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NATO approves a plan to speed security aid and training to Ukraine's beleaguered armed forces

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NATO approves a plan to speed security aid and training to Ukraine's beleaguered armed forces

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO defense ministers on Friday approved a plan to provide reliable long-term security aid and military training for Ukraine after delays in Western deliveries of funds, arms and ammunition helped invading Russian forces to seize the initiative on the battlefield.

Kyiv’s Western backers have mostly concentrated their efforts through the Pentagon-run Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a forum for around 50 countries to drum up the weapons and ammunition the war-ravaged country needs most.

The new plan would be a complementary effort. Announcing the move after chairing a meeting of defense ministers in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the effort would be headquartered at a U.S. military base in Wiesbaden, Germany and involve almost 700 staff.

He said that it would help to organize training for Ukrainian military personnel in member countries of the alliance, coordinate and plan donations of the equipment that Kyiv needs, and manage the transfer and repair of that military materiel.

The effort has been described as a way to “Trump proof” NATO backing for Ukraine, a reference to concern that former President Donald Trump might withdraw U.S. support for Kyiv should he return to office.

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“It’s to make it proof to any situation,” Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting.

“We have to consider the fact that this (war) might go on for years. We want to have something in place that does not depend on specific persons, ministers, or whoever, but a structure that works,” she said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who leads a stridently nationalist government, has routinely hindered NATO and European Union efforts to help Ukraine. He threatened to veto the plan but agreed to let other allies move ahead if Budapest wasn’t forced to take part.

Kyiv’s outgunned forces are battling to hold back a bigger Russian army. Troop numbers, ammunition and air defenses have run low as the Kremlin’s forces try to cripple the national power supply and punch through the front line in eastern parts of the country.

Moscow has taken advantage of a lengthy delay in U.S. military aid. EU funds were also held up by political infighting.

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Ukraine will need to weather the onslaught through the summer, military analysts say, and at the same time train more soldiers, build fortifications and hope that Western military aid deliveries speed up so that Kyiv can mount a new offensive next year.

Stoltenberg has expressed hopes that U.S. President Joe Biden and his counterparts will agree at their July 9-11 summit in Washington to maintain the funding level for military support they have provided Ukraine since Russia launched its full-fledged invasion in February 2022.

He estimates this at around 40 billion euros ($43 billion) worth of equipment each year.

“We don’t yet have agreement on that,” he told reporters after Friday’s meeting.

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

new video loaded: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

Prosecutors in Switzerland ordered Jacques Moretti to be detained after investigators questioned him and his wife, Jessica Moretti. Officials are looking into whether negligence played a role in last week’s deadly fire at their bar, Le Constellation.

By Meg Felling

January 9, 2026

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland’s leadership is pushing back on President Donald Trump as he and his administration call for the U.S. to take control of the island. Several Trump administration officials have backed the president’s calls for a takeover of Greenland, with many citing national security reasons.

“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and a longtime U.S. ally, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s statements about U.S. acquiring the island.

Greenland’s party leaders reiterated that the island’s “future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.”

“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” the statement said.

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TRUMP SAYS US IS MAKING MOVES TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND ‘WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT’

Greenland has rejected the Trump administration’s push to take over the Danish territory. (Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump was asked about the push to acquire Greenland on Friday during a roundtable with oil executives. The president, who has maintained that Greenland is vital to U.S. security, said it was important for the country to make the move so it could beat its adversaries to the punch.

“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday. “Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”

Trump hosted nearly two dozen oil executives at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela after the historic capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.

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“We don’t want to have Russia there,” Trump said of Venezuela on Friday when asked if the nation appears to be an ally to the U.S. “We don’t want to have China there. And, by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which, if we don’t take Greenland, you can have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.” 

Trump said the U.S. is in control of Venezuela after the capture and extradition of Maduro. 

Nielsen has previously rejected comparisons between Greenland and Venezuela, saying that his island was looking to improve its relations with the U.S., according to Reuters.

A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

FROM CARACAS TO NUUK: MADURO RAID SPARKS FRESH TRUMP PUSH ON GREENLAND

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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday that Trump’s threats to annex Greenland could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.

That same day, Nielsen said in a statement posted on Facebook that Greenland was “not an object of superpower rhetoric.”

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stands next to Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a visit to the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen on April 28, 2025. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland “should be part of the United States.”

CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.

“The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe

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Euronews spoke to Patrick de Bellefeuille, a prominent Canadian weather presenter and climate specialist, on how Europe could benefit from Canada’s long experience with snowstorms. He has been forecasting for MétéoMédia, Canada’s top French-language weather network, since 1988.

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