Denmark

AARHUS, Denmark — In the windswept gardens of a Danish chateau, President Volodymyr Zelensky and some of Ukraine’s main European backers weighed options Thursday for filling the gap after the Trump administration paused weapons shipments to his country.

The U.S. move affects high-demand munitions, including Patriot missiles, the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile and shorter-range Stinger missiles. They are needed to counter incoming missiles, bring down Russian aircraft or counter drone attacks.

But they are in short supply, none are cheap, and some simply can’t be sourced elsewhere.

“We count on the continuation of American support because there are some items which Europe … doesn’t have for today,” Zelensky told reporters in Aarhus, Denmark, as a military helicopter hovered above and security personnel watched nearby woods.

Chief among them: Patriot missile systems and interceptors. “This is crucial,” he said.

Russia’s new push to capture more territory has put Ukraine’s defenses under severe strain, with the war now in its fourth year. Russian missiles and drones are battering Ukrainian cities. U.S.-led efforts to find a peace settlement have stalled.

It’s still unclear even to Zelensky what the White House intends for the weapons shipments. “I hope that maybe tomorrow, or close days, these days, I will speak about it with President Trump,” he said.

Europe’s reason to act

Many in the European Union are keen to step up. They see Russia’s invasion as a threat to their own security. Officials have warned that President Vladimir Putin could try to test Europe’s defenses in three to five years.

“All of us hope that the U.S. will continue the support for Ukraine,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, flanking Zelensky. “But if there are any gaps, then I personally believe that we should be willing to fill in.”

Denmark — a key Ukraine backer — has just taken over the EU presidency for six months.

“The war in Ukraine has never only been about Ukraine. This is a war about the future of Europe,” she said. Most EU countries are members of NATO, which has just agreed that allies should invest 5% of the gross domestic product in defense.

Russia is the chief threat that warrants such spending, although Trump did cajole the Europeans and Canada into agreeing on the figure, which will require them to spend tens of billions of dollars more over the next decade.

Sourcing defense funds

Since the Trump administration warned that its security priorities lie elsewhere and that Europe must fend for itself, the European Commission’s priority has been to find extra money.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched the EU’s big funding gun with $176 billion that countries, including Ukraine, can use to make joint purchases of priority weapons.

The EU’s executive branch also has loosened the rules on countries running up debt if they use the money for defense purposes. It hopes that hundreds of billions of extra euros could be made available, if members use the opportunity to spend more.

Then there are sanctions against Russia. EU nations are working on yet another raft of measures, but they are getting harder to agree on. It now falls to Denmark to try to chaperone the latest sanctions through.

“Russia is on the brink of recession,” noted von der Leyen, standing next to Zelensky. “Russia’s overheated war economy is coming to its limits. So for us, it is important to increase the pressure so that [Putin] comes to the negotiation table.”

Investing in Ukraine, the Danish way

Frederiksen’s government has led the way in investing in Ukraine’s defense industry, which can produce arms and ammunition more quickly and cheaply than elsewhere in Europe. She believes it’s the most effective way to help.

She also recently invited Ukrainian companies to set up shop on safer ground in Denmark, and the first companies could start production there in September. Danish officials are urging their European partners to follow suit.

Ukraine estimates that about 40% of its defense industrial capacity could be capitalized on if more European money were spent there.

Security and EU membership

Frederiksen said that helping Ukraine to join the EU is a security priority, but Hungary stands in the way. Prime Minister Viktor Orban insists that Ukraine should remain a buffer zone between Russia and NATO countries.

EU membership is meant to be a merit-based process, and Denmark has said that “all political and practical means” will be used to persuade Hungary — a small EU country and the only one standing in Ukraine’s way — to lift its veto.

Zelensky said Thursday that Ukraine has made significant progress in aligning with the EU’s rules despite the war, and called for the first phase of membership negotiations to begin as soon as possible.

“Sometimes it’s just difficult to be together in one building, all the government [and] the parliamentarians because of the attacks,” he explained.

Less palatable options

Calls are mounting for the Europeans to use Russian assets that they froze after the full-scale invasion in 2022 to help Ukraine. At the end of March, about $320 billion worth — the bulk of the assets — was being held by Belgian clearing house Euroclear.

The interest earned on those assets is being used to fund a $50-billion scheme set up by the Group of Seven powers to keep Ukraine’s economy afloat.

Some European leaders worry that confiscating Russia’s assets would deprive Ukraine of those profits — estimated at more than $3.5 billion a year. They fear it would also be fraught with legal obstacles and could harm the reputation of the euro single currency on international markets.

