Alexus G. Grynkewich (00:00):
All right. Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to speak with you again, alongside Admiral Cavo Dragone and Admiral Vondier. And it's a privilege to meet again with the Chiefs of Defense, and discuss how European allies in Canada are taking more responsibility for the conventional defense here in Europe, with continued critical backing from American capabilities, which are being adjusted as I know you've all heard.
(00:25)
As you'd expect, we also discussed the recent decision by the United States to redeploy an armored brigade from Europe. I'd like to emphasize this decision does not impact the executability of our regional plans. As we discussed what Allied Command Operations is doing to support Ukraine, to build war fighting readiness and to strengthen our deterrence posture... The war in Ukraine is into its fifth year, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to demonstrate extraordinary resilience and innovation, and they continue to share their combat tested expertise with us, especially when it comes to countering Russian and Iranian drones and missiles.
(01:09)
But Ukraine needs persistent and predictable support from allies. This is why support for Ukraine through the prioritized Ukraine requirements list, or PURL, and any other means remains critical. In regarding PURL, I want to assure you that everything allies have paid for is flowing, including air defense interceptors that the Ukrainians so urgently need. By investing in Ukraine, we are not only protecting their population and defending their critical infrastructure and sustaining their fight, this is also an investment in European security.
(01:40)
Beyond Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East remains tense. In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has attacked commercial shipping, disrupted energy flows and impeded freedom of navigation. Each nation is considering their response with many, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, sailing ships to the region now. We all agree it's in our interest to ensure freedom of navigation in international waters, and allies are moving out.
(02:07)
As I look deeper and longer term, ongoing operations in Ukraine and the Middle East are informing how we manage our posture and maintain the warfighting readiness needed to deter and defend every inch of allied territory. I applaud each ally that is taking immediate steps to leverage increases in defense spending to procure the capabilities needed to maintain credible deterrence and a strong defense. This requires a strong defense industrial base, and we're working with allies and the EU to ensure our Hague Summit commitments turn into real combat capabilities.
(02:39)
Turning to NATO activities, operations, and missions across ACO, we're executing with precision and efficiency. Through our enhanced vigilance activities, Arctic, Baltic, and Eastern Century, we have greater awareness, increased response capability, and we're seeing results. Meanwhile, in K4, there's real progress with a military mission creating opportunity in the political space. At NATO Mission Iraq, we've temporarily transitioned to a remote advisory presence to help Iraq build more sustainable and effective security institutions and armed forces to stabilize their country, fight terrorism and prevent the return of DASH.
(03:20)
And I'd like to conclude by highlighting today's change of command at NMI. It was an absolute pleasure working with Major General Christophe Hintzy. I'm very proud of what he accomplished during his command. And we're excited to have Lieutenant General Armada Vázquez joining our team as we look for opportunities to return to a military-led non-combat advisory presence in Iraq once conditions allow. Thanks again, and I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Please.
Pierre Vandier (03:48):
So happy to see you again. At the 2025 summit, the allies made a history commitment moving to 3.5% of their GDP to defense investment. That was the buck. Another question we have ahead of us is the bang. Bang, buck for the bang. How we turned this effort in real capability, real interoperability, and real deterrence for today's and tomorrow's fight.
(04:19)
That is what ACT is striving for. Our role is to help the alliance and very concretely the chief of defense I've been speaking with this morning to get more monetary effect from the resources nations are putting on the table. We need not to forget that the enemy has a vote. Russia and its allies have adapted. Others are watching and learning. Ukraine and the Middle East shows us that war is now shaped by speed, mass, software, drones, electronic warfare, space and data areas where we have a lot to do.
(04:56)
So yes, we need more missiles, more shells, more air defense, more iron capabilities, more stockpiles. These are essential, but they will not be sufficient on their own. More of the same is necessary, but more of the same will not be enough from far. If we want mass and speed, we need to know how we can build fast, produce at scale, adapt quickly, and still deliver real operational effect. And we need to identify which part of our industrial base can actually deliver it. NATO 3. 0 doesn't exist without defense industry 3.0.
(05:34)
This is where ACT brings value. ACT is the de-risking and the acceleration machine for the chief of defense, and nations and NATO enterprise. With LCIX, you heard about on Contour US on Taskforce X in the maritime domain, we bring nations, operators and industry together around real operational problems. We test what works, what can scale and how it becomes an interoperable capability.
