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.
That would be the single dumbest thing Putin could do right now.
Poland will have tanks in Moscow inside a month of that happening.
They won’t attack Poland. It’ll be like Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia.
No doubt some excuse about Kaliningrad will be trotted out. They’ll end up losing that.
USA really needs to get their shit together. I am honestly scared of an alliance between russia and the US. It might seem impossible now, but with disinformation and fox news, everything is possible.
And EU needs to stop the bully once and for all. Help Ukraine and let’s send Russia back to the dark ages.
Russia will fuck with the EU.
EU will react with: “Stop it!”.
A sternly written letter to Putin.
What makes you think Orban will allow even a letter?
Germany will give him a ton of money.
The world would improve significantly without Putin. Just sayin’…
The TACO puppet in the US wouldn’t be nearly as bold if he didn’t have a Russian fist up his ass, for one.
Only slightly, the majority of Russians support the war and so do leaders that would take over.
Source: russian propaganda website.
You’re doing a thing so you won’t care, but for people who don’t know how that works, right now in Russia there are several laws active that will put you in jail for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about the war, and there is a big number of very well known cases where those laws were enforced with an utmost force, just today I read that 19 years old child who was put in jail for two and a half years for reciting a 19 century poem, was put in jail again for calling the war “criminal” in the interview.
With all that, if you’re Russian in Russia and some polling agency calls you and asks you a question, for you it sounds like “do you totally aggree with what glorious leader is doing or do you want to go to jail”. Hell, my own mother will not talk about the war to me on a signal call in fear that someone is listening anyway.
Not only we don’t know how many people support or not support the war, the whole question can’t be apllied, support as a concept doesn’t exist in a police dictatorship.Source 1: “Wir haben den Eindruck […]” Source 2: “Die Gründe für diese solide Unterstützung sind vielfältig. Klar, in Russland kann man ins Gefängnis wandern, wenn man sich öffentlich gegen den Krieg wendet.”
Yeah. I am not saying you are wrong, but I am not saying you are right either. 😂
This will probably happen around the same time Israel and Iran escalates. I mean, that is when I would do it.
Could China/Taiwan happen around the same time
It’s almost like half the World is going to War
We could call it a “world war” for short.
let’s just say if you can leave Taiwan, now would be a fantastic time.
So, say that Russia tests article 5. This has one of two possible outcomes.
- Article 5 is not honoured which is “yay for Russia” though not very useful for them since militarily they’re stuck in a self-dug pit in Ukraine so don’t actually have the excess military power for handling anything more than a small nation like Montenegro. Meanwhile NATO is hardly going to stop supporting Ukraine (and in fact NATO nations might double up on that support if they feel that NATO doesn’t work anymore as strategically it’s the best way to militarily bleed Russia and make it less dangerous)
- Article 5 is honoured. At which point, who knows how far NATO nations will go in crushing Russia to make sure an attack on a NATO nation doesn’t happen ever again. At the very least Russia would be kicked out of Ukraine pretty quickly and lose pretty much all its air and naval assets.
My point is that this is a MASSIVE risk for Russia if they are wrong, with little concrete and currently achievable upsides if they are indeed right, mainly because they’re stuck and bleeding in Ukraine and a logical fallback plan for European nations if NATO turns out to be toothless is to increase support of Ukraine even more, and specifically for the attacked nation it might even make sense to become a military ally of Ukraine since that’s an ongoing fight in somebody else’s territory.
So to me this sounds like bullshit or this “attack” Kahl is talking about is more of the same which they have already been doing: cyberwar, cutting submarine cables, financing extremist parties. social media disinfo and so on.
It sounds like what most (including me) have said before the conflict in Ukraine. I would personnaly not repeat that mistake and take the words of the BND head very seriously.
Putin will do a small attack that involves plausible deniability or doesn’t trigger an Article 5 response, then push that a little more later on. He might even deny that it was Russia or he might even use foreign troops to muddy the attack. He is testing NATO.
Still, what exactly does a game of ever increasing “poke the bear” achieve, given the massive risk that the bear gets angry and properly fucks them up?
Russia getting away with it … until they don’t … is a pretty likely outcome, but the point were they stop getting away with it is almost certainly at or short of territorial invasion, which means that all their getting away with it until reaching that point will have delivered them no concrete gains - it would all be provocation for the sake of provocation until the moment they get mauled.
