One of the officials said the military investigators were in touch with their French counterparts about a similar cyberattack on commercial freezers that disrupted supermarkets there earlier this month.

Reuters was not able to ascertain how far along the Pentagon’s investigation was or whether it had reached any conclusions about what happened or who might be responsible. When asked about the investigation, the Pentagon said that a unit of Cyber Command — the military’s cyber force — was “working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners.” It did not elaborate. 

The US Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division said its Cyber Field Office was involved in the investigation and that it was working with French law enforcement to better understand “the refrigeration outages in Europe.”

The late August malfunctions in the United States affected at least six commissaries — on-base stores where military personnel buy their food — according to a Reuters review of the military bases’ contemporaneous Facebook posts and website updates. In at least one of the cases, the freezers did not simply stop working; the cooling units’ temperatures were cranked up overnight, yielding mounds of wilted or melted food in the morning. 

The Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Facebook account explained on August 26 that its freezer “went into defrost mode where it heated up all the food. Trust us when we say it was ‘spoiled.'”

The spate of rogue freezer behavior and the possibility of cybersabotage were first reported on August 28 by a recently created blog called Signal and Silence. The involvement of military investigators and their contacts with the French were reported by the newspaper Stars and Stripes and Britain’s Daily Telegraph, respectively. The news that the investigators were treating the incident as a suspected hack is being reported here for the first time.

The French Embassy in Washington said it would have no comment.

French freezers fried

If confirmed to be a cyberattack, the refrigerator malfunctions would be another illustration of how vulnerable critical infrastructure — in this case cold storage — can be to hackers.

The French freezer cyberattack overrode the temperature controls on commercial cooling units in more than 350 establishments, leading to dramatic scenes as supermarkets’ frozen food aisles were cleared of spoiled merchandise.

The French hack involved cranking the temperature inside the units up rather than merely knocking them offline, similar to what happened in Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Some French refrigeration units had the temperature turned up so high they caught fire. The French attack’s total costs could add up to tens of millions of euros nationwide, one supermarket owner estimated earlier this month. 

The French cyberattack appeared to have ​been easy to pull off, experts previously told Reuters. The Danish firm Danfoss, whose controllers ran many of the stricken units, said that many of the devices were obsolete or were running outdated firmware, which could have made it easy for hackers to break in. Reuters could not establish whether Danfoss or any other brand of freezer controller were in use at the affected US bases. Danfoss did not return messages seeking comment.

Chilling hacks

Refrigeration plays a critical role in the distribution of fresh food and the sabotage of cold storage facilities over the internet has long been seen as a nightmare scenario, alongside the loss of electricity or water plants. 

Earlier this year, the Global Food Safety Initiative, an industry body, called on food safety professionals and IT leaders to work together to ensure “robust cybersecurity” for refrigeration technology, noting that “a hacked cooling system is just as dangerous as a broken one.”

Hackers have previously sabotaged fridges and freezers both in the United States and elsewhere.

Danfoss has said that, in 2022, hackers either targeted or broke into supermarkets in Russia and Israel that were using obsolete versions of its cold storage controllers. In December of last year, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles accused a Ukrainian woman of being part of a hacker group that knocked out the refrigeration at a meatpacking facility in 2024, ruining more than 2,000 pounds of meat.

The root problem was that controllers that were initially conceived as isolated interfaces that would be serviced by an in-person technician were increasingly being connected to the internet, said Bill Moore, the chief executive of industrial cybersecurity firm Xona Systems. Concerns about online exposure were not unique to cooling systems, he said, but they could have particularly serious consequences there.

“It can definitely disrupt the supply chain for food,” he said.

The Dutch-headquartered company said monthly output of its Ruta missile had reached nearly 300 units.

Chief Executive Mikhail Kokorich said he expects Destinus from next year to be able to meet demand across Europe, including Ukraine, for turbojet engines in the roughly 1.5-kilonewton thrust class used in cruise missiles.

He said the company was already producing such engines in series and supplying them both for its own missiles and to other manufacturers.

Ukraine’s missile industry has expanded rapidly during the war, but manufacturers have faced constraints in scaling production of jet-powered weapons, including access to propulsion systems.

Ruta was publicly acknowledged as having been used in combat in October 2025, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the missile had been employed operationally.

Integration challenge

Kokorich said in an interview that Europe was moving from a production challenge to a military integration challenge as missile inventories expand.

