NATO should be prepared for possible Russian missile attacks in Europe in case of all-out war with Russia
The warning comes from Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank in an interview he gave toTimes.
The past few weeks have seen one warning after another from Western military leaders about the risk of a possible Russian attack on Europe, including NATO countries.
This comes despite several military experts downplaying the threat as Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of troops and vast amounts of military hardware.
It is considered unlikely that Russia has the capability to wage a multi-front war, including an open confrontation with NATO. However, there are warnings that Putin has put Russia in a war economy and will likely try to build up militarily within a few years.
CONTINUE READING
Καταγγελία Βελόπουλου: "Φορτηγά με ουκρανικές πινακίδες "αδειάζουν" τις αποθήκες πυρομαχικών στις Κεχριές;"
It is this threat, combined with Ukraine's desperate need for more ammunition and weapons, that has European leaders and militaries sounding the alarm about what could happen in a very few years.
Urges all NATO countries to be alert and prepared for future threats in an increasingly turbulent and uncertain geopolitical landscape
Rear Admiral Rob Bauer, the chairman of NATO's Military Commission, said earlier in January that NATO countries should be prepared for the possibility of an all-out war with Russia. Sollfrank and other NATO generals are warning that a direct military confrontation with Russia could happen as soon as within the next three years.
Amid collapsing US support for Ukraine and Donald Trump's growing popularity in the presidential race, European nations and NATO are making plans to take on Russia alone, the New York Times reports. .
Russian President Vladimir Putin once declared the collapse of the Soviet empire "the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century." At the time, in 2005, few expected him to do anything about it. But then came Georgia's occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, its support for Ukrainian separatists and its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and, most resoundingly, its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Now, with the rise of former US President Donald Trump, who has previously vowed to quit NATO and recently threatened never to come to the aid of its Alliance allies, concerns are growing among European nations that Mr Putin could invade a NATO state within the next decade and that they might have to deal with its forces without US support.
That could happen in as little as five years after the end of the war in Ukraine, according to some officials and experts who believe that would be enough time for Moscow to rebuild and re-equip its military.
"We've always kind of suspected that this is the only existential threat we have," Estonian Army Main Land Division General Veiko-Vello Palm said of a possible Russian invasion.
Concern about what experts describe as Mr. Putin's imperialist ambitions has long been part of the psyche of states that border Russia or are in uneasy proximity. "I think for Estonia, it was 1991" when the alarm bells started ringing in his country, Palm said, referring to the year Estonia declared independence from the collapsing Soviet Union.
Just as Putin downplayed the Biden administration's warnings that it planned to invade Ukraine, Moscow dismissed concerns that Russia was planning to attack NATO. The head of Russia's foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, said in an interview last week with the state-run RIA Novosti news agency that they are part of a Western disinformation campaign to stir up resentment against Moscow.
Europe's anxiety has been further fueled in recent months by Mr Putin's militarization of the Russian economy and huge increases in spending on its military and arms industry, while at the same time some Republicans in Congress seek to limit US aid to Ukraine.
