The UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) met in Finland on Thursday (26 March) to discuss the Russia–Ukraine war, North Atlantic security and the coalition’s future.
The military partnership, comprising 10 northern European nations, has played a key role in protecting critical undersea infrastructure since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is a UK-led military partnership made up of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.
All members are also part of NATO. Their armed forces train together and respond jointly to threats in the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea regions. The JEF is designed to integrate into operations led by NATO, the UN and other security coalitions.
The JEF was conceived by the UK in the early 2010s as a way for allied nations to respond more quickly than larger organisations during crises.
In 2014, seven countries: the UK, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Norway — signed an initial agreement to establish the partnership.
Finland and Sweden came on board in 2017 and the nine countries formally signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing JEF a year later in 2018. Iceland, which does not maintain a standing army, joined in 2021.
JEF forces operate primarily in and around member states but can also respond to challenges further afield, including humanitarian crises. Any response would be aligned with NATO’s objectives.
Since its formation, JEF forces have been deployed across the Baltic Sea region and in Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Iceland and Denmark. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the partnership has stepped up deterrence missions, including protecting critical undersea cables in the Baltic Sea.
Lately, JEF nations have worked together to form a shared strategic understanding of the legal basis for countering Russia’s shadow fleet of tankers, which are used to bypass Western sanctions on oil exports.
From September, the military partnership will carry out three years of deployments and patrols in the Arctic and surrounding areas, including Iceland, the Danish Straits and Norway.
A Kyiv-Warsaw train was struck near the Polish border, Ukraine's state railway firm said on Sunday. No passengers were injured. Ukrai...
Maritime trackers received new reports of an attack on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, according to the ...
Indonesian rescuers are searching for 130 people after a passenger ship carrying 243 people sank in the Java Sea following bad weather, while 113 p...
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in New Delhi on Friday to attend the weekend BRICS summit, amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict, joining a host of foreign dignitaries.
Maritime trackers received new reports of an attack on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), adding to concerns about energy supplies after Saudi Arabia shut down a vital oil pipeline on Saturday.
A Kyiv-Warsaw train was struck near the Polish border, Ukraine's state railway firm said on Sunday. No passengers were injured. Ukrainian Railways said that the country's railways were facing systematic attacks for a second day and warned of widespread delays.
Saudi Arabia has temporarily shut down its 1,200-kilometre East-West oil pipeline after it was hit by a drone attack, with Riyadh and Baghdad saying the strike originated from Iraq.
Dubai’s property market has spent years climbing. Now, for the first time since 2021, prices are moving in the opposite direction.
A Kyiv-Warsaw train was struck near the Polish border, Ukraine's state railway firm said on Sunday. No passengers were injured. Ukrainian Railways said that the country's railways were facing systematic attacks for a second day and warned of widespread delays.
Indonesian rescuers are searching for 130 people after a passenger ship carrying 243 people sank in the Java Sea following bad weather, while 113 people have been evacuated and six have died, the country’s search and rescue agency said on Sunday.
China will lead the creation of an open source platform among BRICS members to promote cooperation on large language models, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Sunday.
Swedes vote in an election on Sunday (13 September) that could see the far-right enter government for the first time if the country's right-wing parties can form a majority.
Philippine rescuers recovered 41 more charred remains from a ferry fire on Saturday (12 September), taking the death toll to 76, while 13 people remained unaccounted for as forensic teams worked to identify the victims.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment