A russian ship, a referendum date, and the question of Icelandic readiness

Hello,

This edition covers a month in which Iceland's parliament confirmed a date for the EU referendum, Icelandic and allied forces tracked a Russian intelligence ship through Icelandic waters, and the government deepened defence ties with Norway and the wider Nordic-Arctic group. There is a run of NATO diplomacy, from the Helsingborg ministerial to the Oslo summit, and two ambassadorial changes: Þórdís Kolbrún's move to London and the US Senate's confirmation of Billy Long in Reykjavík. We close with a new Varða analysis on the Icelandic public's disaster awareness and preparedness.

1. Iceland tracks Russian intelligence ship in its EEZ

Iceland has tracked the Russian intelligence ship Yuri Ivanov for over a week as it transits the country's exclusive economic zone, currently in the waters between Iceland and Greenland and heading south. The ship had shadowed NATO's Dynamic Mongoose anti-submarine exercise off Norway in late May before moving west across the North Atlantic. Jónas G. Allansson, head of the foreign ministry's defence department, told RÚV the vessel's purpose is principally intelligence-gathering, listening for communications and monitoring allied activity around the exercise, and that Russian ships and aircraft observing NATO drills is not unusual. A Coast Guard helicopter overflew and photographed the ship on 6 June; authorities have had no contact with its crew.

The monitoring runs through close coordination between the Icelandic Coast Guard, the defence department, NATO command, and the alliance's air station at Keflavík, drawing on submarine-hunting aircraft, ships, and surveillance flights. Jónas noted to Vísir that the ship carries only limited armament for self-defence and poses no direct threat to subsea infrastructure or shipping. It is exercising freedom of navigation through the EEZ, which Iceland can monitor but not impede.

2. Parliament sets EU referendum for 29 August; foreign minister fears a "Brexit moment"

Alþingi has approved a national referendum, to be held on 29 August, on whether Iceland should resume accession talks with the European Union — talks Iceland opened in 2010 and halted in 2013. The vote does not ask Icelanders whether to join, but whether to reopen negotiations; if yes, talks resume, and any eventual deal would go to a second referendum. The coalition — the Social Democratic Alliance, the People's Party, and Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir's centre-right Liberal Reform Party — brought the date forward from its earlier "no later than 2027" commitment.

Þorgerður Katrín frames the shift against a changed security order: she told the Guardian that "the international order that underpinned our security and prosperity for decades is under serious pressure," and that US threats against Greenland and the use of trade as a "political weapon" had influenced the decision — while insisting EU membership "is not contradicting" Iceland's relationship with Washington. Polling is tight: a recent foreign-ministry survey put 42% for reopening talks and 39% against while joining the EU leans the other direction with 39% for joining and 46% against, according to a new Gallup poll. The central fault lines are fishing rights, sovereignty, and whether to move toward a different monetary-policy environment, potentially adopting the euro and retiring the volatile króna.

Þorgerður Katrín's sharper warning concerns the campaign itself. She said she fears "a Brexit moment," with misinformation drawn "from the playbook of Nigel Farage and Reform," and named Russia among "actors who seek to influence our public debate." Finnbogi Jónasson, head of analysis at the National Police Commissioner's office, confirmed to RÚV that a standing working group is monitoring the campaign for foreign interference. 

3. Iceland and Norway sign defence-cooperation MoU at NORDEFCO meeting

Iceland and Norway signed a Memorandum of Understanding on enhanced defence cooperation on 6 May, on the sidelines of the NORDEFCO defence ministers' meeting in Trøndelag. The MoU sets out a framework for cooperation on surveillance and analysis, capability and infrastructure development, host-nation support, resilience, and protection of critical infrastructure, and is the third such Iceland-Norway declaration, after texts in 2007 and 2017.

Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir said the partnership rests on a strong foundation and that the new agreement "will strengthen it further and improve our readiness to respond to rapid changes in our security environment in the Arctic and in Europe." The NORDEFCO ministers also issued a joint statement on Nordic defence cooperation (full text here).

Norwegian defence scholar Håkon Lunde Saxi told High North News that Norway is "perhaps the Nordic country with the greatest focus on Iceland, followed by Denmark," noting that in the past up to two-thirds of Norway's NATO air-policing contributions went to Iceland. He tied allied attention to unarmed Iceland to the value of open sea lanes, calling the country an unsinkable aircraft carrier — a term applied to Iceland in the Second World War, now resurfacing decades later — that secures reinforcement routes toward the Fennoscandian peninsula.

4. NATO foreign ministers meet in Helsingborg; Arctic allies pledge deeper security cooperation

NATO foreign ministers met in Helsingborg, Sweden, on 22 May, with higher defence spending, burden-sharing, and Ukraine atop the agenda and preparations under way for July's leaders' summit in Ankara. Arctic and North Atlantic security featured prominently, including the Arctic Sentry vigilance activity launched in February, in which Iceland plays a central role. Recent drone incidents in the Baltic states and subsequent Russian disinformation also drew a Nordic-Baltic (NB8) statement (here).