(06:04)
Force utility enhancement program, we discuss sometime with you, where we also show that legacy platforms are not obsolete. The decisive question is the force mix. How we can combine ships, aircraft, tanks and the NAIN system with robotics, drones, sensors, software and new effectors to increase lethality and better protect our soldiers. But capability is not enough. We also need forces able to adapt. That means harder, more realistic training. It means cloud, data, and AI architectures that allow nations to share information, connect systems, decide faster, and remain resilient when communications are degraded. The point is not innovation theater, the point is delivery.
(06:57)
From buck to the bank, more capability, more interoperability, more resilience, and therefore more deterrence. That is what ACT is built to deliver.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Okay, thank you all. And please, for the record, state your name and your outlet. The lady in white, first row.
Emily Bayer (07:18):
Thank you very much, Emily Bayer from Reuters. I have a question for Sakur. There's been some confusion over the past day, so I was wondering if you could clarify for us. How many troops will the US pull from Europe? Where will they be pulled from specifically? Will there be more announcements, and how much does this hurt or impact the implementation of the regional plans? Thank you.
Alexus G. Grynkewich (07:45):
Thanks, Emily. In accordance with President Trump's announcement, it'll be 5,000 troops coming out of Europe. As I mentioned in my opening comments, a fair number of those come from the armored brigade combat team that is returning, and the US has also already announced that the previously planned deployment of a long range fires battalion will be curtailed and will not start occurring. There's some other additional minor elements that'll be shifting as well. The planning is still ongoing for what those are for another several hundred troops, and so we can talk about that a little bit later. But the total number is 5,000.
(08:24)
On your question of how does it impact us. Since the rotational brigade that is returning now without replacement showed up in 2022, a lot has happened in the alliance. First off, the Baltic allies and the Poles and many others have really built up their ground combat power. So there's substantially more capability in the ground domain than there was previously. I'd also highlight the multinational brigade that we have in Latvia led by Canada, fully operational on the ground and highly effective. And then the Germans continue to build out a brigade in Lithuania.
(09:01)
So again, this is as allies build up their-
Alexus G. Grynkewich (09:00):
... out of brigade in Lithuania. So again, as allies build up their capability, the United States is able to pull capability back and use it for other global priorities. So I'm very comfortable with where we are. We'll continue to work on the plan in both of my hats as Commander of UCOM on the US side and across the Alliance of SACEUR to ensure we've got the right coverage and the right places to maintain deterrence.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Thank you. Lady in pink jacket first? [inaudible 00:09:25]. Yes. Yes. Lady pinks jacket. Go ahead, go ahead.
Teri Schultz (09:27):
Teri Schultz. I'm with Deutsche Welle today. I have a question for SACT. In a recent exercise in Sweden, the Ukrainian war team killed the Swedes three times. The exercise had to be stopped. What does this tell us about where we are and in particular, especially on AI and high-tech methods on the battlefield? Could you address both of those things? And I'm not sure if that's exactly why Sweden got killed three times. But could you talk about how AI has changed the way that NATO needs to look at the battlefield? Because the Ukrainians are and thus the Russians are far ahead.
Pierre Vandier (10:09):
So given to Ukraine experience, we are turning training not on a fairytale, but something that is more holistic and we use training to make the system change. So as I said, we are, I think the nations are late in adopting some drones, adopting AI. And so today with the experience of the Red Team, which is given by the Ukrainians through JATEC, we are raising the level of the exercises. So the good news is that today we are more realistic about the threat and we are working on it very hard. I think the number of trainings that will follow this path where we will have some hard time with the enemy show that today the nations want to be realistic, they want to make the efforts and we have the science, we have the industry to overcome that.
Alexus G. Grynkewich (11:00):
Can I comment on that for just one second too? So we've had a number of these exercises where we've done this training with highly qualified opposition forces sometimes provided by Ukraine, sometimes by others. We often focus on the beginning of the exercise where we're learning a lot. And when you learn lessons, you're being removed from the battlefield, if you will. By the end of the exercise, by, say, the end of a week out in the field facing that opp for, you should see our young soldiers from across the alliance and the rapid increase in their knowledge and their ability to fight back in this environment. So I just want you to know while we often focus on that initial result, this training is having real results in terms of the capability and understanding of the modern battlefield for our troops. So it's something we're going to continue to do.
Teri Schultz (11:48):
And how much is that AI [inaudible 00:11:51]? How much is that advantage [inaudible 00:11:54]-
Pierre Vandier (11:55):
So AI is coming in the alliance. ACO is running a Maven Smart System and we are buying computing to make that faster and more relevant. ECT is experimenting copilots at the enterprise level for the start work. We have an AI Champion, which is a French guide today. France will propose an AI COE next summer. So things are going on. And back to the training we've launched with the ACO program, which name is Audacious Training, where all the NATO training now is run with AI process to go faster, to give more free play and so to make more relevant trainings.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yes. Gentlemen in second row, please.