US forces have already been shot at by Wagner group in Syria
and they got pulverized in response
I have a hard time believing that was anything more than complete incompetence on Russia’s part. Wagner starts a firefight with mixed American and Syrian resistance fighters, to which the US responds by calling the Kremlin to ask if Wagner are acting on orders from them. Russia tells the US that Wagner are not under direct orders from them and to deal with them as they see fit, and Wagner proceeds to get their ass kicked like they usually do. To me that reads a lot more like the usual Kremlin incompetence than any sort of planned provocation
If Russia goes for the Baltic countries, it’s possible that they have a chance. They have tiny militaries and really depend on Nato.
However, given the current status of the Union, I’m not sure I would be completely confident on Nato. Committing would be politically risky for any politician in the current context.
So while I hope Both unions stand strong (the EU also has a common defence clause), I’m not super confident. Because politicians are extremely short-sighted. And short-sightedness is pretty much what defines our species (that and greed, and stupidity).And to add upon that, Russia (or more precisely the Russian Federation) has been attacking us for ten years now, maybe more. Article 5 ought to have been invoked before. They should have been dismantled by force years ago. I’ve said it before, but I’m saying it again: The Russian Federation has to be broken up into its member states, with Russia possibly getting a special treatment. They have to get a government that’s under international surveilance for at least 20 years.
I really don’t see Russia having a chance against us (Finland), in any short term conflict. We’re currently closing in to 900 000 troops in reserve.
Other Baltic countries withdrew from the Ottawa deal too, which means mines, mines, mines.
If the Russians can’t breach Ukraine, they sure as hell won’t breach the Baltics while simultaneously fighting Ukraine.
Edit: I just realized we aren’t considered Baltic these days, even though we were referred as such historically (ww1&2 times).
I was really thinking more of Estonia, Lituania and Latvia. That’s what people usually mean by Baltic countries. Finland has already shown Russia that it’s probably not a good idea to invade. And I think both the Finns and the Russians haven’t forgotten each other.
I think your breakdown is spot on. It makes no sense for Russia to do this.
One of the less comfortable aspects of supporting Ukraine is that we are supporting the military-industrial complex as a necessary consequence. To be clear, helping a nation fight off an invader is one of the better things NATO has done. However, it can’t be disentangled from all the money the MIL is getting.
Take it one step further, and US withdrawal from NATO (official or otherwise) necessitates the EU strengthening its own MIL. Which means that within a generation, they’re likely to have the same overreaching MIL influence on their politics that the US does.
I think this statement should be seen in that context. The existing MIL in the EU sees a big opportunity, and is taking notes from their US counterpart.
I honestly don’t know what to do about that. Withdrawal of support to Ukraine is not an option, and if the US is backing off, the EU needs to step up. But that gives strength to an industry that doesn’t deserve a higher position at the table than they already have. Putin lost the war in many ways the day he invaded, but forcing the EU’s actions might be one last big fuck you while he jumps into his grave.
Europe produced a lot of equipment during WW2 as well and seemed to manage scaling it back in peace time
I mean, a lot of that was bombed away, and then there was a metal shortage. They didn’t have much choice.
And they do still have some. Germany and Austria both produce weapons. The Abrahms main gun is a German design. France makes a lot and sells it to whomever, too. The Exocet is an anti-ship missile of theirs, and they haven’t always been discriminating in who they sell it to. The times they’ve been fired in anger has been mostly at the ships of other NATO members.
Isn’t it normal for countries to produce some of their military gear though? Surely you don’t think they should have bought everything from the US
As I said, I have no idea where to go with this. Every option goes down an unacceptable path.
well, don’t count on the US for help, thats for sure.
Unless nato countries band together and go full force to stop whatever comes their way though, they are in huge amounts of danger. It won’t just be Russia coming for them. It will be China, Iran, North Korea, and every other Fascio-dictatorship out there. Possibly even the US, at that point.
I said it before trump got elected in 2016 and no one listened to me. If NATO countries wanted to help themselves, they would have done a lot more to help the US keep its elections legitimate. Instead they did practically nothing.
Possibly even the US? Are you joking? I am completely convinced that right after Russia the US is the next most likely country to invade EU in the next few years. Maybe even more likely as Russia cant make it past Ukraine.
even more reason the EU shouldn’t have sat it on its hands while Russia destroyed our country.
I fear the elections were legitimate.
There was for sure a lot of voter suppression going on, that much is clear, documented, and pretty much undisputed. They fucking bragged about it for fuck’s sake.
