I'm Arthur Snell, a major war is taking place on the European continent with Russia's

invasion of Ukraine. Bringing you a series of special episodes to help you understand

the crisis as it unfolds. This is Doomsday Watch.

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Hello. I'm joined today by Dr Ulrika Franca, who's a senior policy fellow at the European

Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on European defence, particularly the issue

of drones. Ulrika, welcome. Well, thanks a lot for having me. Ulrika, there's so much

we could talk about today, but we are recording this the day after NATO's summit in Madrid

came to a close. And whilst it's always tempting to say that NATO's summit is a historic

and important, I think this one really is. What's your sense on what were the really key

moments and the key decisions of that summit? Yeah, I think you're right that it was a

historic summit. And actually, I mean, over the last few years, I mean, especially before

2014, but even afterwards, oftentimes these summits were mainly about, you know, just coming

together and showing unity and then talking about things, but they weren't necessarily that

important as this one was this time. I think there are three things I would highlight.

I mean, first of all, it really was about showing and demonstrating unity, ascending a strong

signal into the world. And of course, primarily towards Vladimir Putin, that NATO is strong

united. Everyone is on the same page. And I think that's definitely what happened. The

second thing I would emphasize or I would kind of point out as being important was this decision

to take on two new members Sweden and Finland, two European countries that, you know, have a long

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