Victor Jack (12:38):
Hi, Victor Jack from Politico. Thanks for the press conference. My question is for SACEUR. Do you expect any future redeployments, US redeployments from Europe in the weeks to come? And are you in talks with allies about replacing some of the capabilities and the troops which have been announced so far? Thank you.
Alexus G. Grynkewich (12:58):
Yeah. On the second part of your question, absolutely. In constant contact with allies. I had a session today with the Baltic II and Poland to go over what some of the options were and how we might array capabilities on the Eastern flank. So absolutely constant contact with allies and constantly looking at what the threat is and what do we need to adjust or do we need to adjust. On the question of future redeployments, look, I will not get ahead of any political leadership in the United States. I will just say that the deployments that we have so far are all that's been announced. It's all that I'm expecting in the near term. But over the longer term, we absolutely should expect additional deployments as Europe continues to build capability and capacity and step up to provide more of the conventional defense of Europe.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Okay. The ladies with the red sweater and the brown jacket, last row. Last row.
Maria Aroni (14:00):
Thank you. Maria Aroni from Athens News Agency and Open TV Greece. I have a question for CMC and also for SACT or SACEUR, if you wish to comment. So the experience of four years of military confrontation in Ukraine has changed the way modern battles are fought, in particular with extensive use of drones and electronic warfare. What are the lessons learned for the alliance from this experience? And speaking of drones, I would also like to hear your views on a serious incident which took place last week when a rogue maritime surface drone of Ukrainian origin loaded with explosives was recovered by the Greek authorities. It was found by fishermen in a cave near the shore of a very touristic Greek island in the Ionian Sea. So my question is if NATO is willing and also in a position to tackle such a new type of unorthodox warfare that seriously endangers the safety of navigation in maritime zones such as East Mediterranean. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Okay. We'll share the question with the SACT as far as lesson learned [inaudible 00:15:22] and so on. For the first part, what the alliance learned from that, drones just are revolutionary issue on the battlefield. They will not be the only weapon. They will be maybe the most prominent and also influencing all the battle space, probably. They will be probably in this and the next future could be the very first one in getting involved in the confrontation. What we basically learn is that they just shrink dramatically time. Among all the killing cycle, it's just a matter of maybe minutes or even less, seconds. When they detect, they track, they analyze and discover what is it, they shoot, they got information, battle damage assessment and then field information to the next operation. That's a matter of seconds and that's happening with artificial intelligence and drones. That's the big issue.
(16:26)
Time is just becoming, I mean, very, very shrink. On the other side, unorthodox warfare, well, we can call it unconventional or unorthodox, but I think that's typical of confrontations and that's typical when, let's say a smaller country is facing a bigger one, they have to exploit all the... I'm not justifying anybody, but I'm just thinking in their shoes. I would try to get the most from what I have. And of course there are sovereignty, there are all this kind of problem that will let the politics deal with it. But as far as unorthodox or unconventional warfare, I'm expecting that from a smaller nation that is trying to survive, that has been attacked, so any kind of a solution is good if you are achieving the result. Then probably you have to justify your behavior. But from the military point of view, they're trying to get the most from the field and that's basically what I think that I would do in their shoes. And then as far as innovation or a drone, I'll let Pierre take the floor.
Pierre Vandier (17:46):
So I will not go too technical because there is a lot of things. One of the thing I would say about the lessons from Ukraine, one is the all of society residents. We need to think about during 3DKs, we thought that the war was something far, far more borders made by some fighters-
Pierre Vandier (18:00):
... was something far from our borders made by some fighters overseas. Today, we see that Ukraine experience showed that to be resilient, you need to have a strong collaboration between military instrumental power and civilian one. The example of power grid, of communication grid, transport grid, medical support, that is a common endeavor.
(18:20)
Second question, the industry is a part of the war fighting system. We've seen a ramp up of the Ukrainian industry in a dimension that now makes them building something for the West. They have been creating all an industry which is very agile. On the Ukrainian drones, you have a QR code. The soldier can give the report of how his drone is functioning to the acquirer of the company, and they can update the software in a matter of weeks or even days. Today, Ukraine is enabled, the soldier is enabled on his own mobile phone by a suite of applications that is giving me all the tools he needs, as you have in your life today.
