Elena Ananyeva — on the upcoming NATO summit without Ukraine, the rapprochement of London with Brussels and the expansion of the scope of activities of the OIC
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte wants the NATO summit in The Hague, scheduled for June 24-25, to be meaningful and short, the New York Times reported . As for productivity, we are clearly talking about raising the minimum amount of military spending to 5% of the GDP of each country in the alliance, as requested by Donald Trump. As for brevity, Rutte is trying to avoid disrupting the summit.
In all this political and militaristic modern game of NATO, it is necessary, in my opinion, to take into account the role of the Joint Expeditionary Force, which is not very well known in our country, and the United Kingdom in particular. However, about everything in order.
The NATO Summit and a new era for London and Brussels
The disruption of the NATO summit is possible due to the open split over Ukraine, the conflict between the US president and the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky. There will be no meeting of the NATO—Ukraine Council at the summit. And Trump is currently objecting to Ukraine's membership in the organization.
However, the problem faced by NATO runs deeper than the personal animosity of the leaders of the two countries. During the Trump presidency, the United States intends to abandon its primary responsibility for the defense of Europe, creating a situation of uncertainty for the European members of the alliance.
It is rumored that the discussion will be limited to the fact that its participants will approve new cost parameters, which over time may allow European allies to replace the United States as the main guarantor of conventional defense — their own. We should also recall the program for the rearmament of the EU member states for € 800 billion with connection to preferential loans for € 150 billion and Britain. The latter became possible thanks to the security and defense partnership agreement between London and Brussels, concluded on May 19 at the first post-Brexit summit of the EU and the United Kingdom. According to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a new era has begun in relations between London and Brussels, and Britain has "returned to the world stage."
Whether Trump will curtail support for Ukraine, abandon attempts to achieve a cease-fire and normalize relations with Russia, withdraw American troops from Europe, and lift range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine is difficult to predict with the impulsiveness of the US leader.
In any case, the "coalition of the willing" does not abandon its intention to involve the United States in an active confrontation with Russia, even if negotiations on transatlantic coordination of joint measures to counter circumvention of anti-Russian sanctions have failed at this stage. For example, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant refused to include the words about lowering the ceiling on Russian oil prices in the final communique of the meeting of finance ministers and heads of the Central Bank of the G7 in Canada on May 27. In addition, Trump announced 50% duties on EU goods, even if he postponed their introduction until July 9 after a conversation with EC President Ursula von der Leyen.
Joint Expeditionary Force
However, in case the "coalition of the willing" fails and the United States departs from its obligations in Europe, Britain has a backup option (in addition to bilateral defense agreements with France and Germany) — the Joint Expeditionary Force. Let me remind you that when asked by Trump during the Prime minister's visit to the White House on February 27, 2025, whether Britain would be able to stand up to Russia alone, Starmer just grinned. Britain is not able to resist alone and is not going to.
In 2014, at the NATO summit in Wales, the United Kingdom, under its auspices, created a corps of 10 countries on the northern flank of Europe — Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, and Sweden. Moreover, the latter two joined the UEC when they still adhered to a neutral status (and only later joined NATO — in April 2023 and March 2024, respectively). The special feature of the corps is that it represents an association of the countries of Northern Europe and the Baltic States and aims to operate in the regions of the Far North, the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea.
The stated goal is to improve the defense capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Nordic and Baltic countries. The United Kingdom government, noting its interest, described them as "a group of highly mobile, adaptable forces designed to enhance the UK's ability to respond quickly anywhere in the world, together with like-minded allies or on behalf of international organizations such as the United Nations or NATO." The UEC is not a part of NATO, but complements it.
The combined forces are capable of "responding to situations without consensus and very quickly." The UEC notes that the allies uk/2021/05/11/ ready-to-respond-what-is-the-jef/"target="_blank" rel="nofollow">can "take collective action below the traditional threshold of war, which NATO may not be able to do." I would like to emphasize that the DEC must be ready to respond, starting from situations outside the scope of NATO Article 5 and ending with full-scale operations during crises or conflicts, working in close cooperation with NATO. This means that the corps intends to participate in operations up to a full-scale intervention during a crisis or conflict, not only in the home region, but also beyond its borders. The United Kingdom serves as the "foundation" or leading country of this association, and the UEC is not a separate army or combat forces, but a voluntary association. In other words, any two or more participants can act on a joint basis independently, without the others.
In government reviews in the field of defense, security and foreign policy Russia has been described as the "most serious threat" to Britain's security. The October 2023 concept of the ECO states that Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine has increased the importance of the corps as a "tool for ensuring regional security" for its members.
Military activities of the UEC
In 2019, nine UEC member countries took part in the Baltic Protector, the first UEC training deployment (20 ships and about 3,000 military personnel participated in amphibious landings in the Baltic States). The corps' exercises are also coordinated with NATO exercises. For example, in February 2024, the Global Guardian UEC air defense "training" was coordinated with the NATO Steadfast Defender exercise. At the headquarters in the UK, it was hinted that the exercises were being conducted, implying Russia as an opponent.
