Ukraine has been granted enhanced partner status within the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), becoming the first country outside the alliance to receive such a designation, Ukrainian Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal announced on Wednesday. The JEF is a UK-led defense coalition of ten Northern European countries — the United Kingdom, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. It is designed for rapid crisis response in strategically sensitive regions