On the margins, the seven Arctic NATO members — Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark (with Greenland and the Faroes), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the United States — issued a joint statement pledging deeper cooperation on Arctic and High North security, framed against Russia's military activity and China's growing strategic interest. The allies agreed to enhance military presence, surveillance, and joint training, and to coordinate more closely on research security, investment screening, and critical-infrastructure protection.

5. Iceland fields seventeen experts in NATO's Locked Shields cyber exercise

Iceland sent seventeen specialists — from government, critical-infrastructure operators, and private firms, including lawyers alongside technical staff — to Locked Shields 2026, the world's largest cyber-defence exercise, run by NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence with some 4,000 participants from 41 states. Teamed with Norway, Iceland placed fifth of sixteen. CERT-IS director Magni Reynir Sigurðsson said Iceland's cyber defences are in reasonable shape but can always improve, and noted that intrusions into the systems of firms and institutions have risen recently.

6. Oslo summit doubles as a NATO pre-meeting

Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir joined the other Nordic premiers and India's Narendra Modi in Oslo on 19 May 2026 for the third Nordic-India leaders' summit in eight years (see joint statement). Alongside the bilateral track, the premiers held a separate Nordic-only session on NATO, ahead of the alliance's Ankara summit this summer, where Kristrún led discussion on Arctic and North Atlantic security and continued Nordic support for Ukraine's defence. Against a backdrop of strain in the alliance — repeated Trump threats to pull the US out of NATO, and apparent designs on Greenland — she argued Europe, and Iceland with it, must take more responsibility for their own defence and cannot rely on the United States alone. She reaffirmed Iceland's contribution as a host nation, investing in air-policing and Arctic surveillance, and said the country can be an "active, proud participant" in the alliance while remaining unarmed.

7. Þórdís Kolbrún named ambassador to London, leaves Alþingi

Þórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörð Gylfadóttir, former Independence Party deputy leader and twice foreign minister, has been appointed Iceland's ambassador to London and has resigned her Alþingi seat after thirteen years. She frames the move as a response to a sharpening security environment, judging she can serve Icelandic interests better abroad than in parliament. In her farewell note to parliament she argued the moment demands "more statecraft and less politics," and singled out Iceland's high societal trust — "the Nordic gold" — as something to guard rather than gamble. She also serves as the Council of Europe Secretary General's Special Envoy on the Situation of Children of Ukraine. Þórdís is a member of Varða's advisory board, and we wish her every success in the new post.

8. Senate confirms Billy Long as US ambassador to Iceland

The US Senate confirmed Billy Long as ambassador to Iceland on 18 May, on a near party-line 46–43 vote that cleared him within a batch of nearly 50 Trump nominees; the post had been vacant since January 2025. Trump removed Long as IRS Commissioner after about two months, among the shortest tenures in the agency's history, and named him to Reykjavík around the same time. His candidacy had drawn Icelandic ire after he joked in January that Iceland would become the 52nd US state with himself as governor, prompting Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir to summon a US Embassy representative; Long apologised and, at his February hearing, again called the remark a mistake (we covered this in Briefing #3).

At that hearing he described Iceland as a key state in a new US Arctic security strategy, stressing Russian and Chinese activity in the High North and the value of Keflavík for North Atlantic surveillance, citing Russia's rebuilt Cold War bases and China's "Polar Silk Road." As RÚV, the state broadcaster, noted, rarely have US officials spoken so explicitly about communications security and defence infrastructure in Iceland as part of Washington's Arctic strategy.

9. New Varða analysis: strong trust, weak readiness in Icelandic disaster preparedness

Varða has published the first comprehensive survey of disaster awareness and preparedness among the Icelandic public, conducted by Gallup using the questions of the EU's Special Eurobarometer 547 to allow direct European comparison. 

The headline finding is a gap between attitude and action. Trust is high, with 94.6% confident that responders and the authorities would act correctly in a crisis and 81.4% believing preparation helps, and simple kit such as torches and first-aid boxes is widespread. Yet only 37.1% consider themselves well prepared for an emergency in their area, and household resilience often runs out after two to three days.

Iceland sits well below the European average on emergency supplies, with 20.7% holding food and drink stocks against an EU average of 32.6%, and 9.1% holding water reserves against 22.5%. Moreover, the  local community is strikingly absent: just 39.9% would rely on neighbours in the first days after a disaster, against 75.3% in the EU. Crisis information also rests almost entirely on one pillar, as 80.4% name national media as their primary channel, leaving the public exposed if communications or major outlets are disrupted.

The report sets out four proposals: regular measurement to track progress, a clear seven-day household preparedness benchmark in line with other Nordics, activation of the local community through workplaces, schools, and neighbours, and building a standing culture of awareness rather than event-driven reaction. The full analysis and summary are available on the Varða site, currently in Icelandic only, though modern translation tools handle it well for non-Icelandic readers