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Russia unleashed a barrage of missiles and drones across Ukraine early Thursday, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens more.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the hours-long attack struck Kyiv and the surrounding region as well as Odesa and Chernihiv, damaging apartment buildings, a children’s hospital and a school in the capital. Twelve people were killed in Kyiv and another in the surrounding region, he said, with around 40 injured.

“Unfortunately, while Moscow is investing in ballistic missiles and escalation, such strikes do not always receive the response they should from the world,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. “As long as Ukraine does not have enough anti-ballistic defense, Russia will not consider peace seriously.” U.S.-made Patriot interceptors “cannot yet be replaced,” he added.

Russia’s defense ministry said it used air-, land- and sea-launched weapons to strike military facilities and warehouses. Moscow also claimed its forces had shot down 726 Ukrainian drones.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko declared Aug. 21 a day of mourning “in memory of the victims of the enemy’s massive attack on the capital.” Flags will be lowered and entertainment events banned as emergency crews continue working across three districts of Kyiv.

The barrage also put neighboring NATO countries on alert.

Romania’s defense ministry announced that a drone “entered Romanian national airspace” at 3:21 a.m. before crashing minutes later near Grindu “in an uninhabited area.” No casualties or damage were reported.

Poland meanwhile scrambled military aircraft as Russian strikes continued in neighboring Ukraine. The Polish military said it had activated available forces and assets, while ground-based air-defense and radar systems were put “in a state of readiness.”

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Labour MPs want a cap on political donations to stave off Nigel Farage’s big-money backers. Andy Burnham is set to disappoint them.

Downing Street will not include a universal domestic cap on political donations in Britain when the elections bill returns on Sept. 2, two officials briefed on government thinking said. But both the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss policy considerations, did not rule out returning to the issue again in the future.

“We’re prioritizing cracking down on foreign interference and crypto billionaires as part of this piece of legislation,” one of the officials said, referencing existing proposals in the elections bill from Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer to cap overseas donors and ban cryptocurrency donations.

That’s despite mounting pressure to act from the British PM’s own MPs as they fret about Farage, whose rise has been aided by a flurry of cash from individual donors — and hints from Burnham himself that he is minded to move ahead. 

There is currently no limit on the amount individual donors based in the U.K. can give to a political party. Donations above £11,180 must be reported to the Electoral Commission watchdog. 

Burnham told transparency campaigners before becoming prime minister that he supported a cap to “guard against the perception of any one party being unduly influenced or swayed by one person or organisation.” 

While indicating a wider review of political funding would be required before setting a firm figure, Burnham said his “gut feeling would suggest somewhere in the region of £500k” for the upper limit. 

Following Burnham’s arrival in No. 10 Downing Street in July, officials in Whitehall had been waiting for a signal that they should start work to include a donation cap in the Representation of the People Bill — the official title of the elections bill.

But the two officials quoted above said using that bill as the vehicle for a cap could delay plans also included in the legislation to give 16-year-olds the right to vote at the next general election. 

A third British official acknowledged the Sept. 2 date, when the elections bill returns, is a “crunch point,” and suggested ministers could “kick the can” and commit to considering action when the bill gets to the House of Lords.

A Labour MP pushing for a donations cap said the arguments being put forward for not going ahead with a donations cap are “bullshit,” adding: “They are scared of the unions.”

Complicated landscape

A POLITICO analysis of how a £500,000 donation cap would have hit the main political parties’ finances over the last three years demonstrates the trade-offs Burnham would face in pushing ahead.

The analysis draws on publicly-available Electoral Commission returns for Westminster’s main political parties between Jan. 1 2023 and Dec. 31, 2025.

It shows a £500,000 ceiling would have curbed 55 percent of Reform UK’s reported private donations over the past three years — amounting to some £12 million — suggesting Nigel Farage’s party would have taken the greatest hit of any of the parties in proportional terms over the period.

But the data also shows there is potential peril for Labour in slamming a lid on funding — particularly if cash from trade unions, which represent some of the party’s major backers, is included.

A £500,000 cap over the same period — with no union exclusion — would have wiped out 47.4 percent of all private donations to Labour, or around £34 million in funding. 

An exemption from the cap for unions would leave Labour’s war chest significantly stronger. Labour would have kept hold of £12 million of that money over the same period, which included the donation-rich run-up to the 2024 general election.

The GMB trade union has already urged Labour MPs not to back a cap due to concerns it will damage the labor movement’s historic relationship with the party. 