I’m nearly 100% sure they weren’t entirely legitimate. We already know 2016 had some pretty big issues. Russia has thoroughly fucked with US elections. And where do you think Musk got all that money to buy twitter? Twitter was probably the single biggest helper to the Trump campaign in 2024.
And then you take things like the Israel / Palestine war – which really was just started as a proxy war for Russia in order to distract from Ukraine and pit liberals against other liberals. There’s a reason why Russia armed hesbollah and helped train Hamas fighters. Putin is out there playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.
And where do you think Musk got all that money to buy twitter?
Saudi Arabia. It wasn’t exactly a fucking secret. It was only a few years ago for fucks sake.
he got some of the money from saudi arabia, he got more money from russian oligarchs.
Syria was conquered by anti-Hamas forces. Others are also playing chess.
In a New York district there wasnt a single vote for Kamala. Think about that for a bit.
Then think about why it wasn’t a huge issue directly after the election.
One party two faces, of course
The election yes, but there are disagreements about the legitimacy of the results. Apparently the voting machines might have been manipulated.
So I guess GPS jamming, Internet cable cutting, spreading misinformation, meddling with elections, Olympic sabotage, gas pipeline sabotage, cyberattacks, etc. etc. don’t count?
I think the original article means more of this rather than land invasion. Russia will poke and prod to create chaos and continue destabilize europe.
The was uncertainty has been a huge blow to eastern europe’s economy and it’ll continue to be so. Economically weak population is more succeptible to proganda so it’s easy to see how Russia doesn’t need full invasion to hurt eastern europe bad to increase their influence there.
They definitely count as actions designed to test the limits of Article 5.
The absence of proper reaction to those would certainly explain why Russia would think that NATO’s Article 5 would not be honored in case of a more overt Russian attack on a NATO nation.
- Invasion of air / sea space. They regularly test flying fighters and sailing frigates into foreign territories
Be ready. Respond overwhelmingly and immediately
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.
The problem is that, while the EU has undeniably grown more cohesive and rational, it’s still just “a bunch of countries at the same party,” or at least that’s what it feels like. Putin knows this. Everyone knows this, but few can afford to actually talk about it and risk spoiling the image.
I do agree that we need to present a unified front on this and show that asshole that he can’t swing his weenus wherever he pleases (which, arguably, should’ve been done years ago, but WHATEVER!), but I somehow get the feeling nothing will happen until he actually does something. As though those “oopsies” drones which landed everywhere but Ukraine weren’t enough as-is…
Edit: and if he does do something and we continue wringing our hands figuring out a balanced approach, then we’re fucked.
It is just one point of view based on the limited information. If you check actions of core EU countries, you can see that they are cohesive + joint military exercise are happening quite often.
Said it yourself, “core.” That just means a couple of people at said party know each other pretty well, but there are still more people there.
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.
Why would Putin give a shit about that? Trump is more interested in having US troops attack US citizens on US soil.
You know, like they swore they would do.
Why would Putin give a shit about that?
Because he has basic common sense. The Trump base is quite pro military, American serviceman getting killed by Russia would force Trump to response to it decisively.
Like when we found out Russia put bounties on soldiers and these morons started wearing “I’d rather be Russian than a democrat” tshirts?
No, I don’t think it would be like that at all.
The Russia issue is something republicans aren’t really united on. I’m pretty sure that an attack on US troops stationed in the baltics, for example, would give a lot of ammunition for republicans to push back against Trump on this issue.
They could easily spin it. But I hope you’re right.
Exactly
Depends on the whims of a narcissist. Trump could do that, but it would be in response to some self-referential ego protecting thought process, and increasingly likely to stop as soon as he felt better.
The US is busy getting fascist on their own citizens, all their guns are busy internally.
Haha no they aren’t.
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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.
Well… lets wait and see… i still doubt it very, very much.
Would that sentiment still hold if it was Germany that was attacked?
Putin probably knows how nibble around Germany for the start of his next meal. Like eating around the yolk of a panfried egg to save it for last.
I don’t think that sentiment will hold at all.
probably not
Sadly, i am pretty sure.
If it would be a small scale attack (like sinking a german submarine or a drone strike on a container terminal) it would be doubted that if it was a real attack or if it was a false flag action from whoever to force us to attack russia.
If it would be a major attack, like flattening the Hamburg container port or taking a one or more of the german islands it would be the sentiment that we already have lost, that it would be better to negotiate before it REALLY escalates and we lose everything.