Another possibility might be for the Europeans to buy weapons directly from the United States but asked Thursday about that possibility — as well as the confiscation of Russian assets — neither Frederiksen nor von der Leyen would comment.

Cook writes for the Associated Press.

Iran’s embassy in Berlin swiftly rejects allegation after man is arrested in neighbouring Denmark.

A Danish man has been arrested on suspicion of spying in Germany on behalf of Iran, an allegation swiftly denied by the Iranian embassy in Berlin.

German prosecutors on Tuesday said the man, identified only as Ali S under German privacy law, was suspected of conducting the surveillance “in preparation of further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets”.

It added that the individual was suspected of receiving the espionage orders from “an Iranian intelligence service”.

German and Danish authorities said the man had been arrested in Denmark but would be extradited to Germany.

The Iranian embassy in Berlin decried what it called “unfounded and dangerous accusations”.

“Previous discussions with relevant German authorities have already highlighted that certain third parties are attempting to divert public perceptions from the actual events through artificial staging,” the embassy said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said Iran’s ambassador had been summoned after the arrest.

“If this suspicion were confirmed, it would be an outrageous incident that would once again demonstrate that Iran is a threat to Jews all over the world,” Wadephul said during a visit to Odesa, Ukraine, shortly after visiting a synagogue there.

Alleged spying

According to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, the suspect took photos of at least three buildings in Berlin in June.

They included the headquarters of the German-Israeli Society, which has lobbied the European Union to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a “terrorist” organisation, and a building where the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, was said to occasionally stay.

Der Spiegel reported that investigators believe the suspect was working on behalf of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the IRGC.

He was arrested in the Danish city of Aarhus by local police last week and was awaiting extradition to Germany.

During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country was preparing “in case Iran targets Israeli or Jewish institutions”.

He did not provide further details at the time.

Berlin has been a key ally of Israel and vocally supported the attacks on Iran, which began with surprise strikes on June 13.

Move follows campaign accusing Maersk of links to Israel’s military and occupation of Palestinian lands.

Maersk will cut ties with companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank, the Danish shipping giant has said.

The decision follows months-long pressure by activists on Maersk on issues related to Palestine.

Its shipments have come under scrutiny as part of an international campaign led by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a grassroots organisation. The group has focused mainly on Maersk’s shipments of US foreign military sales, but PYM has also researched the transport of cargo from companies tied to settlements.

A statement on the Maersk website, dated June, 2025, said, “Following a recent review of transports related to the West Bank, we further strengthened our screening procedures in relation to Israeli settlements, including aligning our screening process with the OHCHR database of enterprises involved in activities in the settlements.”

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) database includes businesses involved in various activities related to the settlements, such as providing services, equipment, or financial operations that support the illegal settlements.

When asked for further details on its decision, Maersk pointed Al Jazeera to the statement on its website. It is unclear which or how many businesses Maersk had links to.

Israel has built more than 100 settlements across the occupied West Bank that are home to some 500,000 settlers. These settlements, illegal under international law, range from small outposts to larger communities with modern infrastructure.

“This sends a clear message to the global shipping industry: compliance with international law and basic human rights is not optional. Doing business with Israel’s illegal settlements is no longer viable, and the world is watching to see who follows next,” said PYM’s Aisha Nizar.

But she called for further action, arguing that Maersk still transports goods for the Israeli military, including components of its F-35 fighter planes.

“Maersk continues to profit from the genocide of our people – regularly shipping F-35 components used to bomb and massacre Palestinians,” Nizar said. “We will continue to build pressure and mobilise people power until Maersk cuts all ties to genocide and ends the transport of weapons and weapons components to Israel.”

Last year, Spain banned Maersk ships transporting military goods to Israel from using its ports.

Earlier this month, PYM revealed how Maersk was using the port of Rotterdam as an essential link in what it called a “supply chain of death”.

Despite a Dutch court ruling that prohibited the Netherlands from exporting F-35 parts to Israel, Rotterdam still played a role in Israel’s F-35 programme, the report showed.

In response to those findings, Maersk told Al Jazeera that it upholds a strict policy of not shipping weapons or ammunition to active conflict zones and that it conducts due diligence, particularly in regions affected by active conflicts, including Israel and Gaza, and adapts this due diligence to the changing context.

It confirmed, however, that its US subsidiary, Maersk Line Limited, was one of “many companies supporting the global F-35 supply chain” with transport services.

The French president says his US counterpart’s Greenland takeover threats are not something allies do.

