Leaked documents reveal a British intel contractor singled out The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal for online censorship, and seeks to redefine factual criticism of NATO as disinformation. | A leaked 130-page report made public here for the first time documents an international censorship campaign funded by the British government and led by a public relations contractor for U.S. Special Operations Forces. The basic strategy is to redefine “disinformation” to include even factual criticism of the U.S. military or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and then to exert “coordinated action to pressure social media and digital market actors” to “moderate” such speech. The previously secret report also recommends “intensifying cooperation among the intelligence agencies within the EU [European Union]”, which in the past has included Ukrainian intelligence conducting what it described as a “multi-level special operation” in Spain to arrest a critical journalist for treason over his YouTube broadcasts.

The bloc’s security depends on integrating several key countries, Czech President Petr Pavel has said | The European Union should accept not just Ukraine, but Moldova, Georgia, and the Western Balkans for the sake of its own security, Czech President Petr Pavel claimed at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, on Tuesday. Continued expansion to the east is a geopolitical necessity, he argued. [...] The bloc’s enlargement would supposedly enhance its security in an “increasingly antagonistic” international environment, the president explained, according to the Czech Television broadcaster. Pavel described Russia’s ongoing military campaign as the most “pressing security threat,” although a “more demanding than assertive China” poses a greater “geopolitical challenge.”

■ Germany promises to extend EU into Russia (RT.com)

Norway will increase defense budget by approximately 20% in 2024 compared to the current year's budget, Norwegian Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said in an interview, published on Wednesday. | The newspaper [VG.no] also cited Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store as saying that the additional money will be used for military support for Ukraine as well as improving Norway's defense capabilities.  ● The newspaper reported that Vedum was talking about NATO's program obliging members to use a minimum of 2% of GDP for defense, which Norway promised to do at the organization's summit in Vilnius in July.

■ Budsjett-hopp for Forsvaret: Får 15 milliarder ekstra i 2024 (VG.no)

Arming Kiev is a cost-effective way of preventing Moscow from threatening NATO, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said on Wednesday. | Ollongren explained that she had recently visited the US and that political developments there are cause for concern, but that Western Europeans need to talk with their American colleagues and persuade them to stay the course. The US and its allies have channeled a large amount of money, weapons, ammunition, and supplies to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. ● EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell revealed earlier this week that the bloc has sent Ukraine €85 billion ($89.8 billion) so far, of which more than €25 billion was military aid.

Actor-turned-activist Laurence Fox was arrested for encouraging people to smash pollution-compliance cameras in London | Actor and Reclaim Party founder Laurence Fox was arrested in a Wednesday raid on his London home. Police say Fox encouraged criminal damage against the city’s much-maligned ULEZ cameras. ● The Reclaim Party posted a video of the raid to X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday morning. In the clip, at least five police officers can be seen examining items in the house while Fox sits on his couch smoking. 💬 “Look how many coppers there are in my house; look at them coming to steal everything, take everything out of my house,” he says to the camera. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is the country that we live in.” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement that officers “arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of conspiring to commit criminal damage to ULEZ cameras and encouraging or assisting offenses to be committed.”