Russia planning attack on Nato ‘to test article 5’, warns Germany
Russia planning attack on Nato ‘to test article 5’, warns Germany
Russia planning attack on Nato ‘to test article 5’, warns Germany
The chief of Germany’s foreign intelligence service warned that his agency has “concrete” evidence that Russia is planning an attack on Nato territory.
Bruno Kahl, the outgoing head of Germany’s federal intelligence service (BND), said in a rare interview that Russian leadership no longer believes Nato’s article 5 guarantee of mutual assistance will be honoured — and may seek to test it.
“We are very sure, and we have intelligence evidence to back this up, that [Russia’s full-scale invasion of] Ukraine is only one step on Russia’s path towards the west,” he told a podcast of German outlet Table Briefings.
Kahl qualified that “this doesn’t mean that we expect large tank battalions to roll from the east to the west.”
Kahl said: “We see that Nato is supposed to be tested in its mutual assistance promise. There are people in Moscow who don’t believe that Nato’s article 5 still works.”
[...]
While the war is still confined to Ukrainian territory, the German internal secret service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has warned that Moscow is increasingly extending the conflict to western countries through cyberwarfare and espionage.
Russia has in particular taken to deploying so-called low-level agents to commit acts of sabotage, according to the BfV annual report, which was presented in Berlin on Wednesday. They are believed to have been deployed to plant incendiary devices in parcels, which caused a series of fires in European logistics hubs last year.
“We have noticed that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has led to our cyber and espionage defences being increasingly tested,” Sinan Selim, vice-president of the BfV, said.
More like, to test whether the US will follow article 5.
Isn't the answer to that
quietquite clear today? It's a no, they wouldn't.Which is why Europe needs to coordinate on a joint military plan YESTERDAY. EU is capable of keeping Russia at bay on its own, no doubt about it, but they need to get smart about it as soon as possible because we only have a small window of time to pre-empt this.
At this point, I almost wonder if the plan is for Russia to attack the Baltics while the US attacks Greenland, to force Europe into a war on two fronts.
If they were to attack US troops stationed in Europe there would be a chance I guess. But Putin will know to avoid that.
Exactly
The US is busy getting fascist on their own citizens, all their guns are busy internally.
Haha no they aren't.
No, i think its more of a general test. I sincerely believe that any form of mobilisation in germany would be followed up by massive protests and calls from the public for the government to step down... especially if german troops would engage in real combat.
The thing is: We have a big german-russian population and still tons of people who are still stuck in the peace movement days of the 60s - 80s... so, i really doubt that we would do more than send our equivalent of "thoughts and prayers" and perhaps some intel.
61% of German men under 50 would be willing to activly fight for Germany, if Germany would be attacked. Ukraine, which has no formal alliance with Germany, got a lot of weapons and money to keep able to defend itself. There are German soldiers in Lithuania permanently to defend the Suwalki gap.
Chances are some German soldiers get killed and that means war. As soon as Germany itself gets attacked public sentiment is going to shift very quickly indeed.
Would that sentiment still hold if it was Germany that was attacked?