Let just say i have not a good opinion of the resilience of many of my fellow german countrymen (and women, and others).
Wow. That’s sad. I feel bad for Germany.
Let just say i have not a good opinion of the resilience of many of my fellow german countrymen (and women, and others).
You mean you don’t have a good grasp on mass psychology.
I mean that i have witnessed my fellow germans during Covid… and i spend a few years in the german army, none of both experiences have strengthen my believe in us managing a big crisis, let alone a war.
Covid was a completely different situation, also, here in the north people took it very well (Wat mut, dat mut).
Importantly: Fighting Covid largely meant sitting on your arse. In isolation, bored, for months and months on end. Fighting a war is, psychologically, more like getting together and sewing masks and that worked effortlessly, organically.
You don’t need 100% of the population, just the people in power to make a decision and some people enforcing that. Even if 75% of Germans wouldn’t want to fight, you just need the one in charge to give orders to the next in line and it will travel all the way down the chain of command. No way there will be mass desertion because Russia attacked Nato somewhere.
Well… let’s wait and see.
And that’s the thing, we barely have anyone in our political caste who is willing or capable of making any decision that doesn’t directly and positively affect the contents of their own wallet and/or gives them positive media response in the never ending populist circlejerk.
Covid showed very well how incapable of dealing with a crisis our political caste is. Zero lessons were learned, except about how much brazenly open graft you can really get away with.
And by all means, NATo should then remind Russia what article 5 really means. Do not only repel that attack, wipe them out, follow the retreat back into Russia, take a large swaths of Russian territory away as punishment
Fuck Putin
Rush Moscow.
Arrest the Oligarchs, install a new Democratic government, undergo a process of cultural change like Denazification but for Russia’s imperialism.
Change Russia for the better.
USA next, please.
Oh good news for you on that front, there are NATO troops occupying a major us city right now.
and the monkey’s paw curls
But not to:
Arrest the Oligarchs, install a new Democratic government, undergo a process of cultural change like Denazification
So the monkey’s paw didn’t even grant the wish ironically, it just didn’t at all.
Oh they will arrest people, install a new government (and call it a democracy, as is tradition), and undergo a process of cultural change (just maybe change “De” to “Re”).
That seems very much a monkey’s paw sort of wish fulfillment.
That’s stretching the interpretation of the wish more than your average monkey’s paw. Might as well just be ignoring the wording completely at that point.
I guess we must have different tales of the monkey’s paw.
Just fuckin bomb him stop waiting for it. Smash em in the mouth and see how he responds
The Russians have once again used ballistic missiles from North Korea. We are also tracking evidence that Russian-Iranian drone technologies have spread to North Korea. This is extremely dangerous both for Europe and for East and Southeast Asia. The longer this war continues on our territory, the more warfare technologies evolve, and the greater the threat will be to everyone. This must be addressed now – not when thousands of upgraded “Shahed” drones and ballistic missiles begin to threaten Seoul and Tokyo.
Zelenskiy.
What?
Read it again, I guess.
Thanks, I guess
You’re welcome, I guess.
now kiss
The west has too little spine, from Biden’s cautiousness to Germany’s gormlessness in daling with Russia. They have been attacking. They are committing war crimes. They have sanctioned murders on NATO territory. Attacked supply chains within NATO countries.
Where has real leadership gone.
Hey, harsh…don’t forget us in the UK. Lil putler sent his goons over here and killed people with some form of toxin and all the UK government did was tut tut at him. Cowards.
UK was the first to send tanks to Ukraine though.
Yeah but now they are renegging on a two sate solution and training Israeli forces.
You are who I ws thinking of. I havent been happy with you guys, shifting the torys and coming back in to the conversation with europe has made me buy british again. Ukraine support is laudable.
NATO’s charter is very clear on this.
However, it doesn’t stop NATO nations stepping in without the NATO banner above them, so you’re very right in a way.
London could have made more noise about article 5 when a neurotoxin ws used on their soil by russian secret service.
Queue Poland. They’re just waiting for it to happen.
Yeah and they elected a right winger as president. They are barely getting away from this right wing nonsense and jumping back in
Didn’t we laugh at how bad the Russian army is for years? Now they want to attack Germany?! Schroedingers Russia is always on the brink of collaps and invading Europe. At least one of these takes must be … propaganda?
Too weak to win the war, too strong and will invade Germany.
