonist is deeply familiar from European history.

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For decades after the Second World War, many believed that lesson had finally been learned. Economic interdependence between Russia and Germany was supposed to make large-scale confrontation irrational. The collapse of that assumption has shocked much of Europe.

Trump’s pressure on NATO is therefore acting as a catalyst for changes that were already underway. Western Europe is being pushed, reluctantly and unevenly, toward greater military independence. Whether this ultimately strengthens NATO or gradually hollows it out remains unclear.

The alliance is unlikely to collapse outright. Institutions of this scale rarely disappear suddenly. More likely is a gradual transformation into something narrower and more fragmented.

A core bloc focused primarily on containing Russia may emerge within NATO, while the United States shifts more of its attention toward Asia.

Whether such a bloc becomes effective will depend above all on Germany. If Berlin fully embraces rearmament and strategic emancipation from American oversight, Europe’s political landscape could change profoundly and by the end of Trump’s presidency, this process may already be far advanced.

Thus, once again, Europe may discover that history is not something safely confined to textbooks. The old rivalries and anxieties that shaped the continent for centuries have an unsettling habit of returning precisely when people convince themselves they are gone forever.

This article was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and was translated and edited by the RT team 

The phaseout would deepen the bloc’s dependence on more expensive US gas, the Slovak prime minister has warned

The EU plan to phase out Russia as an energy supplier will end in the US reselling Russian oil and gas to Europe at far higher prices, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has warned.

Speaking in Bratislava on Sunday, Fico said Washington has “a huge interest in buying all transit infrastructures” across the European continent.

“So the Russians will supply the Americans with gas and oil at standard prices, and the Americans will sell it to us with an American high-margin surcharge. Are we such idiots already?” he said.

Already, “the share of Russian liquefied gas in Europe is increasing,” Fico added, pointing out the hypocrisy of Brussels singling out countries like Slovakia to pressure over Russian fuel supplies. “So we can’t, but France can buy liquefied gas from Russia.”

Contrary to the EU, Bratislava’s position is to “diversify the supply options for all fuels,” he said.

In February, the European Commission doubled down on long-standing plans to phase out Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027.

READ MORE: EU energy bill spikes amid Iran war supply shock – commissioner

While the US-Israeli war on Iran and the subsequent fuel crisis have pushed Brussels to prepare for “the worst-case scenarios,” the EU will not abandon its pivot away from Russian liquefied natural gas, the bloc’s energy chief, Dan Jorgensen, told the Financial Times last month. Brussels will instead rely on more expensive supplies from the US and other partners, he said.

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Just last week, Washington launched a multi-billion dollar push to invest in and build a major US pipeline project in Central and Eastern Europe, which still imports Russian gas via the TurkStream pipeline and its extension – Balkan Stream.

According to Moscow, such US projects, as well as sanctions against Russian oil companies, are part of a sweeping strategy to capture the energy market.

Washington is aiming to monopolize all international energy supply routes in an attempt to attain global economic dominance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told TV BRICS earlier this year.

Prime Minister Evika Silina has dismissed Andris Spruds after unmanned aircraft violated the country’s airspace

Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina has dismissed Defense Minister Andris Spruds after Ukrainian drones hit oil storage facilities on the Baltic state’s territory.

“The drone incident this week clearly showed that the leadership of the defense sector failed to deliver on its promise of a safe sky over our country,” Silina wrote on X.

She added that Spruds had lost both her trust and the trust of the public.

Spruds, however, stated that he had already decided to resign himself. He accused the prime minister of rushing to announce his dismissal for political reasons and lying about informing him and his party, the Progressives, in advance.

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The incident highlights growing tensions and security concerns in the Baltic states amid the ongoing Ukraine conflict.

Several NATO countries bordering Russia have recently reported cases of Ukrainian unmanned aircraft entering their airspace and crashing instead of striking targets inside Russia. Earlier this week, Latvian officials said two drones – which the Russian military identified as Ukrainian Lyuty-type fixed-wing aircraft – crossed into the country overnight. One remains unaccounted for, while another sparked a fire near the town of Rezekne, roughly 40 km from the Russian border.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga commented on the scandal on Friday, claiming he had addressed the issue with Riga and apologized to the three Baltic states and Finland. The top diplomat also attempted to shift the blame to Russia.

Peace talks will remain stalled until the Ukrainian military leaves Donbass, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said

The Ukrainian military needs to pull back from Donbass for the peace process to move forward, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said. Talks between Moscow and Kiev will remain stalled until then, he told journalist Pavel Zarubin, adding that the Ukrainian government knows this.

Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of talks, including with US mediation, since early 2025, when President Donald Trump returned to the White House. The process has slowed down following the latest US-mediated meeting in Geneva in February.

According to Ushakov, any new meetings will not change the situation unless Ukrainian troops are withdrawn. “Until [Ukraine] makes the step, one can hold some more rounds, dozens of rounds [of talks] but we will remain in the same spot,” he said.

“They know in Ukraine that it must be done and they will do it sooner or later,” the presidential aide stated. Ushakov also said that Moscow maintains close contacts with Washington when it comes to the peace process, adding that Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, could visit Russia “soon.”

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“The US is now more preoccupied with the Middle East crisis but they are not abandoning the Ukraine issue,” he told Zaurbin, while saying that Moscow and Washington “actively communicate by phone.”

Earlier this week, Ushakov called a potential Ukrainian withdrawal from Donbass “one serious step” that would greatly advance the settlement process. Military action would cease after that, he stated on Thursday.