(19:05)
And so the adaptation is maybe the most important lesson. We have a system that been very static where the definition of programs was taking three, four years and then four years to deliver, to a system where we can adapt in a night, and that is why it's so important to be data centric, software centric. That enables that. So it's a big shift for the industry today to come from a platform mindset to a data mindset, whatever the platform is, and so it's what we've seen in Ukraine.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Thank you. The lady-
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Let me just, as far as orthodox or unorthodox, well, we are facing power who is targeting civilian infrastructure, killing civilian, crossing border of a sovereign nation, kidnapping from 15,000 to 23, 24,000, 25,000 children and moving them. Is this Orthodox? Okay, next.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Yes, please.
Milda Vilikanskytė (20:14):
Thank you. Milda Vilikanskytė from the Lithuanian National Public Broadcaster. I have two questions but they are very related, and I don't know, maybe you yourself will decide who will want to answer. One is about drone. Today in Estonia, a drone was shut down by a Romanian fire jet who flew from a Lithuanian airbase. Also, drones took off in Latvia. In the risk of drones, how would you assess with this incidents? And other question which is related with drones. We hear Russia accusing and threatening the Baltic States, saying that Lithuania, Latvia Estonia are giving their territory, their airspace for Ukraine to attack Russia. And today, specifically for Latvia, there was a threat claiming that Latvia let Ukrainian troops to come to their territory and to attack Russia from Latvia, and Russia said that because of that, they could attack Latvia also. So could we say that it is a point-blank threat to NATO alliance, to NATO country, or how we should take this Russia's threat? Thank you.
Alexus G. Grynkewich (21:41):
I'll take the first swing at that and then CMC would like to weigh in. First, in terms of the drone incident today where the Romanians shot it down, that's exactly how our defense design is supposed to work. The authorities are delegated down to the lowest tactical level so that we can defend every inch of alliance territory when there's an incursion like that. So I'm extremely proud. We're still assessing the situation, but it looks at initial glance like everything worked, and we've got great integration with all of the Baltic air defense capabilities that are there and with our air policing mission as we make a transition to air defense over the coming months in terms of our mindset and our plans.
(22:21)
So that's part one, and second, with your comment on the Russian threats, look, it's a standard Russian trope, right? They constantly say that NATO is doing something in an offensive manner, but we all know. You can read the treaty. NATO is a defensive alliance. We are not a threat to Russia and they know we're not a threat to Russia. If they thought we were a threat to Russia, they wouldn't have emptied the Leningrad Military District to go and invade Ukraine. So I just offer that at face value of ... It's so obviously incorrect that there's any threat whatsoever.
(22:54)
Last thing I'll say is if we were allowing drones to go through Baltic airspace in order to get to Russia, we wouldn't be shooting them down. Thanks.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Okay. Yes, first row, black shirt.
Andrea Palasciano (23:10):
Andrea Palasciano from Bloomberg News. SACEUR, I have a question for you. You mentioned that you all agree that in the interest of the alliance, to secure freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, focusing on the Coalition of the Willing and the bilateral commitments that have been made. But could you tell us under which conditions NATO would consider participating, and if so, with which assets? Thank you.
Alexus G. Grynkewich (23:36):
Yeah. Thanks for the question. The conditions under which NATO would consider operating in the Strait of Hormuz are ultimately a political decision, but I'll just give you a couple of thoughts from myself as an alliance officer.
(23:52)
Iran fired ballistic missiles into my AOR, into SACEUR's AOR multiple times during Epic Fury, so we've had kinetic events coming into the AOR from Iran. The stoppage of the flow that Iran has caused through the Strait of Hormuz is affecting all of our economies in a very negative way, and affecting our economies affects our military-industrial capacity over the long term.
(24:19)
We know that Iran and Russia are doing technology transfer and sharing lessons. We know that the increased price of energy and some of the shortage that we've read about in the news could have a military impact, so there's a number of impacts here from the lack of freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz right now. I think that's all up for discussion at the political level as to what do those trip and when would we politically decide to move forward. Thanks.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
The lady in the red shirt, third row.
Valentina Vasileva (24:56):
Thank you. Valentina Vasileva, TVP Polish Media Votak. I have a question about a Spanish idea to create European army. Last week, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs suggested that. What do you think about this idea, especially that it's coming from Spain? And in general, can you imagine that Europe can create common European army without NATO? Thank you.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I'll take it. This is my mantra. No, I think there is a kind of misunderstanding. We need to start from two basic point. First, single set of army. Second, sovereignty. We, the alliance, the nations just have one army, every nations, so that's the one, and they are force providers. So they will provide secure for what he needs to fulfill his mission, depending on the mission. So we cannot think about a European army. It's an oxymoron or a nonsense, because NATO doesn't have an army. And also, the single nation keep the sovereignty of their armies, so they are the one who decide what to do it. And they are providing us, NATO, as a force provider with what we need. We have to see, European Union has the European pillar of NATO, but again, they will be using in case they will do a kind of activity, military activity, they will use the same set of armies that NATO has. So that's why we need to speak about a European column, pillar of the NATO. That's basically it. Of course, we should stick with the idea that we ...
