The Times: German Intelligence Has Evidence Of Russian Plans To Attack NATO Countries
- 11.06.2025, 9:07
The Kremlin decided to test in practice the reliability of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Russia plans to test the validity of the North Atlantic Treaty's fifth Article 5, which guarantees mutual defense in the event of an attack on one of the Alliance's member countries.
The head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Bruno Kahl, has said German intelligence has concrete evidence that the Kremlin is preparing for potential aggression against NATO, reports The Times.
Kahl said Moscow no longer believes in the reliability of NATO's collective defense system, so the Kremlin may try to test that guarantee in practice.
"We are absolutely certain and have intelligence evidence to confirm that [Russia's full-scale invasion of] Ukraine is only one step on its path to the West," the BND chief said.
He clarified that this "does not mean that we expect large tank battalions to invade from East to West."
Kahl warned that Russia seeks to "push NATO back to the borders of the 1990s," "push the United States out of Europe" and "expand its influence at any cost."
"We must suppress this at the very beginning," Kahl emphasized.
At the same time, he noted that despite some tensions, cooperation with the United States remains stable.
"The Americans take Article 5 very seriously, but at the same time rightly insist that Europe must do its part," he said.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has previously issued similar warnings. He has repeatedly said Germany should be "war-ready" by the end of this decade.
"Our experts estimate that this could happen between five and eight years," Pistorius told Tagesspiegel in an interview last year.
Danish military intelligence concluded in a report in February that Russia could move significant forces to the borders of other European countries within six months once the war in Ukraine is over.
The deputy head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Sinan Selim, said Russia is increasingly using cyber attacks and sabotage against Western countries.
"We have recorded that Russian aggression against Ukraine has led to our cyber defense and counter-espionage increasingly being severely tested," Selim said.
The BfV's annual report said Russia has begun actively using so-called "low-level agents" to carry out sabotage, in particular placing incendiary devices in parcels, which has caused a number of fires in logistics centers in Europe.