2026-03-11 22:47:24
Over the past year, this author reviewed court records, indictments, and investigative reports to build what is probably the first open-source database of major known cryptocurrency money-laundering schemes.
It includes 164 cases spanning roughly two decades and shows roughly $350bn in illicit flows have moved through crypto-linked laundering schemes.
The findings are alarming, and the figures are conservative; many more are likely to remain hidden. The true figure is almost certainly far higher.
The trend is also worsening. The number of identified cases in the database has been rising at a compound annual growth rate of 16.5%. Crypto-enabled financial crime is no longer a niche problem of scams and shadow exchanges. It is becoming a major enabler of state-backed aggression, organized crime, and sanctions evasion.
The most troubling pattern is not just the scale of the flows, but who is behind them.
North Korea receives an estimated one-third of its government revenue through cryptocurrency schemes. Most governments have a cyber defense division; North Korea has a cyber-attack division through the Lazarus Group. They have carried out 30% of the cryptocurrency hacks in my database and have stolen $4.1bn from these schemes. This goes directly to funding their military and nuclear programs.
Iran relies on partner networks to launder billions in funds through cryptocurrency, including some firms registered within the UK. In the last quarter of 2025, according to estimates by Chainalysis, 50% of all cryptocurrency transactions within Iran were carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). At the same time, Iranian-linked ransomware and cyber operations continue to target Western systems and critical infrastructure.
Russia not only allows but encourages criminal activity. Half of all the illicit cryptocurrency exchanges in my database are based in Russia. Four out of the five major ransomware groups have been located in Russia. Russia has gone so far as to set up its own stablecoin, A7A5, for sanctions evasion. In its first year alone, it is estimated to have processed close to $100bn in cumulative volume.
Yet enforcement remains weak. In my database, 79% of cases have resulted in no convictions, and only 27% of funds have been seized.
We need to do more to protect victims and stop hostile actors and regimes.
At a UK House of Commons event last week, I made three key recommendations to the British government. These are also relevant for the EU.
The Russian-backed A7A5 is one of the most pressing issues facing Western society. It is sanctioned in the EU, UK, and the US, but it continues to function. Not only does it function, but it also thrives.
How? Its value lies in A7A5’s convertibility by criminals into cash. This happens through exchanges, including EU- and US-sanctioned exchange Grinex. These exchanges, as well as the issuer of the stablecoin, Old Vector LLC, are registered in Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyzstan has been wholly uncooperative in shutting down these schemes from operating and has shrugged off international pressure. The EU and UK should therefore sanction key members of the Kyrgyzstan government who are allowing this sanctions evasion to continue, specifically the head of the central bank, the general prosecutor, and the main financial regulator.
It is outrageous that Russia can skirt sanctions and fund its war of aggression through A7A5 with the support of Kyrgyzstan.
The EU also needs to overcome resistance from Hungary. Its 20th sanctions package was supposed to have sanctioned key cryptocurrency exchanges like Meer, which allow A7A5 to transact, but failed to do so because of Viktor Orbán’s government. The Meer exchange operator, CJSC TengriCoin, has been sanctioned by the UK. The EU must take more decisive and timely actions towards Kyrgyzstan entities that facilitate A7A5-aided sanctions evasion.
The second key policy recommendation is the creation of a cryptocurrency whistleblower reward scheme to take down large scams that target thousands of victims across Europe and the UK. This is not a novel idea; it has been done very successfully in the US for security law violations and tax evasion.
Crypto crime is notoriously hard to identify from the outside; investigators often lack the internal evidence needed to move quickly. A reward program would incentivise insiders to come forward with actionable intelligence. This will shift the balance of power toward law enforcement, away from criminals.
Thirdly, Western governments need much stronger international coordination. Cryptocurrency is inherently cross-border. Funds move through multiple wallets, exchanges, and jurisdictions in seconds. No single country can dismantle major laundering networks alone. Financial intelligence units and law enforcement agencies need faster information-sharing, joint investigations, and more coordinated designations to effectively take down criminals.