The two Donbass republics voted to join Russia together with two other former Ukrainian territories – Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions – in autumn 2022. In March, President Vladimir Putin stated that only between 15% and 17% of the Donetsk People’s Republic remains under Kiev’s control. In April, the Russian military reported fully liberating the neighboring Lugansk People’s Republic.

The Ukrainian leadership has repeatedly refused to both recognize the status of the new Russian regions or to cede any territory to Moscow. It also maintains that recapturing the regions incorporated into Russia is one of its ultimate goals.

France is illegally harvesting its citizens’ data, while accusing social media platforms of doing the same, the entrepreneur has alleged

Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has accused France of hypocrisy after prosecutors expanded a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s X. Durov said French authorities were violating citizens’ privacy while accusing the social media platform of similar conduct.

The entrepreneur made the remarks on Sunday, just days after the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it would seek new charges against X over alleged illegal sexual deepfakes made by the platform’s Grok AI, as well as unlawful data extraction and other crimes.

“The French government is accusing X of the very things the French government itself is doing,” Durov tweeted.

The French government is panicking. They know a major political shift in 2027 will expose their misdeeds – so they’re trying to silence free speech platforms under whatever pretext they think they can get away with.

He called on the international community to back X against what he called the French state’s “immoral assault” on the social media app.

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French investigators initially launched their investigation of X and Grok in January, alleging that the platforms’ algorithms were biased and accusing the company of illegal data gathering and of possessing and spreading sexualized deepfakes created by its AI, including images involving minors.

The tech mogul has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the legal action as a “political attack.”

Last month, the US Department of Justice reportedly denied a request from French prosecutors to cooperate in the investigation. US President Donald Trump’s administration has long been critical of what it has called attacks on free speech and political opposition in the EU and UK.

Durov’s Telegram has also faced legal troubles in France. The entrepreneur was arrested at a Paris airport in 2024 and indicted on a dozen charges after French prosecutors accused him of being complicit in crimes committed using his social media platform. Durov has since been allowed to leave France, despite the ongoing investigation.

READ MORE: ‘Proud to stand alongside Elon Musk’ – Telegram’s Durov

The entrepreneur has repeatedly called the arrest absurd and condemned crackdowns on social media networks as a concerted attack on free speech.

RT explores how Moscow repeatedly pleaded for a second front years before D-Day

Long before the D-Day landings came to symbolize the decisive turning point of the Second World War in many Western narratives, the Soviet Union had already spent years bearing the brunt of the war against Nazi Germany, suffering massive losses while repeatedly urging Britain and the US to open a second front.

By June 1944, when Allied troops landed in Normandy, the Soviet Union had already spent almost three years bearing the brunt of the war, grinding down Hitler’s forces on the Eastern Front after suffering devastating losses and the brutal occupation of much of its territory.

Not only did 27 million Soviet citizens died during the war – a toll unmatched by any other Allied nation – approximately 70% to over 80% of all German military deaths in WWII occurred on the Eastern Front, fighting the USSR. Yet in much of today’s Western discourse, the Soviet role in defeating Hitler is often overshadowed.

The issue resurfaced recently after US President Donald Trump delivered a Victory in Europe Day statement praising the US and Britain for defeating Nazi Germany without mentioning the Soviet Union.

READ MORE: ‘People are forbidden from honoring Victory’: How Europe is erasing the memory of Nazism’s defeat

RT’s Caleb Maupin argued that many Western countries that later formed NATO remain uncomfortable acknowledging the scale of the Soviet sacrifice in World War Two, saying it conflicts with the anti-Russia narrative that has dominated in recent decades.

Kiev should keep its UAVs away from Estonian territory, the country’s defense minister has said

Ukraine should not be using Estonian airspace for drone attacks on Russia, the Baltic nation’s defense minister, Hanno Pevkur, has said.

Over the past few weeks, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland have reported several cases of Ukrainian UAVs crashing in their territory. Moscow previously accused NATO members of quietly permitting Ukraine to target Russian territory, particularly energy facilities in northwestern Leningrad Region.

Earlier this week, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that he told Vladimir Zelensky that Helsinki deems Ukrainian aircraft entering its airspace “unacceptable.”

Speaking about incursions by Kiev’s UAVs on Sunday, Pevkur said that the Estonian authorities “will start dealing with this very quickly now.” Kiev would have to explain “what exactly it means and what they themselves had in mind by it,” he added.

“Certainly, the easiest way for the Ukrainians to keep their drones away from our territory is to control their activities better,” the defense minister said, as cited by ERR website.

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Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said earlier this week that Kiev has every right to carry out attacks inside Russia, but added that Tallinn is concerned about the possibility of more serious incidents involving UAVs.

“Russia could take control of Ukrainian drones and send them toward us,” Tsahkna claimed.

Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds previously declined to criticize Ukraine, insisting that it “has every right to defend itself.” Breaches of Riga’s airspace by foreign aircraft will continue as long as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine remains unresolved, Spruds claimed, blaming Moscow for the incursions.

Kiev is considering sending Ukrainian expert teams “to help directly strengthen the airspace” of the four countries, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga wrote on X on Friday.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu said in April that either Western air defenses are proving ineffective against Ukrainian UAVs or the Baltic States and Finland “deliberately provide their airspace, thereby becoming open accomplices in aggression against Russia.”

READ MORE: Putin believes Ukraine conflict heading towards end

In the latter case, Moscow has the right to self-defense in response to an “armed attack” under Article 51 of the UN Charter, Shoigu warned.