Parliamentary pressure

Opting for a cap with or without a union exemption carries significant political risk for Burnham. Capping unions alongside individual donors and corporates would dent Labour’s finances and strain relations with the movement seen as foundational to the party’s identity. 

But exempting them from any cap would bolster Farage’s narrative that changes to election rules are part of an intentional establishment campaign to halt his party’s progress.  

Burnham’s predecessor, Starmer, already proposed an annual £100,000 cap on donations from British citizens living overseas.

The measure could create a major hurdle for crypto-entrepreneur Christopher Harborne, who has donated over £12 million to Reform UK despite being based in Thailand.

But MPs are already putting pressure on Burnham’s new government to go further.

Several amendments pushing for domestic caps set at various amounts — up to £1 million — were proposed when the bill was introduced earlier this year. A proposal from Labour MP Stella Creasy, which would mirror the £100,000 cap on overseas donors, gained the most support.

At the time, the amendments were aimed at demonstrating political appetite for a long-running campaign to limit the sway of mega-donors, but MPs and campaigners had hoped Burnham’s previous comments had indicated he was gearing up to act.

One adviser working the parliamentary push for a donations cap said MPs could back down if the government suggests its own cap — regardless of the size of it.

“Our preferred outcome is the government come forward with their own individual donation cap,” the adviser said. “Whatever the level is we will support it.” 

Supporters of a cap also pointed to Creasy’s amendment, drafted with assistance from Transparency International UK, as a potential middle-ground for the knotty union problem. Rather than a blanket policy, Creasy proposes that affiliation fees — an annual political levy usually paid by unions on a per-member basis — would be exempt from the cap, while other donations would be included.

POLITICO’s analysis shows that approach would lessen the blow on Labour’s finances — while not providing unions a complete carve-out.

In 2024, GMB gave Labour £2 million in total — of which £1.1 million was affiliation fees.

Under Creasy’s carve-out for unions, the £1.1 million in affiliation fees would go directly to Labour.

Only the remaining £900,000 would be subject to the cap, wherever it is set — meaning a far gentler loss to Labour.

“The loophole must be closed to prevent mega-rich donors who have the potential to harm democracy — as the government has accepted is possible — that means they can continue to donate just because they claim a U.K. postcode,” Creasy said.

POLITICO’s analysis suggests that the Creasy amendment’s proposed cap — £100,000 — would have eaten into the donation income of leading parties had it been applied over the last three years.

In 2023, a £100,000 cap would have deprived the then-governing Conservative Party of more than £26 million — around 54 percent of all its declared donations.

Labour would have lost between £11 million and £16 million, depending on how the rules were applied to unions — a loss of between 50 percent and 70 percent of its declared donations.

In 2024, both Labour and Conservatives would have lost higher sums of cash as election campaign fundraising hit its peak, although the losses remain similar in percentage terms.

Other parties would have faced similar hits, with the Liberal Democrats losing around 20 percent of their £9 million declared donation income, while around 40 percent of Reform UK’s £3 million of declared funds would have been ineligible.

Analysis of last year’s data suggests a £100,000 cap would have been devastating for Farage’s outfit given its reliance on mega-donors.

Of the £18.8 million declared in donations for 2025, more than £15 million would be lost under Creasy’s plan — around 80 percent of Reform’s total declared donations.

With campaign spending hitting record highs at the 2024 election, even a lenient cap would have had a substantial impact on the country’s major political parties. But successive polls have found public support for the measures.

In January, YouGov’s biannual tracker showed that 67 percent of Brits backed a donations cap of £50,000 or less, with support for the current, unlimited system dropping from 21 percent in 2020 to just 13 percent at the start of this year.

The Trump administration’s snub of South Korea has America’s allies in Asia rethinking how much they can depend on the U.S. for defense — and looking to each other to reduce their reliance on Washington.

President Donald Trump said this week he is cutting back joint military exercises with South Korea, and announced Wednesday that he will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year. That is pushing countries in the region to accelerate their defense spending and forge alternate partnerships, according to Asian diplomats and others familiar with discussions among regional governments.

“Expect a refocus on self-reliance,” said one Asian diplomat. The diplomat, and others, were granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of their comments.

“U.S. defense tech is still the best, and it’s not economical or logical for countries already locked in on it to pivot or diversify due to interoperability and maintenance issues,” the diplomat said. “But I reckon there’ll be more investment by those that can in self-defense to reduce reliance on the U.S. umbrella in the long term.”