At present, there is an inequality in the arms race between the criminals and authorities, and as a result, criminals are running circles around the authorities. Unless lawmakers and regulators act with greater urgency, hostile regimes and criminal groups will continue to exploit this gap, at enormous cost to European security.
Alexander Browder is the founder of launderingdatabase.org and author of “Confronting the Illicit Finance Hydra in Crypto Markets: Protecting Retail Investors and Disrupting Hostile Government Exploitation” published by the Henry Jackson Society. On March 3, he presented his findings and policy recommendations at the UK House of Commons in a cross-party parliamentary event chaired by Phil Brickell MP, with Tom Tugendhat MP and Chris Coghlan MP.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2026-03-11 00:30:20
Silicon Valley emerged from massive US defense spending during the Cold War, when Pentagon contracts fueled semiconductor, radar and computer advances, spawning companies that later revolutionized civilian life through the internet, satellite navigation, and personal electronics.
In the same way, wartime necessity in Ukraine is producing a wave of battle-tested technologies with dual-use potential, offering venture funds and private investors early access to high-growth opportunities in drones, AI and robotics.
Nowhere is this competitive edge sharper than in anti-drone warfare. Iranian-designed drones, battle-tested on Ukrainians by Russia, are now menacing Gulf oil infrastructure, Red Sea shipping and conflict zones across the region, and no country has more hard-won expertise in defeating them than Ukraine.
After intercepting and destroying tens of thousands of drones, Ukraine’s engineers have unparalleled real-world knowledge of Iranian drone signatures, tactics, and vulnerabilities — making their expertise indispensable. The Middle East and other countries are now beating a path to Ukrainian doors as they urgently seek anti-drone systems like Octopus.
The analogy with Silicon Valley is striking. US government investment in defense created a network of talent, R&D, and capital that spilled over into consumer markets. Ukraine is following a similar path, accelerated by real-time combat validation and a pre-existing world-class IT sector.
Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, the country’s defense industry has grown explosively. Private firms now dominate, producing vital hardware and pioneering AI-driven systems.
In 2024, Ukrainian companies manufactured and assembled more than 1.5 million first-person view (FPV) drones, with total drone production exceeding 2 million. In 2025, the Ukrainian defense ministry said the country had the capacity to produce up to 4.5 million FPV drones, while the armed forces received more than3 million drones during the year.
Ukrainian manufacturers have been attracting money from across the globe. In 2025 alone, defense-tech startups raised more than $105m from private venture capital and angel investors. European governments have also been investing inside the country and beyond.
This momentum has continued into 2026, with the first export permits for controlled military goods issued by Kyiv in February and the announcement of plans for 10 European export hubs. Joint production lines are already operational in Germany, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway.
Multiple joint venture deals for drones were also signed at Munich in February, signaling significant advances for Ukraine’s defense-tech companies from battlefield improvisation to formal European industrial integration.
Ukraine offers engineering excellence combined with a vibrant tech heritage. Pre-war IT exports included global successes like Grammarly, and now its software prowess has been harnessed with hardware innovation born on the battlefield.
The war has served as the world’s most intensive live laboratory for countering Iranian-designed drones, giving Ukrainian firms an indispensable edge no Western defense contractor can replicate.
And lessons learned on the battlefield have helped the development of drones as platforms for non-military uses, such as precision agriculture, infrastructure inspection, disaster response, and logistics. At January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, half of Ukraine’s delegation featured defense or dual-use tech.
Unmanned ground vehicles, from companies like VATAG and Lanka Robotics, have applications in mining, hazardous material handling, and automated warehousing, while AI modules for threat detection and electronic warfare are transitioning to civilian uses in cybersecurity, supply chain monitoring, and smart cities.
And the Ukrainian government is encouraging investment. Its Brave1 platform connects startups to funding and testing, while its Diia.City initiative provides tax incentives for international capital, with additional benefits for defense firms under the Defense City program.
