Latest news with #BrunoKahl
Daily Maverick
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
The new Iron Curtain: Eastern Europe mobilises for defence against Russian aggression
US President Donald Trump's threat not to respect America's Nato obligations has spurred Europe into action. Europe is preparing for war with Russia. On the one hand that seems like a statement of the obvious since European powers have been providing military support to Ukraine over the past three years. On the other hand it is striking to see and hear preparations for war taking concrete form along Nato's own eastern borders. To see the mobile air defence missile launchers recently deployed along the perimeter of the runway as you step off an aircraft at Poland's Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, about 100km from the border with Ukraine. And Poland is mining its frontiers with Russia's Kaliningrad enclave and with Russia's close ally Belarus as part of its East Shield defence barrier, which some have likened to a new Iron Curtain rising across Europe. War with Russia — when it might happen, how to prepare for it — dominated discussion at the big Globsec security conference in Prague last week. The recent warning by German intelligence chief Bruno Kahl that Moscow could soon launch an attack on a European Nato member to test the alliance's Article 5 mutual defence obligations was the leitmotif of the conference, evidence that the threat was being taken very seriously. Europe jolting into action to assume greater responsibility for its own defence against Russia was the focus of discussion. 'Putin didn't wake up Europe. Trump did,' said Estonia's Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, pertinently describing how the US president's threats not to respect America's Nato obligations had finally concentrated Europe's collective mind. At next week's summit in The Hague, Nato states are expected to increase defence spending from 2% of national GDPs to 3.5% on hard military items such as tanks, warplanes, air defence, missiles and extra troops. A further 1.5% will be spent on things like roads, bridges, ports and airfields. But there are differences about how and how soon to do that, with frontline states in the east demanding much faster, firmer action than western European states. Read more: War in Ukraine 'I believe there is no point to start preparing for the war after the war,' Estonia's Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur remarked dryly, in response to suggestions that the increased defence spending of Nato member states could take place over three to five years. No state is more frontline than Estonia, probably the most vulnerable of all Nato member countries, because of its exposed geography and relatively large Russian-speaking minority. When Kahl, head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND), said he had evidence Russia was preparing to test Nato's resolve, he added: 'They don't need to send tanks for that. They just have to send 'little green men' to Estonia to defend the allegedly oppressed Russian minority.' The little green men referred to the clandestine Russian soldiers without insignia who seized key strategic facilities in Crimea in 2014 in the opening phase of the Russian occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula. Romania's Defence Secretary Sorin-Dan Moldovan agreed with Tsahkna, saying his country needed extra Nato spending in 'three to five days, not three to five years'. And he dismissed talk of the eastern flank being more exposed than the western flank, saying increased defence spending was about the collective defence of all of Europe. For countries like the Czech Republic (aka Czechia) and Poland, the threat is not only about geography but also about history. As Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Marian told visiting African journalists last week, 'in these two countries the understanding of the Russian threat is even more imminent' than for some other Nato countries, because 'we have our historical experience with Russian aggressive behaviour'. He refers to the fact that after World War 2 both countries were forced to become part of the 'Eastern Bloc' — satellites of the Soviet Union — and in 1968 Moscow and other countries of the Warsaw Pact sent tanks into what was then Czechoslovakia to crush the 'Prague Spring', a fragile blossoming of very modest freedom. Poland and Czechoslovakia then contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, finally gaining their independence. Behind, but improving The EU took an important step towards greater autonomy and integration in its own defence last year when it appointed its first Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius. He was asked at the Globsec conference, though, why the European members of Nato had collectively spent more than $3-trillion on defence over the past decade and yet still had 'tiny tank forces, smaller air forces and still felt threatened by a much smaller and weaker Russia'. Kubilius answered that Nato's European members had underspent on defence for too long while looking for peace dividends from the US. He said the European defence industry had become very fragmented and had failed to use the power of a single market to improve its competitiveness. European nations were spending only 20% of their defence budgets procuring European production versus 60% on US defence production, undermining European defence productions. But he noted that things were changing. He recalled that Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte had said when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Russia was able to produce more ammunition in three months than all Nato members, including the US, were able to produce in a year. However, Nato was improving. When the war started, EU states had promised Ukraine one million artillery shells and had only produced about 300,000 a year. This year it got up to two million shells. 