Bundeswehr Inspector General: Russia may attack NATO within years
The inspector general of the German army, Karsten Bröer, said in statements to the German Zecksche Zeitung newspaper, “We note that the Russian army is moving towards the west”.
Bröer said that within five to eight years, Russia’s armed forces would be ready with the materials and personnel needed to make an attack on NATO territory possible.
Bröer cited his own analysis, information from secret services and armed forces of NATO countries, as well as statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin as the basis for this assessment.
He said, “The Russian military adds 1,000 to 1,500 tanks to its ranks annually… The five major European NATO members have only half that number in stockpiles,” noting that the Bundeswehr has about 300 battle tanks.
Bröer said, “If this capability is coupled with intention, which can certainly be read from Putin’s speeches, this should worry us. My job is to think of such a worst-case scenario… For the German army this means: we have to be prepared for this possibility within five years… This is the only way we can deter”.
However, Bröer noted that the new threat situation has not yet reached everywhere.
Bröer explained that he sees no signs of the United States moving militarily away from Europe, assuming that Donald Trump will know the value of NATO if he is re-elected president of the United States, and said, “Trump has in a brutal way raised a mirror before us Europeans and made it clear that we must strengthen the European pillar of the alliance and play a role more independent of the United States… Everyone understood that with Russia’s aggressive war”.
Bröer said that compared to 2020, it became clear that not only two or three NATO countries were meeting the agreed target of spending 2% of GDP on defense, but more than 20 countries… I am more optimistic than others – a bit away from the election campaign – that the significant added value of NATO will become clearer to it as well”.
Nonetheless, the inspector general doesn’t expect any major changes in events on the front in Ukraine at the moment, while stressing that the country will remain dependent on support, saying, “We’ll not see any far-reaching moves on the Ukrainian battlefield in the foreseeable future… The trajectory of the front and its fortification makes this largely impossible… Small and slow operations are conceivable, but large-scale attacks are difficult… The concentration of forces will be recognized immediately and this will lead to countermeasures”.
