Signal No. 150 · Two names for thirty-six months

Member states' ambassadors met twice on Monday on the individual listings under the territorial-integrity regime. The morning session ended without a decision; by then the Irish presidency had proposed removing both Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from the list and renewing everything else for 36 months. The afternoon session produced a provisional agreement on those terms. Accounts differ on the last step: the Kyiv Independent has a third, evening meeting to confirm it, Reuters a deal that stands “as long as no EU government objected to the move within the next few hours”. Ministers of the 27 then adopt the decision, which the Kyiv Independent calls a formality. The seven-day extension of 14 September runs out at midnight on Tuesday.

The regime has been renewed every six months, in March and September; the proposal France and Slovakia blocked this month was for twelve. Euronews says it understands that “Uzbek authorities and France have reached an agreement behind the scenes” under which Usmanov would come off the list and Azerbaijan would release two French nationals from prison, on a pardon from President Ilham Aliyev. France has not confirmed it and cites national security; a senior Azerbaijani diplomat rejected the link on Friday, Reuters reports. Slovakia had asked for both names. Luxembourg, Euronews reported before Monday's meetings, had demanded that Fridman come off if Usmanov did; Fridman is in a legal battle with the Grand Duchy, seeking compensation for frozen assets put at about USD 16 billion, and has sued the Council before the EU's General Court.

Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine's foreign minister: “What has changed? Nothing.” Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the Ukrainian president's sanctions commissioner: “Delisting without a fundamental change in conduct sends exactly the wrong signal: pressure is temporary, accountability is negotiable, and sanctions can simply be waited out.”

Silver Wotan 2026 has run since 14 September around and on Gotland and ends on Wednesday 23 September. The Bundeswehr Joint Force Command conducts it with the Swedish armed forces' operations staff. In the scenario Sweden asks NATO for support, and German air force and navy personnel deploy to help Swedish units protect land-based anti-ship missile systems on the island. Trade reporting has Germany contributing more than 500 troops, with about 2,000 Bundeswehr personnel from army, navy and air force involved in all. Equipment went by sea from Karlskrona to Visby, part of it on a commercial ferry; flight-tracking data showed Luftwaffe transports, at least one A400M among them, apparently taking part. German Tornados fly surveillance. The Swedish side includes the Gotland Regiment, the island's permanent garrison, warships and the coastal missile batteries.

Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank, who commands the Joint Force Command, called Gotland “an operationally and strategically important hub” and “key terrain for NATO” in a collective-defence case.

Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow's mayor, said on Sunday that more than 1,600 drones had been shot down across Russia since Saturday, 450 of them aimed at the capital; the Kyiv Independent could not verify the figures. On 18 June, when nearly 200 drones were flown at Moscow, he counted about 180 downed over the city. At Gazprom Neft's refinery in the Kapotnya district, about 560 kilometres from Ukraine, Ukraine's general staff says the AVT-6 primary unit, the integrated refining unit and the isomerisation unit were damaged; Sobyanin said only that a facility at the refinery was damaged, Interfax reported. The plant has a capacity of 12 million tonnes a year and supplies about 40 per cent of the Moscow fuel market. It was hit on 17 May, and again on 16 and 18 June, when industry sources said the primary distillation column was knocked out and the Euro+ unit, about 47 per cent of capacity, was damaged. On 24 June the estimate from industry sources was an outage of at least six months.

Andrei Vorobyov, the Moscow region's governor, reported three people killed in the region, one of them in the village of Sofyino, and 400 residents evacuated from an apartment block in Ramenskoye; Sobyanin reported no casualties in the city. Sunday was the last of three days of voting for the State Duma. Sobyanin said the attack had been planned to disrupt the elections.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night.” He named the Flamingo cruise missile and the Pelican drone among the weapons used.

Kaja Kallas, the EU's high representative, wrote to the foreign and defence ministers of the 27 on Saturday; Eunews has the letter, quoted here in Eunews's translation. Houthi forces have taken the port of Mocha, Perim island inside the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands about 160 kilometres to its north, the last after government-allied forces withdrew. Kallas calls this “a serious threat to maritime security” that “is already affecting European interests, with repercussions for our supply chains”. For Aspides, the EU's Red Sea escort operation, and Atalanta, its counter-piracy operation off the Horn of Africa, she asks ministers to consider “more numerous and well-equipped naval and air assets to cope with the increased threat level, including greater capabilities to ensure close protection”: “we must be able to substantially increase our presence”. She wrote ahead of the defence and foreign affairs councils due in September and October. The letter as reported names no number of ships.

NATO said on Saturday, at the close of the Military Committee conference in Copenhagen: “Allied nations elected General Carsten Breuer, Chief of Defence of Germany, to be the next Chair of the NATO Military Committee. He will assume the post in summer 2027, for a three-year mandate.” He succeeds Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone of Italy. Breuer has been the Bundeswehr's inspector general since March 2023; the last German chair was General Harald Kujat, from 2002 to 2005. In June Breuer and General Alexus Grynkewich, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, met two dozen defence firms at Schloss Elmau on requirements for 2029, 2035 and 2039.