“German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that he does not believe in the scenario of a full-scale war between Russia and NATO, but he emphasized that this does not remove from the Bundeswehr the need to strengthen and increase the production of weapons.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Illustrative photo: Getty Images Source: “European Truth” with reference to the publication Die Zeit (paywall)
Details: Pistorius was asked to comment on the words of the Secretary General of the Alliance, Mark Rutte, that NATO should be “ready to a war of such a scale that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers experienced.”
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“Perhaps he wanted to describe very vividly what could happen. I do not believe in such a scenario. In my opinion, Putin has no intention of waging a full-scale world war against NATO,” the minister said.
In his opinion, Putin wants to destroy NATO from within, questioning its unity and testing the Alliance’s response to repeated violations of its airspace.
“Will the Allies’ Eurofighter remain on the ground because they no longer take it seriously? Will they withdraw because nothing is happening? Or are they ready to declare Article 5 if something happens on the Baltic borders? And Putin is working strategically to force the Americans to withdraw,” Pistorius added.
He said that for the Bundeswehr this means an increase in the number of armed forces and reserves.
“At the same time, we accelerated the purchase of weapons and have been setting records for three years in a row. However, we face a big challenge, because production capacity must first be increased, and warehouses cannot be filled overnight,” the minister said.
We will remind:
- On December 2, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said that if Europe “wants to start a war with us and starts it, we are ready for it”.
- European Defense Commissioner Andrus Kubilius believes that Putin may give an order to attack one of the NATO countries during the next 2-4 years.