Funds like Green Flag Ventures are backing dual-use and defense startups, but savvy investors and funds can go further by facilitating licensing agreements and providing access to testing facilities in the European Union and the US.
These would enable Ukrainian companies to validate, refine, and scale their solutions under Western regulatory environments, such as EU dual-use regulations or US ITAR/EAR frameworks. Joint ventures and licensed production can also enable the manufacture of Ukrainian innovations abroad.
Such engagement bolsters Ukraine’s war-torn economy by generating revenue, jobs, and reducing risks through diversified production. At the same time, early partners gain privileged access to combat-proven technologies that outperform many legacy systems.
By opening doors to certification, field trials, and co-development in stable markets, investors can position themselves at the forefront of the next wave in autonomy, AI, and advanced manufacturing.
Global defense-tech investment hit record levels in 2025, and Ukraine’s proven solutions position it as a technology leader this year and beyond.
While the war and regulatory hurdles represent risks, history shows innovations forged in high-stakes environments often yield the greatest rewards. Silicon Valley thrived on defense-driven urgency, and Ukraine’s blend of resilient engineers, combat-hardened tech, and supportive policies is creating a similar inflection point.
For venture capitalists and private investors hunting future opportunities, engagement with Ukraine is simply unavoidable, as tomorrow’s industries are built.
Anatoly Motkin is president of StrategEast Center for a New Economy, a non-profit organization with offices in the US, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, developing the knowledge-driven economy in the Eurasian region.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2026-03-11 00:22:58
Even allowing for the heated rhetoric and behavior of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), it was ominous to see a March 7 statement warning Azerbaijan it would face attack if links with Israel were not severed.
The statement followed the March 5 drone strike on Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave. One hit the terminal of Nakhchivan airport, another injured a village nearby, while the Azerbaijani air defenses shot down a third.
In response, Azerbaijan closed parts of its airspace and limited border crossings for cargo trucks with Iran. The threat to Azeri airspace has global implications — with Iran and Russia closed to air traffic, Azerbaijan and Georgia to its west provide a narrow channel for planes flying east-west between Europe and Asia.
The country’s President Ilham Aliyev ordered the armed forces to prepare countermeasures while simultaneously stressing that Azerbaijan itself had not participated in the broader military operations targeting Iran.
The sudden increase in tension was all the more surprising as it followed Aliyev’s unprecedented visit to the Iranian embassy to personally convey condolences over the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on February 28. Relations between the two countries had been improving over the past year following the deadly attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran in early 2023. Iran and Azerbaijan share a long border, are linked through key infrastructure projects, and have witnessed a steadily growing level of bilateral trade of some $650 million in 2025.
And yet, Iran has its reasons. It has watched with concern the growth in US influence, in particular the planned east-west trade corridor that will ultimately link Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, on the Caspian Sea, with its Nakhchivan exclave and then onto Turkey and European markets to the west.
Indeed, the drones hit at the place which is set to play a pivotal role in the planned Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), as the US-backed infrastructure concept is known. The project will also cross Armenia’s southern Syunik region, and will link Central Asia to Europe while bypassing both Russia and Iran.
From Tehran’s perspective, the corridor represents more than a simple transportation initiative. Its officials have repeatedly argued that such a route would weaken Iran’s geopolitical and economic leverage in the South Caucasus.
Since the early 1990s, the so-called Aras transit route running through northern Iran has functioned as the primary logistical link between Azerbaijan proper and Nakhchivan. This route generated steady transit revenues and reinforced Iran’s strategic role as a regional connector. The emergence of an alternative threatens to reduce Iranian influence.
Tehran’s concern has grown further amid reports that private US security contractors could be deployed to safeguard sections of the new route, potentially introducing a Western security footprint directly along Iran’s northern frontier.
Nor is this its sole objection, given Israel’s long-established relationship with Azerbaijan, and reports (denied by both countries) that Israeli intelligence officers use the country as a base for operations against Iran.