That’s especially true because the move against South Korea was a pressure tactic related to a completely different conflict: the Iran war.

Trump’s move “resonates not just in Korea but across the entire Indo-Pacific because everyone’s wondering whether or not their relationship with the United States is as unstable as the Koreans’,” said Ian Brzezinski, who served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy under President George W. Bush. Brzezinski is still in regular contact with Asian officials.

As recently as December, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared South Korea a “model ally” worthy of a “special favor.” The apparent reevaluation of that relationship is the latest sign that Trump can quickly flip on longtime partners in the region. In May, Trump delayed a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan as a “bargaining chip” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The U.S. has long worked to buttress alliances in Asia as a counterweight to Beijing’s growing military dominance. Over recent months, however, the Trump administration has appeared to see that as less essential, and Asian countries have already been investing in their own capacities.

The South Korea decision could speed that transition. South Korea is making it clear that it sees the Trump administration’s action and its approach as an insult.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told lawmakers in Seoul on Wednesday that the government was “not notified in advance” of Trump’s decision to cut the duration of the exercises by a week. President Lee Jae Myung — who presented Trump with a gold crown in October — is trying to get U.S. military ties back on track through joint discussions with administration officials, Cho added.

And the talks “are getting messy,” said a person familiar with those discussions. “The War Department and U.S. Forces Korea are just surprised and don’t have any specific plans right now.”

Lee is already seeking other partnerships. “He’s talking to African countries, to the Gulf and Japan” to expand those links, said Jung Pak, a former U.S. senior official who worked on North Korea and the region in the Biden administration. “This dispute is just going to reinforce that the Republic of Korea has to continue to do that.”

Trump’s push to renew high-profile conversations with the North Korean leader, whom he met three times in his first term, comes as the nuclear-armed authoritarian state accelerates its tempo of ballistic missile tests and threats against neighboring Japan.

The departure of the only Asia-based U.S. aircraft carrier to the Middle East this week also has allies questioning how committed the U.S. is to preventing such acts of aggression.

“Recent signals look more like U.S. disengagement, even though cooperation is clearly still ongoing,” said a second Asian diplomat. “The key issue is increasingly not U.S. intent, but U.S. capacity to sustain the level of presence it has promised.”

The Department of Defense declined to comment.

Asian countries do have some options to insulate their defense capabilities — including military hardware supplies — from the risk of becoming bargaining chips in future policy disputes with Washington.

That could include investments in air and missile defense systems, the hardening of military facilities to protect them from attack and greater cooperation with Australian and European forces, said a third Asian diplomat.

China and North Korea’s growing arsenal of conventional long-range ballistic and hypersonic missiles has increased the vulnerability of Asian nations’ military infrastructure previously considered safe from attack — making such investments high on many countries’ priority lists. Taiwan is building a network of hardened fighter aircraft shelters designed to withstand a Chinese missile barrage.

Longer term, South Korea and Japan could develop their own nuclear arsenals for fear that they may not be able to rely on the U.S. as a deterrent.

Indo-Pacific countries are already forging alternate defense partnerships. Japan and the Philippines sealed an agreement in June that creates a secure supply chain for joint military training exercises, while India and Vietnam launched a weapons co-production initiative in May.

“Tokyo keeps repeating that the U.S.-Japan alliance is a cornerstone of its defense policy, but that’s dwindled down to lip service at this point,” said Yuki Tatsumi, former special assistant for political affairs at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, who is in regular contact with both Japanese diplomats and government officials in Tokyo. “Japan increasingly sees itself as leading a coalition of U.S. allies with deep anxiety about U.S. long-term commitment in the region.”

Asian governments feel a growing sense of urgency to take such measures due to the strains that the ongoing war in Iran has placed on the U.S. military and the depletion of key munitions essential in any possible future conflict with China, the third diplomat said.

“U.S. commitments look more contingent, transactional and vulnerable to being overtaken by events elsewhere, and that raises doubts about whether the U.S. can sustain its stated Indo-Pacific priority in a multi-theater crisis,” the person added.

The rise of those new defense groupings could boost Beijing’s longtime efforts to pry Asian countries away from established U.S.-dominated alliances. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi could make the case for a South Korean defense strategy less dependent on the U.S. during his two-day visit to Seoul, which began today.

