Bruno Kahl cited the Ukraine conflict in justifying a radical increase in the country’s military spending
Russia could attack NATO countries when the Ukraine conflict is over, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency (BND) has claimed, in an attempt to defend a huge spending boost for the country’s military.
“We are confident, and have the intelligence data that Ukraine is merely one step on [Russia’s] path toward the West,” Bruno Kahl stated when asked why Germans should agree to take on “additional debt” to fund the rearmament program and potentially reintroduce conscription.
“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 America’s resolve to defend its allies and send 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 population of Crimea ahead of the 2014 referendum in which the former Ukrainian region rejected the outcome of a US-backed armed coup in Kiev and voted to rejoin 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 military bloc’s expansion eastward as a threat, and has cited it as one of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict. President Vladimir Putin, however, has stated that Russia has no intention of attacking NATO states unless it is attacked first.
Russia has 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 the new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who said last month that 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 responded by accusing Germany of undermining the peace process.