Where have I heard that before…
Well, russia started BAD into the conflict, but they in fact did learn and innovate… and the influx of north korean soldiers surely do help them.
Didn’t we laugh at how bad the Russian army is for years?
They were really bad three years ago, but if I’m not mistaken they’ve gotten themselves in shape while the West was busy pretending deescalation was ever an option.
Do you have anything supporting that? There is a ocean of evidence showing otherwise.
They have nothing but they have drones. That is like europe still doing cavalry charges and russia fielding the machine gun.
They also back all the right wing parties, they are currently backing terrorist cells and militias in european countries, they backed the NRA, their fucking asset is running the biggest nato country into the ground and civil war.
Their army, air force, navy may be a joke but nkvd or whatever they call themselves this week is scary.
The drone warfare revolution. They have levelled up technologically and we haven’t. A whole lot of assumptions are out the window. For example, the NATO doctrine has always been that Baltics are “speedbumps”, they slow down the invasion until the cavalry comes and blows the invaders out of the water. But drone warfare has shown wars are no longer manoeuvre wars and it’s much easier to defend territory once captured. Which means that the speedbump doctrine doesn’t work.
Other example: Russia has had to learn to fight with meat wave attacks and masses of cheap drones at scale. We rely on a few highly trained and highly equipped professionals that rely on expensive and complicated supply chains. Our system is technologically superior but much more brittle.
In both those cases, the sheer scale of the US Armed forces can potentially deal with both problems. But without them, these are much less tractable.
They literally had a bunch of their bomber fleet destroyed by drones from Ukraine.
Their fleets would instantly be targeted by standard missiles from all the other countries if they attacked.
But guess you can never underestimate stupid. Maybe they’re feeling cocky because of the Polish elections
Could be just me but my impression is that Ukraine is facing stiffer resistance now than in 2022-2023 when they were retaking one territory after another. At the very least they have their logistics in order now… is what I wanted to say, but I can’t find a source corroborating that. Ignore what I said I guess.
I’m no war expert here, I’m not going to pretend I know anything more than a handful of videos and articles. So I wasn’t trying to come at you hard or anything.
Ah, I do get what you’re saying there. I’ve wondered the same. We do hear about the Russians even gaining ground.
But the losses in manpower and equipment Russia is incurring isn’t sustainable, and with the level of sanctions against them, they can’t replace their best equipment. Or so I’ve read. What do I know, I’m always open to more information.We also shouldn’t forget Russian command will be willing to do things Nato won’t, like bombing civilians or forcing people to join the army. They might for example threaten to execute a pow or retaliate by using chemical weapons. If two parties are not fighting by the same rules, it won’t be all about who has the biggest military power. I think you’re right on their losses not being sustainable, although I think they’ll be more likely to choose more desperate measures than they’d consider retreating.
Indeed. Long term unsustainable losses don’t matter that much to a homicidal dictator who gives exactly zero shits about the lives of his subjects.
As long as Putin thinks he can reach his goals before Russia runs out of population, he will keep going. He can still play the long game of a war of attrition, especially given how successful his psy-ops in western countries are. His divide and conquer approach is working. He always has at least one sycophant government in an EU country, blocking important decisions through abuse of the principle of unanimity. He did bolster the Brexit campaign all the way to success, he managed to install his deranged sock puppet in the White House for a second time (and potentially for good), and is successfully sowing dissent in the western alliances by bolstering far right ultranationalists in all sorts of countries. In most western countries, there is no organised counter to this, rather the established political caste is idiotically copying the rhetoric of the divisive far right populists (consisting of mostly lies) in order to (unsuccessfully) win back voters.
Putin only needs to make his war expensive enough for an increasingly divided West to lose interest. If he is allowed to conquer Ukraine, he will want to continue.
In what fucking universe is NATO even remotely averse to bombing civilians?
Well nato soldiers do a lot of shit, sometimes with permission of or even ordered by their superiors, there are numerous war crimes that have not been put to justice. But that doesn’t mean that it would be willing to bomb civilians as a means when it comes to a war against russia. Nato and putin adhere to very different principles, not just moral ones.
Their military is in shambles. Satellite photos show their armored vehicle stockpiles are virtually empty, to the point where they’re sending some troops on suicide runs using ATV’s, golf carts, and motorcycles because they don’t have enough APC’s to spare.
They are in no shape to invade anyone besides ukraine.
while the West was busy pretending deescalation was ever an option.
But Vance said…