The company told Reuters it had begun production of the larger Ruta Block 2 missile, which is designed to carry a 250-kg payload and travel more than 700 km.

Unlike the current Block 1 version, the missile is designed to be stored, transported and launched from the same container, simplifying logistics for larger stockpiles.

“To have sufficient deterrence, you need to have tens of thousands of missiles,” Kokorich said. “But the main challenge … is that European customers still need to build the military units and logistic capabilities to operate these big numbers of systems.”

He said future missile arsenals would need supporting storage, transport, maintenance and targeting infrastructure, and argued that European militaries would need to rethink how they stockpile and deploy precision-strike weapons.

Kokorich also contrasted Destinus’ China-free supply chain with wartime production in Ukraine, saying access to Chinese suppliers would make manufacturing “cheaper, faster, easier” but that Destinus used no Chinese components.

He also pushed back against a growing focus on very long-range strike weapons, arguing that cheaper missiles with ranges below 1,000 km would account for the bulk of future demand.

“We need missiles which can fly long range and attack long-range targets,” he said. “But we need those missiles that fly shorter and cheaper.”

The federal government asked the defense department to continue evaluating the Barak MX developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and the SAMP/T NG from the Eurosam joint venture between MBDA and Thales, it said on Wednesday. In addition to technical, military and weapon-related aspects, the choice takes into account foreign-policy and economic-policy considerations, the federal council said.

Switzerland said in May it would evaluate long-range air-defense systems from manufacturers in Germany, France, Israel and South Korea, with a preference for a system produced in Europe, after delivery of the Patriot system was delayed by several years.

“The Federal Council considers it necessary to strengthen the country’s air defense to address the deteriorating geopolitical situation,” the government said. “Long-range ground-to-air defense systems are indispensable for this purpose, with an adequate supply of ammunition.”

The long-range systems, combined with short-range and medium-range systems as well as fighter aircraft, will allow Switzerland to counter attacks from a distance, including ballistic missiles, the government said.

“It is important that Switzerland can quickly equip itself, in addition to the Patriot, with a second system that meets its needs in light of the threat, allows to expand the protected area, and reduces dependence on a single supplier or a single supply chain,” the council said.

The council said it considered bids from four manufacturers in France, Israel and South Korea.

While the U.S. is prioritizing Patriot delivery to countries that have supplied their own systems to Ukraine, abandoning the Patriot purchase without a replacement system is not an option in the current situation, according to the government. It said discussions with the U.S. on delivery of Patriot systems are continuing.

Parliament is scheduled to review a government proposal for an additional 24 billion Swiss francs (US$30 billion) in defense and security spending during its winter session, including 6 billion francs to finance the second long-range air-defense system and a portion of the additional costs for Patriot, the federal council said.

Once the evaluations are complete and parliament has decided on funding for the armed forces, which is expected in early 2027, the council will decide on additional appropriation for the Patriot system and the next steps for the second long-range air-defense system, it said.

Switzerland previously agreed to buy Diehl Defence’s IRIS-T SLM system for medium-range air defense and the Oerlikon Skynex short-range system from Rheinmetall.

The trilateral meeting on security in the Black Sea region was also attended by the Chiefs of Defense of Bulgaria and Turkey, Adm. Emil Eftimov and Gen. Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, and the Deputy Chief of Defense of Romania, Lt. Gen. Dragos Dimitru Iakub.

The meeting signals a coordinated approach by the three NATO littoral states to the growing risks to commercial shipping and maritime infrastructure arising from the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Financial Times reported based on data from maritime security company Ambrey and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that since the beginning of the year, more than 570 vessels have been hit in the Black Sea, killing at least 40 seafarers. By comparison, 24 deaths have been recorded in the Strait of Hormuz area for the same period.

The joint declaration highlights the Black Sea’s importance for global trade and the supply of grain fertilizers and recalls that all parties must comply with international law, including the Montreux Convention and applicable international humanitarian law, to ensure security in the Black Sea and preserve regional stability.

Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey also agreed to enhance information and intelligence sharing, improving maritime domain awareness and strengthening early warning to support security and stability in the Black Sea.

Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler stated after the meeting that Turkey will maintain its current implementation of the Montreux Convention.

