Russia is preparing for war with the West - head of German intelligence

BERLIN - Russia continues to prepare for a real military confrontation with the West, but before that it may try to divide NATO, according to Bruno Kahl, president of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

A general Russian attack could be preceded by local operations aimed at testing NATO's readiness to apply Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, Kahl said on Wednesday, speaking at an event organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations.

The idea is that Moscow will try to test NATO member states' commitment to provide direct military assistance to another member state, which is enshrined in Article 5 of the NATO Charter.

Senior Russian officials are considering how to create an "emergency situation" in a NATO country to which other alliance members would not respond appropriately, Kahl explained.

As an example, the BND chief mentioned a possible "short-term attack" on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to "clear the territory". Russia enjoys special rights in Svalbard, but Oslo's policy towards foreigners in the archipelago has become stricter in recent years.

Another possibility for localized Russian intervention, according to Kahl, is conflict with the Baltic States under the pretext of the so-called protection of Russian speakers.

If Article 5 is not applied in such conflicts, NATO will fail as a defense alliance, which is precisely Russia's goal, the BND chief believes. "If the pledge to help proves ineffective, Russia may expand its influence in Europe through an aggressive policy of force," Kahl warned.

The German intelligence chief reiterated that Russia will have sufficient resources for a direct military confrontation with the West by the end of this decade. He first expressed this view in October, when he spoke at a Bundestag meeting on the control of intelligence services.

The Kremlin in Germany influences right-wing and left-wing extremists who "naively repeat what comes from Moscow", Kahl said. He pointed out that this not only influences the various levels of elections in Germany, where right and left populists were successful in 2024, but also further fragments the German political spectrum.