Though Baku has strived to maintain a certain balance between Israel and Iran, its relations with Tel Aviv have evolved into an unofficial strategic partnership covering cooperation on energy, military, and security. Azerbaijan supplies around 30% of Israel’s oil, and last year the state energy company, SOCAR, bought a 10% stake in Israel’s Tamar natural gas field. Moreover, Israel was also a key supplier of weaponry to Azerbaijan in the lead-up to the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war of 2020 and a short military campaign of 2023, which culminated in the fall of the Armenian-populated separatist entity.
The balance of power on the ground does not favor Tehran. Azerbaijan is also closely allied to Turkey, which at the time of writing had been the target of three Iranian ballistic missiles. Turkey and Azerbaijan could now activate the mutual defense clause within the Shusha declaration they signed in mid-2021. In the wake of the drone attack, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke by phone with Aliyev and expressed his support.
Azerbaijan also enjoys support from the EU as it relies on Caspian energy and values the South Caucasus country’s role as a deterrent to both Russia and Iran. Then there is Washington, with Trump’s personal interest in the realization of the TRIPP, as evidenced by J.D. Vance’s February trip to Yerevan and Baku.
Iran clearly dislikes the way the cards have fallen, as it is signaled by lashing out. But a much bigger attack on Azerbaijan could spread a conflict to Turkey and beyond. It would be very unwise.
Emil Avdaliani is a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the history of the Silk Roads and the interests of great powers in the Middle East and the Caucasus.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2026-03-10 21:30:56
Two Balkan strongmen co-author an article proposing EU membership without veto rights. This is not the beginning of a joke, but a depiction of reality and an attempt to breathe new life into the bloc’s flagging enlargement program.
The message? We know EU expansion has ground to a halt partly because Hungary and Slovakia are proving such bad team players. So, forget membership with a veto for the six Balkan candidates; we’ll accept membership-lite instead.
The long-standing leaders of Albania and Serbia, Edi Rama and Aleksandar Vučić, jointly presented the idea in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Their proposal would mean the candidate members would win access to the EU’s single market and travel-free area, with institutional representation and veto rights postponed to a later date.
The two men’s appeal may have landed on fertile ground. Two weeks earlier, Marta Kos, commissioner responsible for enlargement policy, had acknowledged that the EU would block the path of “Trojan horses”.
It didn’t take a cryptographer to understand who she was talking about, and indeed Viktor Orbán soon afterwards underlined the point by blocking the €90bn ($104bn) EU loan to Ukraine. On March 8, the Slovak prime minister said that if Orbán lost the April 12 Hungarian election, he would ensure the veto on Ukraine aid continued.
Understandably, perhaps, the idea of handing veto power to another six countries in Southeastern Europe — Serbia and Albania, plus North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo — does not generate enthusiasm.
And if fairness to the Western Balkan states, such political powers are not why they seek to join. EU membership offers the prospect of extensive economic benefits, including access to the single market, one of the world’s most prosperous economic zones.
The catch is that they have to meet EU standards, and these have proved hard to swallow for many political elites in the continent’s eastern half.
The most persistent issues concern the rule-of-law, including state capture, corruption, the lack of an independent judiciary, and media freedom.
And here’s the problem — Rama and Vučić want to have their cake and eat it. They want access to the single market without curbing their authoritarian tendencies. With a potential “membership lite”, they believe they can avoid rule-of-law reforms that could challenge their grip on power. In Serbia’s case, that would also mean maintaining good relations with Moscow and Beijing, along with continued non-alignment with the EU’s foreign-policy directives and positions.
Even so, their idea may not be dismissed out of hand. Most members of the 27-member club are heartily sick of the grandstanding and blocking tactics of Orbán and like-minded leaders in Slovakia. Enlargement commissioner Kos laid out the current thinking on this in her February speech:
“We need to have safeguards that ensure new members stick to the rules and the integrity of our Union is assured, even five, 10, or 20 years down the line,” she said. The bloc would not institute a two-tier membership, but if new members backtracked on key commitments, “safeguards must bite,” she said. New rules were being drawn up, Kos added.