“The Chinese leadership has long sought an opening to divide the U.S. from its two most important allies in the region: South Korea and Japan,” said Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to China in the Biden administration. “The timing of the president’s criticism of the South Korean leadership will give Wang Yi an opening to drive the wedge further between Washington and Seoul.”

The Chinese embassy declined to respond to a request for comment.

The Iran war is giving fresh life to Somali pirates who prey on commercial ships laden with fuel and goods – a threat that had lain dormant for years.

Earlier this week, a group of pirates seized a cargo ship off the coast of Somalia – at least the fifth such attack since April, according to Windward, a global maritime intelligence firm. Windward concluded that the pirates are likely resurgent in part because nations have shifted naval resources to the Middle East because of the war.

In addition to the hit this week, Somali pirates have seized at least three tankers carrying oil and fertilizer – two commodities that have seen the highest price spikes due to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. In July, pirates seized a ship carrying chemicals off the coast of Yemen. The seized tankers are now being held off the coast of Somalia and dozens of crew members are hostages.

Though Somali pirates so far have seized relatively few ships by sheer numbers, it represents another threat to shipping companies already severely strained by recent attacks on vessels around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea, said Brett Erickson, managing principal of the consultancy Obsidian Risk Advisors.

“We’re now looking at multiple vectors that are increasing pricing for maritime companies, forcing companies to de-risk entirely, and posing a huge threat to the global economy,” he said. “The threat from Somali pirates doesn’t need to be significant on its own, but because it compounds with all the other factors, it makes a fairly large difference at this point every time they take action.”

A White House official said the U.S. is the largest contributor to Somalia’s security and suggested it is “false” to “blame localized piracy attacks on recent regional conflicts with Iran.”

“The United States maintains robust, highly capable maritime security forces in the region that are fully equipped to protect critical shipping lanes, including oil transport, while simultaneously addressing broader regional threats,” the official said.

Regardless of what is driving the uptick in attacks, the pirates are also now active again in an area that has served as a relief valve for global oil shipping routes as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Windward, “Somali piracy is back as an active operational threat to commercial shipping in the Western Indian Ocean and southern Gulf of Aden.”

Somali pirates attacked hundreds of ships between 2005 and 2011, causing an estimated $18 billion in damages annually. However, the threat was largely neutralized after sustained efforts by NATO and the Combined Maritime Forces, a 47-nation naval partnership that includes the United States. Now, American ships are protecting tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz.

If the situation worsens, it could pose increasingly severe risk to the global economy, said Erickson. In the short term, fewer ships will be willing to take the risk of traveling in the region. It also means greater shipping costs, higher insurance prices and increased spending on private security. For now, the increased cost of a barrel of oil and tightness in the market means it’s a more attractive target for the Somali pirates.

“This is obviously a very, very lucrative business for them, and right now they have a far lower risk of American reaction to it because so many resources are tied up in the Middle East in general,” he said. “They’re profiteers, and this is an opportunity to profit.”

KYIV — Ukraine’s popular former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has emerged as a new rival to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — but his call for an election is facing immediate blowback.

In a video address on Tuesday night, he zeroed in on topics he knew would strike a public chord in one of the most direct internal challenges to Zelenskyy since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He complained that corruption was undermining the war effort and protested about centralized and opaque decision-making in the Zelenskyy administration — for which he worked until only last month.

However, Fedorov’s unexpected appeal for the nation to go to the ballot box sparked immediate retorts across the political spectrum. Critics insisted such an election would be banned by Ukraine’s martial law, would be impossible to organize in wartime, would play into Russia’s hands and would sow division when national unity remains vital.

Zelenskyy still commands broad support as a war leader, and his allies pointed out that, regardless of public frustration, there are limits to how much he can reveal about the inner workings of the state when national survival is at stake.

Fedorov’s emergence as a rival to Zelenskyy was accelerated by his shock dismissal as defense minister last month. The 35-year-old built up a strong following for spearheading Ukraine’s success in using new technologies — from cyberattacks to drones — to damage Russia.

His ejection from office sparked immediate protests, with thousands of people taking to the streets, calling for his reinstatement or for Zelenskyy to properly explain the decision to fire him.

In his address on Tuesday night, Fedorov delivered a thinly veiled criticism of Zelenskyy’s management style, referring to his peremptory approach to hiring and firing.

“People cannot endlessly live in a state where they do not understand why certain decisions are made. Why some reforms move forward while others are blocked. Why decisions needed on the frontlines today spend months circulating through government offices,” Fedorov said.