'But still we are behind,' Kubilius said, adding that Nato was so far only meeting 53% of its targets for increasing its defence capabilities. He proposed various remedies, such as cutting red tape so that European defence companies could produce weapons jointly, and also said European countries should increase the joint procurement of weapons. These measures would both increase demand and decrease the costs of European defence production. But political will is clearly the key. War fatigue Daily Maverick likewise asked both Czech President Petr Pavel and Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky why Ukraine's many allies were unable to give it all the backing it needed, given their massive economic superiority over Russia. Lipavsky suggested the collective political will was lacking, saying: 'It goes back to the domestic debate in every allied state on how to support Ukraine and to what extent. 'You can follow the debate in the US, you can follow the debate in Czechia, you can follow the debate in Germany. 'So, yes, we have the power to do so (to help Ukraine win), we need to find a will, and I'm calling for that will regularly.' Pavel's reply was that Czechia and Ukraine's other allies did not aim to defeat or destroy Russia but just to help Ukraine to defend itself against Russia. He agreed that the West had the power to defeat Russia but remained cautious because it did not want to provoke Russia into a major conflict since it was armed with about 6,000 ballistic nuclear weapons. And even if Russia only deployed tactical nuclear weapons that would be disastrous. He said some European countries were cautious as they wished to resume economic relations with Russia when the war ended. But Pavel also observed that if Ukraine's allies had shown greater political will and fully supported the Ukraine from the start, it would have won the war in the first year and avoided the current stalemate where it now only seemed possible to reach a compromise settlement in which Ukraine would have to cede up to 20% of its territory that Russia occupies. And there is a danger that the unity of Europe's political resolve to support Ukraine may be weakening, even as the EU steps up its efforts to increase support. 'War fatigue' seems to be setting in among populations grown weary of war talk, and war spending. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has opposed military support to Ukraine from the start. Slovakia's recently elected populist Prime Minister Robert Fico has also suggested that his country might be better off neutral. Karol Nawrocki, Poland's newly elected president, who takes office in August, is ambivalent on Ukraine. He has publicly expressed opposition to Ukraine's accession to Nato and the European Union while also saying Poland should 'support Ukraine from a strategic and geopolitical point of view'. And in Czechia, the opposition ANO party led by former prime minister Andrej Babiš, which is leading in the polls for October election, is also ambivalent about the war. He has criticised current Prime Minister Petr Fiala's shipping of heavy weapons to help Kyiv and his initiative to find and fund artillery ammunition for Ukraine's defence. Globsec published a list of seven possible scenarios for the progress of the war over the next two years, which assigned the highest probability, 38%, to a scenario in which the war of attrition continued but with 'lowered intensity of hostilities due to draining out of resources on both sides'. It noted: 'The trajectory of the war will be increasingly shaped by whether Europe, particularly a 'Coalition of the Willing', can swiftly and quickly construct a credible, unified military and economic support framework for Ukraine in the absence of strong US leadership. Failure to do so risks weakening Ukraine's long-term capacity to resist and may create openings for Russian coercive diplomacy or territorial advances.' DM
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Germany has evidence of Russia's plans to attack NATO, says Germany's spy chief
Bruno Kahl, President of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND), has said that Russia is preparing to test the credibility of NATO's Article 5, adding that German intelligence has concrete evidence of the Kremlin's preparations for potential aggression against the Alliance. Source: Kahl in a podcast for German outlet Table Briefings, as reported by The Times Details: The BND chief emphasised that Moscow no longer believes in the reliability of NATO's collective defence system – particularly Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which guarantees a joint response in the event of an attack on a member state. He warned that the Kremlin may attempt to test this provision in practice. Quote: "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." More details: Kahl clarified that this "doesn't mean that we expect large tank battalions to roll from the east to the west". German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has issued similar warnings in the past, repeatedly stating that Germany must be "ready for war" by the end of this decade. "Our experts estimate that it could be possible within a period of five to eight years," Pistorius said in an interview with German TV news service Tagesspiegel last year. In its February report, Denmark's military intelligence concluded that after the war in Ukraine ends, Russia could redeploy substantial forces to the borders of other European countries within six months. Kahl also warned that Russia seeks to "push NATO back to its 1990s boundaries", "kick out" the US from Europe and "expand its influence by any means necessary". "We need to nip this in the bud," Kahl stressed. Meanwhile, he noted that despite certain tensions, cooperation with the United States remains stable. "The Americans take Article 5 very seriously, but they rightly insist Europe must do its part," he said. Sinan Selen, Deputy Director General of Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), stated that Russia is increasingly using cyberattacks and sabotage against Western countries. "We have noticed that Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has led to our cyber and espionage defences being increasingly tested," Selen said. An annual report by the BfV reveals that Russia has begun actively deploying so-called "low-level agents" to carry out sabotage operations, particularly placing incendiary devices in parcels, resulting in a series of fires at logistics centres across Europe. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Daily Mail
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Russia is planning an attack on NATO territory to test the Western alliance's joint defence, German spy chief warns
