Ending the fighting in Ukraine and winning the war are not necessarily the same thing. Norwegian investor and technology executive Birger Steen argues that Russia must be convinced it cannot outlast Ukraine economically. His message in Trondheim went further: Europe must prepare for risks it hoped belonged to the past.
“We just need to make it more expensive for Putin to continue than to stop.”
NORSAR is a Norwegian research foundation specialising in seismology and monitoring. From Norway, the organisation contributes to international monitoring of nuclear explosions and also detects seismic signals from the war in Ukraine. Leading NORSAR is Steen's daytime job. Gardar is a Norwegian venture capital fund investing in Ukrainian defence technology where Steen is one of the co-founders.
The meet-up brought Ukrainian defence companies and frontline representatives together with Norwegian and Nordic companies, investors and technology communities. Battlefield experience, industrial cooperation, investment and scaling were recurring themes before the programme concluded with B2B meetings between Ukrainian and Nordic companies.
The final panel was asked a deceptively simple question: What is the most important thing to have or do to win the war?
For Steen, the answer depends on what winning actually means. If the immediate objective is to stop the fighting and reach an agreement acceptable to Ukraine's democratically elected leadership, he argued that Russia must understand that Ukraine cannot simply be exhausted through a prolonged war.
“When you sit down at the negotiation table, he has to know that Ukraine is backstopped by the Norwegian Petroleum Fund. If he knows that, he has to fold his cards.”
Birger Steen is CEO of NORSAR and co-founder of Gardar. Photo: Lars Bugge Aarset/Fremtidens Industri
The question of endurance was closely connected to another theme running through the meet-up: time.
Ukrainian frontline representatives described a battlefield where technology and tactics can change in weeks or even days. Ukrainian defence companies described similarly short development cycles, with operational feedback feeding directly into changes in technology and production. Steen contrasted that reality with the pace of European decision-making.
Through Gardar, Steen and his partners are attempting to address one part of the problem: access to capital. The fund has raised EUR 34 million from Norwegian family offices and invested in six Ukrainian defence technology companies. But money alone is not enough if decisions take too long.
Steen pointed to what he said were 912 days spent concluding a licence agreement for the production of extended-range 155 mm artillery ammunition in Ukraine.
His conclusion was short:
“This attitude to time just has to end.”
NORSAR is monitoring of nuclear explosions and also detects seismic signals from the war in Ukraine. Photo: Lars Bugge Aarset/Fremtidens Industri
Steen also used Norway's nuclear preparedness to illustrate a broader problem: recognising a threat is not the same as preparing for it.
Speaking as CEO of NORSAR, he described how the organisation detects nuclear test explosions around the world as well as signals associated with missile strikes in Ukraine. Against that backdrop, he turned to Norway's own preparedness for a nuclear detonation.
Steen said Norway is prepared for several radiological and nuclear scenarios, but argued that an actual nuclear detonation in or near Norway has not been properly exercised since 1999. What concerned him was not only whether the authorities are prepared, but whether ordinary Norwegians know what to do. His presentation reduced the immediate response to three instructions:
“Get Inside – Stay Inside – Stay Tuned.”
The slide described the first 15 minutes after a nuclear detonation as critical. Steen told the audience that anyone seeing the flash should get away from windows and take cover, before moving to a protected indoor location once the shockwave has passed.
“You have to take cover.”
His broader point was remarkably simple: basic knowledge can matter enormously in an extreme situation, yet he argued that the Norwegian population is not being systematically taught or trained in what to do.
Photo: Lars Bugge Aarset/Fremtidens Industri
The presentation described a nuclear detonation in or near Norway as “Scenario 7” in Norway's nuclear preparedness and stated that the scenario was planned in 2016 but had never been budgeted or exercised. That gap between responsibility and actual preparation was central to Steen's criticism:
“This year they made one little step forward, they wrote a sentence that says DSA is accountable for this scenario, but there's no money for it, so it's not going to get exercised and it's not going to get prepared.”
For Steen, nuclear preparedness was therefore another example of the same problem he sees in European defence more broadly: understanding that the security environment has changed is not enough. Knowledge, money, training and action have to follow.
His argument was part of a larger concern about preparedness. Steen also highlighted what he described as a gap between the share of Norwegians who are worried about war and the share who say they are prepared to defend their country: around 80 percent compared with about 50 percent.
The figures underline the question running through his presentation: Have European societies changed their preparations as much as their perception of the threat has changed?
Only 50 per cent of the polulation say they are prepared to defend their country. Photo: Lars Bugge Aarset/Fremtidens Industri
Towards the end of the panel, Steen took the discussion beyond weapons, investment and preparedness. An agreement could stop the shooting without resolving the deeper confrontation between Russia, Ukraine and the rest of Europe.
“The Iron Curtain's still there from Kirkenes to the Black Sea.”
He then used the outcome of the Second World War to explain what a much broader definition of victory would require.
“If by win you mean how we won World War II over Germany and Japan, that's much simpler in a sense. Because what that takes is for Russia to be as morally, economically, militarily, and cognitively bankrupt as Germany and Japan were.”
Steen continued by drawing a line between the imperial ambitions of Germany and Japan and historical ideas of Russian greatness that have survived different Russian rulers and political systems.
“The whole idea about the greatness of Russia has to go.”
That distinction between ending the fighting and removing the conditions for another war was also Steen's final answer to the question posed to the panel:
“And so it's simpler and much harder. But the war isn't over until that's happened.”
Anton Tabur of UCDI, Alex Deitsura of General Cherry and Birger Steen of NORSAR and Gardar joined the closing panel, moderated by Tevje Ravn Eggan, Cluster Manager at NORDSEC. Photo: Lars Bugge Aarset/Fremtidens Industri
The Norwegian-Ukrainian Defence and Dual-Use Tech Meet-up in Trondheim brought together Ukrainian and Nordic defence and technology companies, frontline representatives, investors and other stakeholders to strengthen cooperation between the Ukrainian and Nordic defence industries. The programme combined battlefield insights, company presentations, discussions on investment and industrial scaling, and B2B meetings.
The event was organised by NORDSEC together with its partners Radionor Communications, SpareBank 1 SMN, the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry (UCDI) and Fremtidens Industri. The aim was to develop concrete partnerships, accelerate technology and production cooperation, and connect Ukrainian defence companies with the Nordic industrial ecosystem.