“It is dangerous when society develops the feeling that the main criterion for an appointment is not professionalism, results, or the ability to transform the country, but personal loyalty to the system,” added the former minister, who had himself been viewed as a Zelenskyy loyalist for seven years.

Election backlash

A top official in Zelenskyy’s office, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about Fedorov’s move, had little time for the criticism that the president should explain his actions publicly.

“The president cannot just explain his hiring choices to the public during war, as those are matters of national security. And it’s his right to decide whom to appoint as his defense minister and whom to fire,” they said.

The official was also scathing about the possibility of holding an election in the face of devastating Russian attacks: “Let’s wait out another massive Russian ballistic attack and then go vote,” the person added, sarcastically.

Olga Aivazovska, head of Ukraine’s election watchdog OPORA, also stressed the practical obstacles to an election, insisting that there were “hundreds of scenarios and actions” that the Russians could use to undermine the electoral process.

Roman Lozynskyi, a parliamentarian from the opposition liberal Holos party and deputy head of the state management committee, feared the call for elections could prove disastrously divisive.

“There is zero positive for the country. Don’t be happy that you will have candidates in the post-war elections. You still have to live to see them,” he said. “People understand that elections during the war are in the enemy’s hands. That it will be a war of all against all.”

Even one of the leaders of the protest movement, war veteran Dmytro Koziatysnkyi, said he didn’t want to see elections during wartime. “I am also very afraid of the disunity of society during the electoral process and how this may affect the course of the war,” he said.

Far from bolstering Fedorov’s political future, the call for an election could even count against him.

Economist Timothy Ash, who frequently writes on Ukraine, suggested the ex-minister had made “an extraordinary political error of judgement which some would likely use against him if he ever pitches in to run as president in the future.”

Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst based in Kyiv, conceded Zelenskyy had become accustomed to “acting like in business,” defined by “single-man leadership” and “quick decisions,” but argued that the president was hardly acting out of step with any other major international leader.

“When his critics say he should appoint professionals instead of loyalists, they sound right but naive at the same time. Even in the West, unless we are talking about coalition governments, such an approach does not work. Any serious politician … and especially in a country like ours, will appoint trusted loyalists,” Fesenko added.

Fesenko also defended Zelenskyy’s record in appointing senior officials. He noted that Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi, new commander-in-chief, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, as well as new Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara, all had positive reputations, even among Zelenskyy’s top critics in parliament.

Indeed, Khmara was confirmed in his new role to succeed Fedorov by a parliamentary vote on Wednesday, by 312 lawmakers out of 392.

‘People want change’

Fedorov is certainly popular. A poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology said earlier this month that 63 percent of people saw him as trustworthy — a score that put him second only to former military supremo Valeryi Zaluzhnyi, who is now ambassador to the U.K.

But none of that put Zelenskyy, who scored a robust 56 percent, out of the picture.

In line with Fedorov’s attack on a lack of transparency in the centralized state, another survey found dwindling sympathy for Zelenskyy using his powers to intervene over other state authorities. The poll found that 79 percent of people in 2022 — the year of Russia’s full-scale invasion — thought the president could override the constitution’s division of powers, but that had slipped to 52 percent in May 2026.

“People are placing all responsibility for the course of the war on the president. Because of this, the president feels the need to make all these decisions independently, which is against Ukraine’s constitution and legislative procedures. As a result, one person, the president, has a huge number of completely different tasks, incentives, requirements,” said Yurii Hudymenko, head of the Public Anti-Corruption Council at Ukraine’s defense ministry.

Corruption is also a hot topic, as Fedorov identified. Last year, Zelenskyy signed a law to strip Ukraine’s national anti-corruption watchdogs of their procedural independence, only to then backtrack on that decision when it faced criticism from the EU and protests at home.

Later, his former business partner and allies were implicated in a $100 million corruption scheme in the state nuclear energy sector — a scandal that forced Zelenskyy to fire his faithful No. 2, Andriy Yermak. Yermak was charged with corruption and is standing trial.

Several of Zelenskyy’s top allies are also under investigation for corruption, including former Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Olga Stefanishyna, while watchdogs complain they still face tremendous pressure and surveillance when investigating top officials.

On Wednesday, Zelenskyy fired Iryna Mudra as deputy head of his office, hours after anti-corruption watchdogs searched her workplace as part of a sweeping probe into an alleged criminal organization.