Vladimir Putin is plotting to attack a NATO territory to test the bloc's mutual assistance clause, Germany 's spy chief has warned. Bruno Kahl, the outgoing head of Germany's federal intelligence service (BND), said in a rare interview that it has 'concrete' evidence that Russia no longer believes NATO's Article 5 will be honoured. This is the clause which guarantees that if one member is attacked, all others will come to its aid. He told the German podcast Table Briefings: '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 article 5 still works.' He said: '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.' But Kahl was quick to say: 'This doesn't mean that we expect large tank battalions to roll from the east to the west.' He added that Russia didn't need to do this, as they could simply send 'little green men to Estonia to protect supposedly oppressed Russian minorities.' Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea involved occupation of buildings and offices by Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms and civilian clothes, who came to be known as the 'little green men' when Moscow initially denied their identity. Kahl, who is set to become Germany's ambassador to the Vatican, did not specify which officials in Moscow were thinking along these lines. He said that Moscow's ultimate aim was to push NATO back to its 1990s borders, 'kick out' the US from Europe and aggressively expand its influence. 'We need to nip this in the bud', he said. Key to NATO cooperation, he pointed out, was the US and its enormous army. Kahl said his contacts with U.S. counterparts had left him convinced they took the Russian threat seriously. 'They take it as seriously as us, thank God,' he said. It comes after NATO boss Mark Rutte warned that Britons should start learning Russian if the UK doesn't ramp up defence spending. Mark Rutte issued the chilling message while in London for talks with PM Sir Keir Starmer, ahead of a NATO summit later this month. NATO allies are expected to be asked at the gathering to agree a commitment on allocating 3.5 per cent of GDP to core defence spending by the 2030s. A further 1.5 per cent of GDP would be required for 'defence-related expenditure' under Mr Rutte's plan to strengthen the alliance. Mark Rutte issued the chilling message after travelling to London for talks with PM Sir Keir Starmer, ahead of a NATO summit later this month It follows pressure from US President Donald Trump on European members of NATO to hike their military budgets. There are questions about how the UK would fund such an huge increase - roughly equivalent to an extra £30billion annually. Britain allocated 2.33 per cent of GDP to defence last year, and Sir Keir has only committed to reaching 2.5 per cent by April 2027. The Labour Government has an 'ambition' of increasing that to 3 per cent in the next parliament - likely to run to 2034. Speaking at Chatham House on Monday, Mr Rutte was asked if he believed Chancellor Rachel Reeves should raise taxes to meet NATO's commitments. The NATO secretary-general replied: 'It's not up to me to decide, of course, how countries pay the bill. 'Look, if you do not do this, if you would not go to the 5 per cent, including the 3.5 per cent core defence spending, you could still have the NHS... the pension system etc., but you had better learn to speak Russian.' Mr Rutte would not reveal the deadline for when he hopes NATO allies will spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence. Asked about a deadline, he told reporters: 'I have a clear view on when we should achieve that. 'I keep that to myself, because we are having these consultations now with allies, and these discussions are ongoing. 'We will in the end agree on a date when we have to be there.'
Time of India
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
‘Putin To BOMB NATO's…': German Spy Chief's SHOCKING Claim Amid Moscow-Berlin Clash
/ Jun 11, 2025, 01:29PM IST Is Vladimir Putin planning to attack NATO nations after the Ukraine war is over? Germany's intelligence agency chief Bruno Kahl has created shockwaves with his claim on Moscow's "ambitious" military plan to go after Western nations supporting Ukraine.
Russia Today
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
German intelligence chief claims Russia could attack NATO
Russia could attack NATO countries after the Ukraine conflict is over, Bruno Kahl, the head of the German foreign intelligence agency (BND), has claimed while defending the drive to boost defense spending. 'We are confident, and have the intelligence data that Ukraine is merely one step on [Russia's] path toward the West,' Kahl stated when asked why the Germans should agree to take on 'additional debt' to fund the rearmament program and potentially reintroduce conscription abolished in 2011. 'There are people in Moscow who no longer believe that NATO's Article 5 would be upheld — and they would like to put it to the test,' the spy chief said. He argued that Russia is skeptical about the US resolve to defend its allies and send American troops 'across the Atlantic to die for Tallinn, Riga, or Vilnius.' Russia could 'send little green men to Estonia' under the guise of protecting the Baltic state's Russian-speaking minority, Kahl claimed. Western media used the term 'little green men' to describe commandos sent to protect the residents of Crimea ahead of the 2014 referendum, in which the largely ethnic Russian region rejected the US-backed coup in Kiev and voted to secede from Ukraine and become a part of Russia. Kahl suggested that Russia's ultimate goal is to 'catapult NATO back to where it was in the late 1990s,' and push the US out of Europe. Moscow views the US-led alliance's expansion eastward as a threat, and has cited it as one of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict. President Vladimir Putin, however, said that Russia has no intention of attacking NATO states unless it is attacked first. Moscow also warned that Western military aid to Kiev de facto makes NATO 'a direct participant' in the conflict. Germany has ramped up its hostile rhetoric against Russia under new chancellor Friedrich Merz who said last month Ukraine could receive long-range Taurus cruise missiles. He also pledged to assist Ukraine in the production of its own long-range weapons. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has responded by accusing Germany of undermining the peace process.
