Germany warns Putin could attack Nato countries in five to eight years
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Vladimir Putin could attack Nato within five to eight years, Germany has warned, as Baltic nations approved a plan to build defences along their borders with Russia and Belarus.
“We have to take into account that Vladimir Putin will one day even attack a Nato country,” said Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister.
“Our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible,” he told Der Tagesspiegel, a German newspaper. “At the moment I don’t think a Russian attack is likely.”
Europe is dealing with a “military threat situation … that has not existed for 30 years,” he added. “We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day – most recently against our friends in the Baltics.”
The Baltic nations are taking steps to increase border security given those increased security concerns after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Friday signed an agreement to build bunkers over the next few years to bolster the defences along their borders with Russia and Belarus, a staunch ally of Moscow.
Under the agreement, signed in Riga, the three countries will “construct anti-mobility defensive installations in the coming years to deter and, if necessary, defend against military threats”, the Estonian defence ministry in a statement.
The plan, and Mr Pistorius’s comments, came the day after a top Nato military official warned that civilians in the West must prepare for the possibility of all-out war with Russia in the next 20 years, and be ready to mobilise if necessary.
While various militaries are primed for the outbreak of war, the general public must also be ready for a conflict that would mean a wholesale change in their lives, said Adml Bauer, a Dutch naval officer who chairs the Nato military committee.
“We have to realise it’s not a given that we are in peace,” he said. “And that’s why we [Nato] are preparing for a conflict with Russia.
“But the discussion is much wider. It is also the industrial base and also the people that have to understand they play a role.”
Finland, which became Nato’s latest member when it joined last April, does not see any immediate military threat from Russia, the country’s prime minister said on Friday. “I don’t see any immediate military threat from Russia against Finland,” Petteri Orpo said. “We in Finland sleep peacefully at night, because we are well prepared.”