French President Emmanuel Macron has arrived in Greenland with a “message of solidarity and friendship” from Europe and castigated United States President Donald Trump’s repeated threats that he intends to take control of the strategic autonomous Danish territory as not “something to be done between allies”.

Macron reiterated his condemnation on Sunday at the Arctic island’s Nuuk airport, where he was greeted by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

“It’s important to show that Denmark and Europe are committed to this territory, which has very high strategic stakes and whose territorial integrity must be respected,” Macron added.

“It means a lot to me … to convey a message of friendship and solidarity from France and the European Union to help this territory face the different challenges: economic development, education, as well as the consequences of climate change,” he continued.

‘Not for sale’

Since returning to the office in January, Trump has repeatedly said the US needs Greenland, a strategically located territory at the crossroads of the Atlantic and the Arctic, for security reasons and has not ruled out taking the territory by force.

However, Denmark has vehemently stressed that Greenland “is not for sale”.

Macron, who is the first foreign head of state to visit Greenland since Trump’s threats, said in a speech last week at the United Nations Ocean Conference that Greenland and the deep seas were not “up for grabs”.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon had developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force, if necessary, last week.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that several high-ranking officials under the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had been ordered to investigate Greenland’s independence movement and US resource extraction in the territory.

But in Greenland, polls indicate that the vast majority of the country’s 57,000 inhabitants may want to become independent from Denmark, but they do not want to join the US.

While Greenland is not part of the EU, it is on the bloc’s list of Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs).

During Macron’s six-hour visit before he travels to Canada for a Group of Seven meeting that Trump is also expected to attend, he plans to discuss Arctic security and ways to include Greenland in “European action” to contribute to its development while “respecting its sovereignty”, his office said.

Following talks with Frederiksen and Nielsen, Macron is also set to visit a glacier to witness the effects of global warming.

French leader’s visit to Greenland comes after US President Donald Trump’s threats to annex the Arctic territory.

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Greenland this month, the French presidency has announced, in the wake of United States expressions of interest in taking over the mineral-rich Arctic island.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and the French leader said they will meet in the semi-autonomous Danish territory on June 15, hosted by Greenland’s new Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

The talks between the leaders will focus on North Atlantic and Arctic security, climate change, energy transition and critical minerals, the French presidency said in a statement on Saturday.

Frederiksen welcomed Macron’s upcoming visit and said in a statement that it is “another concrete testimony of European unity” in the face of a “difficult foreign policy situation”.

The visit comes amid US President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland.

This trip aims to “strengthen cooperation” with the Arctic territory in these areas and to “contribute to the strengthening of European sovereignty”, the French presidency statement stressed.

Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to control the immense Arctic territory, rich in mineral resources and strategically located, “one way or another”.

“We need Greenland for international safety and security. We need it. We have to have it,” Trump said in an interview in March.

The US has also suggested that Russia and China have strategic designs on Greenland.

Trump’s Vice President JD Vance visited the US military base in Pituffik, northwest Greenland, on March 28, in a trip seen as a provocation at the time.

Vance accused Denmark of not having “done a good job for the people of Greenland”, not investing enough in the local economy and “not ensuring its security”.

The vice president stressed that the US has “no option” but to take a significant position to ensure the security of the island as he encouraged a push in Greenland for independence from Denmark.

“I think that they ultimately will partner with the United States,” Vance said. “We could make them much more secure. We could do a lot more protection. And I think they’d fare a lot better economically as well.”

Denmark, for its part, insists that Greenland “is not for sale”.

Addressing American leaders from the huge island, the prime minister said in early April: “You cannot annex another country.”

Faced with American threats, Denmark announced 14.6 billion Danish kroner ($2.1bn) in financial commitments for Arctic security, covering three new naval vessels, long-range drones and satellites.

Greenland’s main political parties, which are in favour of the territory’s independence in the long term, are also against the idea of joining the US.

According to a poll published at the end of January, the population of 57,000 mostly Inuit inhabitants, including more than 19,000 in the capital, Nuuk, rejected any prospect of becoming American.

Incoming Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a news conference in March that the territory needed unity at this time.

“It is very important that we put aside our disagreements and differences … because only in this way will we be able to cope with the heavy pressure we are exposed to from outside,” he said.

CHRISTIAN ERIKSEN has turned his back on extending his Premier League stay – insisting: I’ve done my time in England.

The Denmark international is a free agent with his Manchester United contract expiring, and there is top-flight interest in the midfielder.

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But Eriksen, 33, declared his aim to play in another country after spending over ten seasons in the Premier League.

Signed from Ajax, he had a seven-year stay with Tottenham before leaving for Inter Milan in 2020.

Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on national duty in June 2021, but went on to have a six-month spell with Brentford in early 2022.

United signed him that summer, and he went on to score eight goals in 107 Red Devils appearances.

Eriksen told Danish TV: “I would rather get away from the Premier League.

“I feel like I’ve taken my turn in the Premier League, so I’m looking outside the English borders.

“It has been a great place for me and my family, and we have been there for many years.

Tour miss

Eriksen, like fellow Scandinavian Victor Lindelöf, was absent from United’s chaotic post-season tour.

Some reports suggested the pair refused to travel to Asia for the money-spinning trip.

The Dane playmaker stayed to tie the knot with long-time partner Sabrina Kvist Jensen. Whilst, Lindelof’s wife Maja is currently heavily pregnant with the pair’s third child.

He added: “When I moved from Tottenham to Inter, it wasn’t my plan to go back to England either.

“After that I’ve been there for three and a half years again, so you should never say never.

“But my priority is that I have to leave.”

Danish bookies installed home-country club Odense as favourites to be Eriksen’s next employer.  He spent three years in their youth ranks.

But the midfielder insisted: “It’s football’s rumour mill.  I hope no-one has put money on it being now, because then they will lose.

“Right now there is nothing.  There is interest all around, but there is nothing where I am close to signing.

Eriksen’s move to Manchester United was brought about after his cardiac arrest in the 2021 European Championship prevented him from playing football in Italy due to the implantable defibrillator inserted in his chest.

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His Inter contract was subsequently terminated following the ruling from of the Italian Football Association and he joined Brentford on a short-term deal before signing for United.

The installed defibrillator means that Eriksen is still unable to play football in Italy therefore sign for an Italian club.

“My focus is on playing international matches, and then go on a good summer holiday,” he concluded.

“Then we will see how long the holiday will be.”

Here’s where things stand on Tuesday, May 27:

Fighting:

• Ukraine says Russia launched a record number of drones overnight on Monday, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy describing the attacks as a sign that Moscow is “acting with impunity”.
• Ukrainian air defences downed most of the 355 drones, but several broke through defences, causing casualties, according to authorities. Two elderly women were killed in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the regional governor said.
• Russia, meanwhile, accused Ukraine of launching aerial attacks on its “social infrastructure”. The Ministry of Defence said it shot down at least 48 Ukrainian drones on Monday, after shooting down 96 overnight.
• Russia’s state TASS news agency, citing the Defence Ministry, reported that Russian forces have taken over the villages of Volodymyrivka and Belovody in the northeastern region of Sumy.
• The governor of Sumy said Russian forces had captured four other villages as part of an attempt to create a “buffer zone” on Ukrainian territory. He identified them as Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka, and said that residents had long been evacuated.
• The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said Russian attacks have killed 630 Ukrainian children and wounded 1,960 since the beginning of the war.
• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs special envoy Rodion Miroshnik has accused the Ukrainian military of causing more than 400 civilian casualties in April, including with “inhumane methods of warfare”.

Military aid

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that Ukraine’s key Western allies are no longer limiting the range of weapons they supply, a move the Kremlin said would be “dangerous”.

• Ukraine says it has confirmed information that China is supplying a range of important products to Russian military plants, including tooling machines, special chemical products, gunpowder and components specifically to defence manufacturing industries.

Politics and diplomacy

• The Kremlin responded to United States President Donald Trump’s remark that Putin has gone “absolutely crazy” over the scale of Russian air attacks, suggesting the US leader may be experiencing “emotional overload”.
• It also said that serious work on Russia’s proposal for a possible peace deal for the war in Ukraine was ongoing and that a draft had not yet been submitted. “This is a serious draft, a draft of a serious document that demands careful checks and preparation,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
• Zelenskyy said Russia launched more than 900 drones as well as missiles towards Ukraine over three nights, and again called for intensified pressure on Moscow. “There is no military sense in this, but it is an obvious political choice – a choice by Putin, a choice by Russia – a choice to continue the war and destroy lives,” the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly video address.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said he believes Trump is beginning to see that Putin “lied” to him about the war in Ukraine. He also called for the imposition of a deadline for Moscow to agree to a ceasefire, backed up by the threat of “massive sanctions”./li>
• Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredericton also said that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine over the weekend proved that Moscow is not interested in peace.
• Finland summoned Russia’s Helsinki ambassador to ask for an explanation regarding a suspected violation of Finnish airspace which took place last week. The NATO member said on Friday that it believed two Russian military aircraft entered its airspace off the coast of Porvoo in the southern part of the country.