“I believe that the united and resolute position we have demonstrated here today, in full coordination and solidarity with our friends and allies Bulgaria and Romania, is important in clearly reminding both warring parties that the security of commercial shipping routes in the Black Sea and the safety of littoral countries constitute inviolable red lines,” Güler said.

The Bulgarian Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov stated that the three Black Sea countries will continue active cooperation both in a trilateral format and within NATO, in close coordination with the member states and partners of the alliance.

As the ministerial meeting was convening in Sofia, the Bulgarian Navy reported that it has successfully conducted a rescue operation for the crew of the Liberian flag merchant ship Contship Jet after it was hit by an unmanned surface vessel. The ship was 17 miles east of Cape Kaliakra in Bulgaria and bound for the port of Constanta in Romania.

The three countries will continue consultations, with the next round scheduled to take place in Ankara and Bucharest.

A group formed by students to battle alleged corruption in Serbia trounced Aleksandar Vucic at the polls by half a million votes, signaling exasperation with Vucic’s 12-year, increasingly authoritarian rule.

Vucic sought to punch above his weight on the international stage by playing Russia off against the European Union by seeking EU membership and supplying arms to Ukraine, but also refusing to apply sanctions against Russia.

He also acted as a bridgehead into the Balkans for China, signing major infrastructure deals with Chinese firms.

Vucic accompanied his outreach to Europe and China with large arms purchases, including buying 12 Rafale jets from France and FK-3 and HQ-17A air defense systems as well as CH-92 and CH-95 drones from Beijing.

Serbia also purchased Hermes drones from Israel and struck a deal with Elbit to assemble drones in Serbia.

According to SIPRI, Serbia spent around 1.12 billion euros on arms procurement in 2025 and nearly 3.65 billion euros in the period 2021-25.

In January, Vucic announced he would double Serbia’s military capabilities within 18 months.

But on Sunday, he was voted out of office after students put up their university professors as candidates in a national election, forging a political party with huge support but no named leader.

Katarina Djokic, a researcher at SIPRI, told Defense News the new government would stay busy in the short term focusing on expunging Vucic’s firm grip on business and politics at home, with defense pushed further down the to-do list.

“The new government will have other priorities — prominently, delivering on anti-corruption policies and reestablishing functioning political institutions, which will be challenging enough. Under such conditions, there could be less resources and less political consensus for major defense projects,” she said.

“What could reasonably be expected is a slowdown in armament expenditures in the couple of years to come,” she added.

Djokic noted that the Student List’s manifesto talks of continuing to develop its layered air defense and modernizing Serbia’s air force, but she pointed to a stress on improving the lot of personnel, with a pay rise promised.

The manifesto talks of remedying a “scarcity of qualified personnel.”

The document also says an inquiry will be set up to pore over the paperwork of Vucic’s arms accords looking for corrupt deals.

“A new commission is being formed – an independent, interdepartmental government commission for irregularities, abuses and corruption in the production, procurement and export of weapons, as part of a general audit of the previous regime’s contracts,” it states.

The manifesto adds, “We will modernize defense industry factories and turn them into smart factories, establish a National Center for Military Electronics in cooperation with technical faculties, and launch a defense software program.”

The new government may not be so well disposed to defense deals with Israel. In the manifesto’s section on foreign policy it states, “We will not be complicit in the systematic attempt to destroy the Palestinian people that Israel is carrying out in the Gaza Strip.”

Vucic was adept at linking his arms build-up to tensions with neighboring Kosovo, which was formerly a part of Serbia and never acknowledged as an independent state by Serbia.

“Depending on the new government’s regional relations, there may be less incentive to use regional tensions and “arms races” as a pretext for ordering more arms, and more advanced arms,” said Djokic.

The Student List’s manifesto does however suggests the new government will keep up demands that Kosovo is reintegrated into Serbia.

“We will fight for the preservation of Kosovo … as part of Serbia,” it states.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its estimate, which has not been shared publicly.

The disclosure about the rising cost of the Iran war comes as Republicans wrestle with the political fallout of the unpopular conflict ahead of the November 3 election that will determine control of Congress for the next two years.

The war’s impact on global energy costs has weighed on support for Republican candidates and hurt President Donald Trump’s approval ratings. Trump’s Republican Party holds a narrow majority in both chambers of Congress.

The Pentagon’s latest estimate was tied to the operational costs of carrying out the war, with a projected cost of more than $29 billion to replace expended munitions used in the conflict.