The right of veto is one of the most precious political tools at the member states’ disposal. Key decisions, including enlargement and foreign policy, require unanimity; if one member state vetoes, the entire process halts. Orbán has proved how the abuse of veto rights can leave the EU divided, enfeebled, and ineffective on a global stage.
Deferred veto powers might reassure them that they would not be exposed to Orbán-style blockages, blackmail, and overtime bargaining.
Yet an Orbán opt-out would not solve the EU’s core problem with enlargement. The bloc is divided on how to welcome new member states (if any). At the same time, the EU also wants to move forward with enlargement, particularly under the current European Commission.
The accession of at least one country — with Montenegro as the frontrunner — would send a strong message to Ukraine that the promise of membership remains achievable, but no one can reasonably expect new countries to join under the same conditions as Croatia did back in 2013.
There have been attempts to breathe new life into the enlargement policy. The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a wake-up call that it is a geopolitical imperative, yet little progress has been achieved so far. Gradual integration, accession in phases, has emerged as the preferred path forward, allowing access to candidate countries to certain policy areas once the rule-of-law criteria are met.
At the end of the day, however, enlargement policy remains a political decision that requires the approval of all current member states.
Montenegro, the coastal Adriatic state, will be the litmus test. It will prove if EU member states are genuinely committed to enlargement, and what new conditions will be included in its accession document. The country pledged to conclude its accession talks by the end of this year. While being supportive, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, noted that this is an “ambitious objective”.
Creativity in enlargement policy — even the self-interested version proposed by Rama and Vučić — is welcome if the idea can speed up enlargement, while ensuring strong adherence to the rule of law before and after accession. But if leaders only seek economic benefits from the EU, the EU’s project of transformation and democratization crumbles.
Ferenc Németh is a Ph.D. candidate at Corvinus University of Budapest and a Fulbright visiting researcher at Georgetown University. He has previously conducted research in Toronto and Skopje, worked as a research fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, and interned at EULEX Kosovo. His areas of expertise include Central and Southeast Europe, EU enlargement, and regional security. Ferenc was a Denton Fellow at CEPA in 2024.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2026-03-10 04:59:37
As war erupted in the Middle East, the US and its allies were confronted with the question of how to stop swarms of cheap drones without using enormously expensive air-defense missiles. It’s a problem Ukraine has been battling ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Now, in a notable reversal in the direction of traffic, President Zelenskyy says countries under attack are flocking to ask Kyiv for aid. At least 11 countries, as well as the US and European states, are seeking help. Ukrainian equipment and personnel are already on the way to Jordan and elsewhere in the region.
They are badly needed. Key air defense radars for the US THAAD system in the Middle East, each costing around $500m, have been badly damaged by Iranian attacks, CNN reported on March 6. It’s not known if missiles or drones were responsible. Drones often cost thousands of dollars but can overwhelm air defense systems and force defenders to expend interceptor missiles worth hundreds of thousands — sometimes millions. Over time, the economics alone can overwhelm even the most advanced air-defense systems.
In a three-day period at the start of the Middle East fighting, Zelenskyy said 800 Patriot missiles had been expended, more than his country has used since Russia’s all-out invasion four years ago. That rate of use is not sustainable and might also reduce supplies for Ukraine. Kyiv has suggested swapping its anti-drone tech in return for Patriots, which it needs to destroy ballistic missiles.
So what does Ukraine have to offer?
One key innovation has been an acoustic detection network built by Ukrainian engineers from simple components. Mounted microphones and smartphones on poles were used to listen for the distinctive sound signatures of incoming drones and missiles before sending data through mobile networks to an AI system to track aerial threats.
The system, known as Sky Fortress, has since expanded into a nationwide network of more than 10,000 sensors, which help detect low-flying Shahed drones when they evade traditional radar.
Ukraine has also been working extensively on drone interceptors to replace pricey systems like Stinger missiles. In February, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, said homegrown interceptor drones had destroyed more than 70% of Shahed drones over the Kyiv region. Ukrainian units conducted about 6,300 interceptor sorties in February alone, destroying more than 1,500 Iranian-designed Russian drones.