Speaker 3 (27:00):
... stick with the idea that we just said that European Union has some characteristics which are complimentary to the NATO. NATO has a strong chain of command, operational orientation plans and on and on. So the operational side of the house. On the other side, European Union has a great capability in providing financing and a great leverage on industry that we don't have basically. They have rules, regulations, and so that's basically it. We are complimentary by design and we should stick with this just to avoid duplication, waste of money, time, and energies.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Okay. Is more clarification from the... Yes. Oh, okay.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
Can I ask and you can answer?
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Okay. Okay.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
You want to go?
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
A point of clarification, sir. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but when you were talking about allies stepping up, you had said you would use the word deployment of U.S. troops. I believe what you meant to say was redeployment of U.S. troops.
Alexus G. Grynkewich (28:14):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
[inaudible 00:28:15].
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Yes. Andrew. Yes, yes.
Speaker 7 (28:19):
So just to try and clarify this, thanks, just to follow up on that. So just to be clear, you had originally said we should absolutely expect additional deployments as Europe continues to build capability and capacity step up. So what you're actually saying is redeployments. And if you could just clarify why that should be expected and if you can say anything about the kind of timeframe, how long that might happen over.
Alexus G. Grynkewich (28:43):
Yeah. Yes, redeployment. So that was a misspeak. Apologies. I guess one can dream, but no. So this is resident in the U.S. national defense strategy and it's resident in the concept that some have called NATO 3.0 as CMC mentioned. And so what we're basically saying is as the European pillar of the alliance gets stronger, this allows the U.S. to reduce its presence in Europe and limit itself to providing only those critical capabilities that allies cannot yet provide. And so we should expect there to be a redeployment of U.S. forces over time as allies build their capacity. As for the exact timeline, it's going to vary broadly across a number of different capabilities as nations meet their Hague spending commitments and meet their capability targets. So I can't really give you an exact timeline. It's going to be an ongoing process for several years.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
Two more. Last question. One here, please.
Max Lanier (29:42):
Thanks a lot. Max Lanier, FP. Just following up on a couple of issues. The Strait of Hormuz, you said that it's a political decision ultimately if NATO get involved, but are you already planning for a possible NATO role in the Strait of Hormuz if you're asked by the political leadership?
(30:02)
And then on the troop redeployments, it wasn't so much the amount that was the issue this time, but the manner in which it was done, impulsive, without coordination, and sudden. Is that the way to do it and can you guarantee that in future, Europe will be better informed and better able to prepare for these announcements?
Alexus G. Grynkewich (30:24):
Yeah. So first on your question on planning, for SAC here to undertake any formal military planning requires a council planning directive that gives me guidance from the North Atlantic Council. So the political direction comes first and then the formal planning happens after that. Am I thinking about it? Absolutely. But there's no planning yet until the political decision is taken.
(30:48)
Second, in terms of your comment, look, we've talked about this with the chiefs of defense today and I would tell you that every chief of defense in there acknowledged that this type of adjustment was something that they knew should be expected. The exact timing was unknown, but when it did happen and when it was ordered, we were quickly able to talk to our allies and let them know what was going on and why it was happening. So there was coordination. There was an expectation that this would happen and we're going to stay well synchronized with our allies moving forward.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Thank you. One last more question. Last row, please. The lady with the jacket.
Maria Vasili (31:35):
Good afternoon, Maria Vasili. Ta Nea Greece. I would like to go back to the Ukrainian seadrone that was found in Greek waters and ask [inaudible 00:31:46] this time because this is actually understood. It's not the only seadrone of Ukrainian origin that is floating around in the Med, whether you are concerned that we could see that the war could spill into the Med because the Ukrainians are hunting Russian shadow fleet tankers. And in this case, how could NATO react and operate? Thank you.
Alexus G. Grynkewich (32:15):
I'm not currently concerned that the war is going to expand into the Mediterranean. I think as CMC mentioned, these type of tactics are common in conflicts like this where there's an asymmetry of power. So I don't share that concern right now. We'll watch it closely, but I'm not concerned about it. Thanks.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
Okay. Okay. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. And this concludes our press conference. Thank you.