Yaroslav Zheleznyak, MP from opposition party Holos, and a prominent Zelenskyy critic, said the cumulative weight of these problems would ultimately count against the president.

He predicted Zelenskyy would suffer the fate of British wartime leader Winston Churchill and lose an election during the tail end of the war.

“No matter the competitors, Zaluzhnyi, [Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo] Budanov, Fedorov or someone else, I think we will get the situation like in 2019, when anyone but the incumbent will win in the second round. In this case, this is very much a Churchill story, when a guy who won the war got voted out,” Zheleznyak said.

“People want change,” he added.

Oleksandr Saienko, expert at the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, said it was possible to avert a political crisis even without elections, but that would mean shifting some decision-making back to parliament and other state authorities.

“The subjectivity of the parliament must be restored both in terms of the legislative process and parliamentary control. The government must become the main center for the formation of state policy,” he said. “The pause on reform of the judicial system and law enforcement agencies, public administration, must be lifted and people should get a real sense of justice and protection.”

BRUSSELS — In Europe’s fight against wildfires, eyes are turning toward the sky: not just looking for rain or water-dropping Canadair planes, but also for ways to exploit new satellite capabilities to help contain or even prevent new blazes.

Satellites and the images and data they gather from space are increasingly seen as a means of providing European governments and firefighters on the ground with more accurate information: to map damage and detect fires at an early stage. 

Such help is more than welcome during another scorching European summer with wildfires in France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Approximately 600,000 hectares have burned across EU countries since the start of the year. Just last weekend, Belgium was hit by one of the largest wildfires in its history, in the High Fens nature reserve.

Still, this latest use of satellites is another reminder that Europe needs to step up its game in yet another strategic arena. After Elon Musk’s Starlink showed how satellite-based services could revolutionize everything from mobile communication to waging war, space technology for disaster management offers a potential avenue for Europe to compete.

Greece, a country that seems to be battling bigger wildfires every summer, was the first to act. 

In early May, a rocket of Musk’s SpaceX carried four small satellites into space with the specific task of helping the country detect and track wildfires in near real time.  It was a crucial step in the build-out of the “Hellenic Fire System,” which the Greek government boasted was the first national satellite system of its kind. 

The system was set up through European-wide collaboration, with the help of the European Space Agency, its Greek counterpart, German wildfire intelligence platform Ororatech and Finnish radar-based satellite provider ICEYE.

“By integrating space-based capabilities into our emergency response systems, we are equipping our fire services with the tools they need to respond faster,” Dimitrios Papastergiou, Greece’s minister of digital governance and artificial intelligence, said at the launch in May. 

The satellites that were launched before the summer were equipped with two infrared imagers. Those pick up the heat energy radiated by fires, allowing satellites to detect hotspots and gauge their intensity. 

The system is designed to “support early detection of emerging hotspots and continuous monitoring of fire behavior,” the European Space Agency said. 

Satellites’ role in gathering vast, real-time data and images can also help with other extreme weather events. The Finnish company ICEYE offers monitoring services for governments and businesses to manage both natural catastrophes, such as floods and wildfires, and man-made ones, such as illegal deforestation.

ICEYE raised €1 billion in new financing this year, and became the first company to get backing from the Scaleup Europe Fund, a new fund backed by the European Commission to help companies expand rapidly.

“If we want to be effective in managing the environment around us, both in terms of growth and development, as well as preventing or managing natural catastrophes, these sorts of space-based systems are extremely effective,” ICEYE CEO Rafal Modrzewski told POLITICO.

He said the company has been mostly focused on “managing” wildfires, but is now “trying to push towards predicting wildfires or at least detecting them in an earlier stage.” Modrzewski says a similar offering is available for floods, and for wind damage stemming from hurricanes and typhoons.

The impact can be maximized if Brussels becomes a coordinating “buyer” of those services. “Using space-based capabilities is much more effectively done on an EU scale through [the European] Commission than on a national scale in 27 separate nations,” Modrzewski said. 

The Commission is already prominent in helping governments and emergency services map and detect wildfires. The European Forest Fire Information System, which sits within the Commission’s research desk, maps both active fires and burned areas based on data from NASA’s MODIS and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-3, an Earth observation satellite. 

Currently, data and images arrive every 10 minutes, but the launch of a new satellite from the Meteosat third generation next Thursday should speed that up — with images arriving every 2.5 minutes, improving detection and even forecasting of possible wildfires.

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