The Ukrainian-made interceptors are much cheaper than traditional missiles. The Octopus interceptor drone, for example, costs roughly $3,000 — a fraction of the price of the missile systems it replaces. Developed with the UK and manufactured there, mass production began to deliver large numbers of products in February. Some others are even cheaper. The P1-Sun drone interceptor, produced by SkyFall, costs around $1,000 and has destroyed thousands of Russian drones, according to the manufacturer.
Ukraine is also experimenting with launching aerial interceptor drones from unmanned surface vessels in the Black Sea. Video shared by Oliver Carroll, a reporter for The Economist, showed a small interceptor UAV launching from one of the boats before destroying a target during a test flight.
The concept effectively turns the naval drone into a mobile launch platform capable of engaging attacks before they near coastal cities such as Odesa. Interceptors that can operate over water may also prove useful for Gulf states facing similar threats from low-flying drones approaching from the sea.
But Ukraine’s experience also suggests no single technology can solve the drone problem.
For example, Olena Kryzhanivska, a Ukrainian defense analyst, notes that interceptor drones cannot cover large territories, and their operational radius typically ranges between 10km (6 miles) and 50km.
She said Ukraine has addressed this limitation by building a layered air-defense system. It combines mobile fire groups armed with machine guns and MANPADS, helicopter interception teams (which the UAE has already imitated), interceptor drones, electronic warfare, fighter aircraft, and traditional surface-to-air missile systems.
The biggest misunderstanding about countering Shahed-type drones is the belief that any single system can solve the problem, according to defense technology investor Deborah Fairlamb, co-founder of Green Flag Ventures. Effective defense requires sensors and military equipment operating across wide territories and linked through coordinated command structures, she said.
This is where Ukraine may have the most to offer countries countering the fallout from the Israeli-US attack on Iran. While its capacity to export home-produced hardware is limited by the large quantities it still needs for its own defense, it can export operational experience — including training for drone operators and advice on building layered air-defense networks tailored to local geography and threats.
Ukraine has been forced to innovate. It doesn’t have access to more sophisticated hardware and simply cannot afford more resource-heavy models of defense. The human element remains critical.
“The West is so naive,” said a British soldier serving in Ukraine’s International Legion who goes by the call sign Solo. “Ukraine has been defending its cities with pickup trucks mounted with .50-cal machine guns for years.”
The mass attacks keep constant pressure on air defenses while repeatedly striking critical infrastructure, complicating efforts to repair power grids and factories.
“These guys work 24/7,” Solo said. “Yes, there are interceptors and other systems, but the backbone is people who have trained purely to keep civilians alive.”
Bryan Pickens, a former US Army Green Beret who has fought alongside Ukrainian special forces, told this author that he sees a broader training opportunity. “We need Ukraine to help professionalize Western warfighters — to teach how these systems are used and how to defend against them,” he said.
“Ukrainian interceptor teams are the only ones with significant experience using drones specifically against Shahed-type attack UAVs,” said Jonathan Lippert, president of Defense Tech for Ukraine. Even with partially automated interceptors, successful interceptions still depend heavily on piloting skill, coordination, and how interceptor teams are positioned across an area.
But the Gulf states have to begin somewhere, and have been urgently making contact with Ukrainian drone manufacturers about purchasing interceptor systems, according to the Financial Times. Oleksandr Yakovenko, founder of TAF Industries, said the United Arab Emirates had enquired about 5,000 interceptor drones, while Qatar had expressed interest in 2,000, and Kuwait was also exploring purchases.
Yet Ukraine’s most valuable export may be the hard-earned experience of how to build an entire system capable of stopping swarms night after night, and how to more efficiently shoot the archer. Every night, Russia attacks, and every night, Ukraine defeats most of the incoming targets, numbering anything up to 800 in number. It is a hugely difficult task that no one can do better.
