The outbreak of war in Ukraine has triggered the steepest increase in military expenditure in Europe in three decades, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). The thinktank reports that spending by central and western European states reached $345bn in 2022, a sum that, in real terms, surpasses that of 1989, the last year of the cold war. Their defence expenditure is 30% higher than a decade ago.
Germany was among the nations breaking with the norms of the recent past. The Zeitenwende, or turning point, announced by the country's chancellor, Olaf Scholz, last year ushered in its biggest re-armament since the second world war.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
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