The announcement by the US on Wednesday that it had already provided Ukraine with long-range missiles has drawn focus to the ongoing debate in Germany over the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukrainian forces.

The US weapons system, called Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), has a range of up to 300 kilometers (180 miles).

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, along with the majority of German lawmakers, have repeatedly refused to send Ukraine long-range Taurus weapons system.

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Latvia, a former Soviet republic and now a member of NATO and the European Union, has a 214-kilometre border with Russia, and has been one of Ukraine’s most reliable supporters since Russia’s invasion.

“We call on everyone during the big clean-up, but also afterwards, to ensure that your cellars and your basements can be used as shelters in case of emergencies,” said Vilnis Kirsis, mayor of the capital Riga.

He said in a communique that municipal employees would do the same for buildings belonging to the city.

Gints Reinsons, head of a Riga civil defence commission, said “the basements of public buildings, schools, retirement homes, hospitals, and town halls will be inspected by the authorities who will prepare them to serve as hiding places in the event of an attack.”

The recent high-profile arrests of alleged China and Russia spies in Germany highlight the extent of hostile foreign infiltration in the country. The extent of this infiltration is in part a legacy of political "naivety" that followed the end of the Cold War, says Roderich Kiesewetter, a former German Army officer who is now an opposition MP, who alleged China was seeking to gain access to advanced research that could be useful for military or other purposes.

"Since 1990, there was the idea that Germany is surrounded by friends", he says.

Leaders were focused on business deals, including with autocratic countries such as Russia, and took their eye off national security, he explained.

Rafael Loss of the European Council on Foreign Relations is more specific about what went wrong.

German intelligence entirely wound down a unit dedicated to counter-intelligence in 2002 under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

"It is remarkable that this entire unit of roughly 60 people was completely disbanded," Mr Loss says.

But things are changing. The BfV's staffing has doubled in the past 10 years. The recent spate of detentions shows that the intelligence services are becoming more assertive in a country whose political culture has traditionally been wary of them.

"All the arrests at once send a good signal to the nations that spy on us," said Felix Neumann of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. "Germany is awake and not asleep any more."

French President Emmanuel Macron is ready to “open the debate” about the role of nuclear weapons in a common European defence, he said in an interview published Saturday

The defence ministers of France and Germany, Sebastien Lecornu and Boris Pistorius, signed a memorandum of understanding that seals a 50-50 split in the industrial production of an advanced battle tank dubbed the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS).

The push to move ahead with the project comes as Berlin and Paris are eager to show unity after a series of spats on how to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Solskyi was accused of illegally seizing land worth more than $7m (£5.6m) when he was the head of a major farming company and a member of parliament.

An anti-corruption court ordered him to be held in custody until 24 June, prosecutors said. Bail was set at 75.7m hryvnias ($1.9m).

Chinese spies hacked the laptop of Els Van Hoof, the chairperson of the Belgian parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee in federal Parliament, back in 2021. Ms Van Hoof is believed to have opened several emails, allowing hackers to obtain her IP address.

"They wanted to intimidate me, but I'm not going to give in," the lawmaker says.

It is the latest incident of recent cases of suspected Chinese espionage in Europe. Beijing has denied all such accusations.

There is a "stark difference of opinion between countries like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic as compared to western European countries such as France or Germany", writes Viktoriia Lapa from the Institute for European Policymaking at the Bocconi University in Italy, arguing that “westsplaining” still prevails in the European Union.

"By 2022, Russia had launched a full-scale attack against Ukraine. Words of support came from every direction but concrete support was less forthcoming. During the first days of the war, Germany refused to send weapons to Ukraine and even prevented Estonia from sending its old howitzer artillery weapons by withholding approval," Lapa writes.

"Lithuania, meanwhile, along with Latvia, Estonia and Poland, were sounding the alarm about the threat the situation posed to the rest of the region and called for Europe to support Ukraine “with every means available”. For many in the region, Europe should commit unambiguously to helping Ukraine win the war."

"Until recently, even French president Emmanuel Macron was suggesting that Ukraine should compromise on some of its sovereignty to accommodate Putin’s demands. Such comments were coldly received in Baltic and eastern European states."

"When Macron changed his strategy to say that he did not rule out sending troops to Ukraine, he faced backlash from several European capitals. However, he found an ally in Lithuania."

"In a positive sign of recognition, EU Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen mentioned in her annual state of the union address in 2022: 'We should have listened to the voices inside our union – in Poland, in the Baltics, and all across central and eastern Europe.'"

As the country marks 50 years since the end of fascism, people celebrate the coup’s legacy but say the fight must continue

Russia has systematically maintained contacts with far-right and far-left parties, and other personalities and movements to gain support from institutional actors within the union in order to legitimize its illegal and criminal actions," the draft statement, set to go to the vote on Thursday and subject to change or rejection, read.

Many members states have "limited operational capacities" against espionage. Moreover, "their cooperation at the EU level is hampered by differences in threat perceptions and a lack of mutual trust."

Two years ago, a Portuguese businessman with good Hungarian government connections bought the Euronews TV channel. Direkt36, together with Le Monde and Expresso, found out that a large part of the money was provided by a Hungarian state capital fund and a long-standing player in the government propaganda machine. According to leaked internal documents, the investment also had political aims.