“It is NATO that is not prepared. Just look at the Portuguese army.” Germans believe Russia will have the ability to attack the alliance “from 2026 onwards”

Report is shaking German power circles, stating that Russia may try to attack NATO’s eastern border “as early as 2026”. Experts believe the Baltics will be Russia’s target, but warn this could lead to an irreversible escalation of violence

The way in which Russia is accelerating its military production and the arms movements it has carried out on its territory lead the German intelligence services to circulate a warning among members of the government: Moscow is preparing for a high-intensity war with NATO “from 2026”. Experts warn that European NATO countries are in a vulnerable position and that, if this happens, escalation could lead to a nuclear confrontation between the two blocs.

“All the measures being taken make the German secret services believe that, at this rate, Russia will be able to gather enough human and material potential to launch an offensive. The Baltics, Poland and Finland will be the main targets, as they are the locations where the Russians can launch hybrid warfare operations”, guarantees Major General Isidro de Morais Pereira.

This is precisely what the document circulating in the hands of some of the main figures in the German government points out. The federal secret service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, believes that the conditions are met for Russia to become a credible threat to NATO in Europe in the coming years. According to the document, German analysts understand that the Russian army will double in size and power over the next five years.

The information, provided by Business Insider, does not clarify what data was used by the German secret services to reinforce an alert of this size. Isidro de Morais Pereira, who served at the Headquarters of the Supreme Command of the Allied Forces in Europe (SHAPE), guarantees that the German intelligence service is “extremely pragmatic” and may have intercepted military and political communications in Russia to support its report. Furthermore, the military affairs expert insists that we should not rule out that Germany has infiltrated agents in Russia, who may be providing it with information from the highest levels of the Kremlin.

“These scenarios do not appear out of nowhere. They exist because [os serviços secretos] had access and will have detected communications. There are also certainly agents infiltrated in Russia who may be delivering information to the German government”, says the major general.

In the last two years, Moscow has boosted military production in the country with an investment of 7.5% of GDP in Defense, around a third of the budget for 2024. These values ​​are enough to almost completely change the nature of the Russian economy , which places its main focus on military production. Around 3.5 million Russians, approximately 2.5% of the Russian population, are employed in this sector.

This capacity leads Russia to produce a large amount of ammunition and weapons for use in Ukraine, but not only. The fear of the German intelligence services is that, in addition to the material that is destroyed or used in Ukraine, Russian military production is large enough to double the current size of the Russian armed forces. Europe, on the other hand, continues to try to get its military industry off the ground, two years after Vladimir Putin gave the order to invade Ukraine.

“It is not Russia that is not prepared, it is NATO that is not prepared. Just look at the Portuguese, French and English armies, which don’t even have ammunition. At the moment, the most powerful army in the world is the Russian one, because it has two years of training, has almost two million men and has the nuclear triad”, explains Major General Agostinho Costa.

Although this document is circulating among the main members of the German government, it has also reached the desks of NATO military planners. This growth in Russian capabilities is worrying, but it is not a reason for panic in the alliance. Officials cited by Business Insider believe that although the strengthening of Russian capabilities is undeniable, it is not clear that this will translate into an attack against the alliance. “I do not believe that Russia, given the current situation, has the capacity to open a new war front”, says Isidro de Morais Pereira.

For American intelligence officers, the picture is completely different from what reached the desks of German officials. Not only will Russia not have the capabilities in the coming years to face the largest military alliance in the world, it will also take between five and eight years just to recover the military capabilities it had before the invasion of Ukraine began.

The document states that Russia is repositioning many of its new units near the borders of Finland and the Baltic countries. For experts, these are the main targets in the Russians’ sights as they have the right conditions to shape the battlefield, before starting a military invasion. This is because these countries have a significant percentage of the population of Russian origin. This allows Russian forces to use the sympathies of some of these citizens to carry out “hybrid” actions to create chaos in the country. “Here it is easy to activate sleeping cells”, warns Isidro de Morais Pereira.

But this scenario, for now, does not arise, argues Agostinho Costa. Europe continues to fail to produce the weapons necessary to be prepared for “the new realities of war” and high-intensity conflicts. Despite everything, the analyst guarantees that Russia should not want to open a second combat front, at a time when it still has yet to achieve its objectives in Ukraine, and start a war with NATO, running the risk of escalating into a confrontation direct nuclear exchange between the two sides.

“The initiative to attack the West will never be Russian. A war with NATO implies nuclear escalation. With NATO in its weak situation, it would have to resort to the use of nuclear weapons”, warns Major General Agostinho Costa.