More than $6 billion would be needed to replace military equipment and so-called “platform losses,” which include the loss of aircraft and drones during the war.

Trump launched the Iran war jointly with Israel in February, predicting ​that the conflict would last a short time.

Trump’s initial strategy in the Iran war focused on first using expensive, high-end precision missiles to bomb Iran’s defenses so it could later use less expensive munitions, including gravity bombs like the air-launched JDAMs, which are plentiful.

But an April ceasefire gave time for Iran to dig out underground storage facilities, bringing back online some Iranian defenses, as well as missiles and drones that had been inaccessible.

Trump has since imposed a naval blockade on Iran to starve it of oil export revenue and held out the possibility of restarting combat operations after the midterm elections. US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the Pentagon has been planning to restart heavy fighting if ordered to do so.

The latest Pentagon estimate compares to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s July estimate of $37.5 billion for the cost of the war.

While the figures include a host of operational costs, from flight operations to cyber support, the US military’s Iran war cost estimates did not clearly account for the massive expense expected to repair damage to US bases sustained by Iranian missile and drone attacks.

Diesel averaged $6.35 a gallon on Monday, just below the record $6.53 set in September, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The economy is the top issue heading into the Nov. 3 midterms, with 84% of registered voters calling it “very important” to their vote and 54% saying the same of energy policy, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Sept. 28 to Oct. 4.

“The president decided to pin this problem not on Putin, but on me. Explaining to his people that because of this, diesel prices in America are going up. That is completely untrue,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said of Trump’s recent claims that Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries were to blame for the price increases.

Trends in federal data back up the Ukrainian president, showing that the steep initial rise in diesel prices followed the start of the Iran war — not Ukrainian strikes on Russian production infrastructure.

U.S. diesel stayed below $3.90 a gallon from August 2025 until the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began Feb. 28, then jumped nearly 25% in a week to $4.86, according to the Energy Information Administration.

“This crisis has its roots in the Middle East. Everyone understands that perfectly well. Everyone knows how to do the math,” Zelenskyy said on Oct. 12, quoting his remarks to the Warsaw Security Forum. “If Russia accounts for 2.2% of global diesel supplies, what impact can it have on the price? That’s how negligible it is.”

Even Moscow’s senior officials agree.

“The key guarantee of full stabilization of this market is the speediest normalization of the situation around the Persian Gulf, overcoming the conflict around Iran,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Borisenko told reporters Oct. 12.

The International Energy Agency confirmed in an Oct. 14 report that easing Russia’s diesel export ban is unlikely to materially change global supplies because Russia lacks the working refinery capacity.

Critics of the deal

The diesel sales will barely move American prices before the vote, but the deal would benefit Russia disproportionately and cost Kyiv one of its few levers against the Kremlin, according to the Institute for the Study of War and the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

The current situation gives Moscow deeper diplomatic ties with Washington — economic cooperation that continues despite Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s more vulnerable energy grid — as well as more money for its war chest and the prospect that U.S. pressure will halt Ukraine’s strikes on its refineries that help fund the war, experts at both institutions said.

“The diesel agreement gives Putin an opportunity to advance economic cooperation with Washington before any settlement in Ukraine,” Carnegie senior fellow Tatiana Stanovaya wrote on Oct. 14. “Economic agreements can coexist with unchanged demands on Ukraine and continued military pressure.”

The Kremlin is also using the deal to win U.S. support for its negotiating position with Ukraine, part of a recurring effort to offer Washington economic incentives it claims are unrelated to the war “in order to extract concessions from the U.S. regarding the war,” ISW said.

Critics in Kyiv and Washington, including members of Trump’s own party, warn the deal will put more oil money in Russian hands and disproportionately impact Ukraine. Zelenskyy told the Warsaw Security Forum that the country has “just one oil refinery,” while Russia has 32 major refineries, according to the International Energy Agency.

Four Republican and three Democratic senators urged the Trump administration Oct. 11 to “immediately reverse course,” saying in a joint statement that “the United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians.”

Two days later, 12 senators from both parties, including Republicans Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, wrote to Trump in a letter that the deal will have “a negligible impact on fuel prices” and “is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies.”

“Putin is looking for a way to get the United States to pressure Ukraine to stop striking those refineries,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., wrote the day the deal was announced.

Not enough to offset losses

Ukraine’s strikes have taken some Russian diesel off the market.

