From higher defence budgets to tighter control over social media, liberals are quietly backing a more muscular state they once resisted, arguing it is the price of keeping European freedoms alive.
Estonia is one of Nato’s smallest members, but its experience of Russian occupation has contributed to high spending on defence and preparedness for attack.
From sentencing a citizen to 13 years for a bus stop graffiti and erasing court records to rehabilitating the architect of the ‘Red Terror,’ Felix Dzerzhinsky, Russia is rapidly backsliding into its most brutal Soviet-era habits. Russian historial Sergei Lukashevsky contends that Putin’s regime has adopted certain methods of governance that are historically familiar to the Russian bureaucracy, while appealing to Soviet nostalgia.
![Kaupo Rosin, director general of the Estonian foreign intelligence service: 'Most [Russian] soldiers have a low IQ level; they are convicts from the lowest strata of society. This is not an army you could use for sophisticated operations. Instead, they keep sending in troops blindly, sending them to their deaths'](https://static.euobserver.com/2026/04/1.webp)
Estonia’s foreign intelligence service chief Kaupo Rosin reflects on a whole-of-society approach to defence, one unexpected threat to Europe, and what he realised at 16.
Michal Onderčo, a nuclear weapons expert from the University of Rotterdam who recently published the book Europe’s Nuclear Umbrella, warns that due to the threat from Russia and the US pivot away from Europe, the era in which European leaders did not have to worry about the issue of nuclear deterrence has ended.
The EU has hired G4S, the world’s largest security company, to guard its diplomats in Lebanon, amid increasing violence.
MEPs have voiced concern about security arrangements at EU embassies, amid a “surprising” new decision on bodyguards in Kabul.
The EU diplomatic service has confirmed that British company PPS will guard its people in Gaza and the West Bank despite the firm’s poor track record.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
The EU’s foreign relations service has awarded a juicy contract to British security firm G4S in Libya despite the fact it has no permission to work there.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.