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2026-03-10 04:41:34
A Hungarian publisher, Like Company, asked Google’s AI chatbot Gemini to summarize its article about Hungarian singer Kozsó’s dream of bringing sweetwater dolphins from the Amazon to Lake Balaton. The chatbot complied. But Like did not give Google express permission to use the article, and it sued.
The case has been referred to the Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice, where a hearing is scheduled for March 10. While the case surely will not be the final word on the battle between AI developers and publishers, the verdict will represent the first major judgment clarifying how European copyright rules address AI.
In the US, courts have already issued two consequential rulings involving Meta and Anthropic, exonerating the tech companies from infringing on copyrighted works. The US allows “fair use,” which permits unlicensed use of snippets of copyrighted material for commentary, criticism, or research on a case-by-case basis.
Europe’s Copyright Directive offers copyright holders additional protections. While it allows for commercial text and data mining in some instances, rights-holders can opt out. The bloc’s new AI Actexpanded these opt-out possibilities to the training of chatbots. But legal questions remain about the limits of what constitutes copyright infringement, both in the training and deployment of AI models.
Navigating the copyright crunch, balancing creator rights with technological progress, is crucial to Europe’s AI hopes. Many European officials fear that the continent is falling behind on the new technology and have considered delaying some strict “high-risk” AI rules until 2027 to avoid stifling growth. While the European Parliament is exploring whether to force AI developers to license copyrighted content, European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunnen recently insisted that AI training benefits from the text and data mining exemption in both the Copyright Directive and AI Act.
It’s now up to Europe’s highest court to clarify. Judges will have to decide whether training a generative AI model falls under the commercial “text and data mining” exception of Europe’s Copyright Directive and AI Act or whether publishers should receive money for training.
The case centers on a few questions. Did Google use the article’s content to train its AI model, and did the result generate “unauthorized communication to the public”?
According to Like publishers, Google used its copyrighted material to train Gemini beyond what is allowed under the text data mining exemption. It then proceeded to disseminate this content to a new public without authorization.
Google disagrees. Even if it summarized the Like article, Google says that doesn’t constitute a communication to a “new public.” What’s more, it argues that the chatbot’s response didn’t reproduce any parts of the article beyond some central facts. It also insists that Gemini wasn’t trained on the article to begin with, beyond what is allowed under the text and data mining exemption.
Although the court’s decision could have far-reaching implications, some analysts doubt whether this case is the right one to set this precedent. It is “highly improbable” that Gemini provided this summary because it was trained on this copyrighted article, says Paul Keller from the Institute for Information Law, but that is much more likely that the fully trained chatbot retrieved the article from the web in real time and summarized it. This assumption is due to the short time frame between the article’s publication and the prompt.
If true, this shifts the case away from one about how AI chatbots are trained — though that is no doubt an important question — toward the second question about whether the reproduction of a copyrighted text by a chatbot constitutes an “unauthorized communication to the public.”
Here, too, experts question whether the summary that the chatbot provided constitutes such a communication. Dr. Andres Guadamuz of the University of Sussex argues that a summary of an article that isn’t behind a paywall can hardly be seen as communication to a new public, as everyone on the Internet can access it. What is more, the output is mostly private and only communicated to the user in question.
Setting a precedent for new technologies is always tricky, as the consequences are far-reaching, and no case has perfect conditions that would allow courts to set clear rules for the future. The Like case will not clarify all of the ambiguities and unknowns about European copyright and AI. But it could begin to offer some much-needed answers.
“A wrong ruling could leave Europe with the worst of all worlds,” argues Martin Kremtscher from the Centre for Regulation of the Creative Economy, complex regimes for AI developers and no clear protections for rights holders.
Clara Riedenstein is a tech policy analyst and writer. Named the 2026 Rising Expert in Tech Policy by the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy, her work examines how emerging technologies shape existing political, legal, and social institutions. Clara holds an MSc in Political Theory Research from Oxford University, where she studied as a C. Douglas Dillon Scholar and focused on the implications of large language models for theories of state and jurisdiction.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions expressed on Bandwidth are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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