Russian diesel production fell by nearly 30% as attacks on refineries intensified, the International Energy Agency said in a Sept. 17 analysis.

The estimated gross value of Russia’s seaborne crude shipments hit a wartime high of $2.76 billion this week, up roughly $430 million from the week before, Bloomberg reported. 

No strikes on Russian refineries were reported last week, and the lull has allowed Moscow to boost processing rates, likely diverting crude that would otherwise have been exported, the outlet reported.

But the Gulf’s losses are far larger. Diesel exports from the region dropped to 390,000 barrels a day in August, just over a quarter of prewar levels, according to International Energy Agency figures.

Russia’s promised deliveries won’t close that gap.

The first shipment equals just about 2% of U.S. diesel demand over a month, CNBC reported. Goldman Sachs estimated the first two months of deliveries would cut wholesale prices on the U.S. Gulf Coast by just $1 to $2 a barrel, or roughly 2 to 5 cents a gallon.

“Now we can see how cash will start flowing back into Russia through the diesel deal,” Zelenskyy told reporters at a European Union summit in Brussels on Oct. 16, according to Reuters.

“This diesel deal will never be enough to offset the impact of the Strait of Hormuz on global markets. But it will put more money straight into Putin’s pocket to fund this war.”

Trump eased sanctions on Russian diesel after an Oct. 9 call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying in a Truth Social post that Russia would supply hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel fuel “immediately” and that diesel prices would come down “IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!”

The same day, U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner told Ukrainian negotiators in Miami that the White House hoped the diesel deal would soften Moscow’s stance on peace talks. Witkoff met Putin for in-person negotiations last week for the ninth time since February 2025.

Kyiv offered to refrain from striking Russian refineries if Moscow stopped hitting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Zelenskyy said Oct. 11.

Ukraine paused refinery strikes at Trump’s request, but Russia kept hitting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, prompting Kyiv to resume its own counterattacks, Zelenskyy told the Financial Times on Oct. 15.

“We’re done,” he said.

Within days of Trump’s sanction announcement, Ukrainian officials accused Washington of pressuring Kyiv to capitulate by withholding missile warnings and throttling the military’s essential Starlink connectivity, intelligence that Zelenskyy said “helps save people’s lives.”

Trump denied any interruption in missile warnings or Starlink service, but Ukrainian officials have stood by their account, prompting Zelenskyy to say he felt betrayed by the U.S.

Both have since been restored, Zelenskyy said Saturday, but Russia’s attacks have not let up.

Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles and more than 280 drones at Ukraine overnight Monday into Tuesday, targeting “energy, logistics and ordinary urban infrastructure” almost everywhere, Zelenskyy said.

The barrage came as the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded that Russian authorities had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity through attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

In his first budget, Healey said he would also adopt this approach of “looking hard at public spending” to set out the details of how Britain will meet the NATO commitment of spending 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035, and mark a target date for 3% in 2030.

“In today’s budget, I am fully funding the Defence Investment Plan, including through capital reprioritization across Whitehall. This honors the commitment made both by me – and by the prime minister,” he told parliament, referring to a part of London home to most government departments.

Healey, Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Defense Minister Wes Streeting are under pressure to increase investment more quickly.

Confirming that detailed plans for reaching the 3% and 3.5% goals will be set out in a spending review planned next year, Healey said he was also “determined to use more innovative financing, alongside the private sector and our international allies.”

That delay in plotting a clear pathway to 3.5% will heighten calls by the main opposition Conservatives, who have demanded Healey’s resignation if he failed to set out a credible plan at the budget.

Healey resigned as defense minister under Keir Starmer in June over what Healey viewed as inadequate spending on defense, specifically over the former prime minister’s unwillingness or inability to find funds to reach the 3% goal by 2030.

“We are reinforcing our relations with partners in the Indo-Pacific region. In addition, we see plenty of opportunities to deepen defense materiel cooperation,” Häkkänen was quoted as saying in a statement released by the Finnish government ahead of the trip.

He caught up with Defense News in Wellington for a brief interview.

What NATO assets is Finland prepared to host?

When we joined NATO we were prepared, nationally, to defend ourselves. As a NATO member our first responsibility is a strong, national defense with lots of European assets in the Navy, Air Force and also in space nowadays.

We have established NATO’s northern Europe’s land headquarters in the Arctic area, on Finnish soil. So we are leading the land defense.