During 2023, the UEC has developed a number of threat response options — one of them includes naval and air forces that will be deployed in the core region of the UEC to protect critical underwater infrastructure. Let me remind you that the Nord Stream gas pipelines were blown up in the Baltic Sea, but Russia was not allowed to investigate and the true perpetrators of the sabotage were not found. However, zeal was shown for the vessels, which in the West were considered Russia's "shadow fleet."
The United Kingdom led the creation of an alliance to combat such a "shadow fleet" of the Russian Federation. The initiative was proposed by Starmer at the European Political Community in 2024, for example, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on 93 oil tankers that, in its opinion, transport Russian oil. London has introduced a new system called Nordic Warden to monitor threats to underwater infrastructure and vessels associated with this so-called shadow fleet. The initiative was a response to the damage to the Estlink2 submarine cable in the Baltic Sea, which, according to the Finnish authorities, could have been caused by a tanker involved in the "shadow fleet". This activity is coordinated by the UK headquarters with the help of 28 ships and 6 aircraft. This second response option was conducted during June 2024 and included monitoring of shipping, underwater energy and communication routes, as well as "suspicious activity."
Starmer's statement complements the agreement between the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland and Estonia on the request for insurance confirmation from the alleged "shadow" vessels following the Baltic route. To date, the NATO operation Baltic Sentry (or "Sentinel") has faced problems — it will no longer be possible to stop and inspect tankers with Russian oil, since the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy has begun escorting cargo ships in the waters of the Gulf of Finland.
Expansion of the region of activity of the UEC to Ukraine and the Arctic
In February 2023, the Parliamentary Defense Committee directed the UK's attention to the Far North, the Arctic, some areas of the North Atlantic and its leadership in the Joint Expeditionary Force. It is assumed that in the Strategic Defense Review (expected in June), the Labor Party will announce the permanent deployment of British troops in the Arctic, modeled on the contingent already stationed in Estonia.
Britain is actively expanding its sphere of interest to the south, linking it with the northern flank. In February 2022, the Kingdom uk/government/news/joint-statement-by-the-united-kingdom-poland-and-ukraine-17-february-2022" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">announced a trilateral agreement with Poland and Ukraine. And in October 2023, the leaders of the UEC agreed to invite Ukraine to monitor the exercises in 2024 and 2025 in order to "increase interoperability and strengthen the potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine." Boris Johnson, the head of the Conservative government, pointed to the similarity in the thinking of the allies in the corps, specifying that it "consists of the countries that, together with us, sent direct military assistance to Ukraine the fastest." The Labour government maintains continuity with the Tory policy. In its election manifesto, the party said it would seek "new bilateral agreements and closer cooperation with partners in the Joint Expeditionary Force." In January 2025, the Labor Party continued the line of the conservatives and concluded a 100-year partnership agreement with Ukraine, aiming at access from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov (I emphasize that by that time the Sea of Azov had already become an inland sea of Russia).
At the beginning of May in Oslo, at the ECO summit, cooperation with Ukraine, which is clearly not part of the region, was discussed. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Storé identified four key areas of development:
- Ukraine's participation in relevant military exercises, meetings and forums;
- assistance in training personnel for the Armed Forces of Ukraine;
- expanding mutual learning of modern warfare techniques and technological innovations;
- preparation for Ukraine's participation in future UEC events.
It was decided to invite Ukraine to conclude an expanded partnership with the UEC. As a result: the British continue to sponsor the Kiev regime and keep it afloat, attracting it to the bloc created by Britain.
The UEC quickly prepared policy statements for the leaders' summits, which provided a unified position against Russia after the outbreak of its conflict. Moreover, the OIC countries exerted pressure on other NATO members for this purpose. Thus, the OIC has collectively provided Ukraine with more diplomatic, military, and humanitarian assistance than the rest of NATO members combined, except for the United States.
In 2023, the UEC agreed on a development concept for 10 years ahead, and with it the desire to become a key structure in the future architecture of European security as a European leader within NATO.
In conclusion, the UEC will hold Tarassis25 military exercises in September 2025. Without equivocation, the main task of the exercises is to work out a time—synchronized and space-coordinated attack on Russia along the entire length of the northern border, from Murmansk to Kaliningrad, with the destruction of operational and strategic forces of the Russian Federation capable of retaliatory or counter-retaliatory strike.
The exercises will take place in the territory from the Baltic Sea to the North Atlantic and the Arctic, that is, the geography of the exercises is expanding. They will take place simultaneously with the Zapad exercises of Russia and Belarus and will be the largest since the creation of the UEC.
Elena Ananyeva
Head of the Center for British Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, PhD
