Chief of Germany’s foreign intelligence service fears Moscow wants to push the West’s alliance back to its 1990s boundaries and ‘kick out’ the US from Europe

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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.

    • Comment105@lemm.ee
      English
      6·
      3 days ago

      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.

    • the_wiz@feddit.orgEnglish
      42·
      3 days ago

      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).

      • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        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.

        • the_wiz@feddit.orgEnglish
          21·
          2 days ago

          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.

          • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
            4·
            2 days ago

            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.

          • huppakee@feddit.nlEnglish
            4·
            2 days ago

            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.

            • trollercoaster@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              11·
              2 days ago

              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.