What are your priorities for Finland’s defense?

We have four pillars in our defense policy. The first one is that Finland, by itself, has to be always, always, ready to defend our own country.

Second, is strong NATO in northern Europe. Now we have built NATO’s capabilities to operate in Arctic areas, so we are really happy to see that  NATO’s evermore able to act in the north.

Third, is defense corporation with different countries. Some countries — for example the United States and European countries — are in operational planning on how to act together in crisis situations, so that’s the third pillar. Supporting NATO’s Article five. 

And the fourth pillar is comprehensive security. We have to have enough from our own country: energy, food, equipment from the defense industry. We have civil shelters for almost 5.5 million people [editor’s note: much of Finland’s total population], and the whole society has to be prepared to act in crisis mode. Every company has to plan how they can operate, even if war starts. 

We are developing and investing heavily in those pillars. The Finnish way to do things is cost-effective, high-quality and win-win. We are not just saying that Finland needs something, we’re also ready to provide our knowledge, our expertise.

How do your NH90 operations compare with New Zealand’s?

There were difficulties at the start. But now our special forces and our land forces are using the NH90 and they have been customized to Finnish needs, to our special environment. Our pilots are really satisfied and when they have compared NH90 to some other equipment that is now in the market, they think that this is still the best one. 

How is Finland supporting Ukraine ?

Heavily, by all the political levels. We are heavy supporters of Ukrainian military from our stocks. We are giving a lot of money, because we see that if Ukraine doesn’t stop Russia, Russia’s hunger will grow for Europe and they will do something nasty.

Supporting Ukraine is also supporting our own security and it shows all the other dictators around the world that democratic nations are united to support Ukraine and oppose violence against neighbors. That’s why we are really happy to see that New Zealand’s also [supporting] Ukraine. 

France has offered to extend its nuclear deterrent to Europe, what do you think of that proposal ?

Let me be clear, NATO’s nuclear deterrence comes [from] U.S. weapon systems, that’s for sure, but France gives an additional, extra deterrence and that will create some strategic dilemmas for Putin.

What keeps you awake at night ?

My kids! I have two small kids and I live at the eastern border, at the Russian border, so I’m cool. I fish there, in beautiful lakes, and I have my house there with my family, so I’m taking it easy, like everyone who lives [there]. That’s a strong border. 

We have always tried to have diplomatic relations with Russia, but throughout history, from Catherine the Great to Peter the Great, Russians have always been willing to use violence, against their own people, but also against their neighbors.

That’s why Finland has been always pragmatic in defense and security, you have to always be ready. That’s why we are so cool and calm. There [are] a million reservists in Finland, everyone has had military training. We know that Russia is a threat, but we have to just do our stuff, be prepared to invest heavily, keep our friends close, get new friends globally and do stuff right —that’s the Finnish way to handle a difficult security situation.

The Joint Expeditionary Force, is that proving useful?

JEF is one of the most important defense operations for Finnish and northern Europe’s defense. We think that the most valuable part of JEF is that it can react fast; JEF has already operated, so there’s no need to wait for some kind of clear Article Five case.

How can New Zealand’s forces support yours?

Well, we are now having this dialogue between our partners … there’s different kinds of possibilities with different organizations. For example, today we discussed space capabilities, Finland has a lot of space companies and a lot of technological expertise, but New Zealand has different kinds of space capability, launching, for example. Also countering problems with undersea cables.

Do you see Ukraine joining NATO?

Maybe someday. Ukraine’s path is to the West, to their democratic alliances in Europe. But all the NATO countries have to approve it and U.S. and other countries have said no at this point.

About a quarter of New Zealand’s defense force consists of women, do you know the percentage of women in Finland’s forces?

It’s much smaller, but it’s rising. All the men are obliged to participate and it’s voluntary for women. The number of women are growing now because everyone in Finland wants to participate.

Is everyone still happy in Finland?

Yeah, we’re the happiest nation in the world, for nine years in a row. Even though there’s some challenges and dark clouds in the war in Europe, still people in Finland are quite cool.

Russia is building new military infrastructure near our borders, so we have to do more for our security. But we can do it, it’s not a big problem.

I’m optimistic. The Finnish mindset … it’s kind of a mixup of reason and optimism. You face the world as it is. You have to adapt, take your chances, find the possibilities in economy, security and do the best that you can do.