Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aim is for NATO to fail as a defence alliance, German spy boss warns

The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND) has warned of increasing hybrid attacks by Russia on Germany and NATO, with the underlying goal of testing the defence alliance in the hopes that it will fail.

Speaking at a German Society for Foreign Policy event in Berlin, Bruno Kahl said BND experts believe high-ranking officials in the Russian Ministry of Defence apparently harbour doubts about whether NATO’s mutual defence commitments and the US’s extended deterrence in Europe would hold in a serious situation.

“Currently, there is no evidence of concrete war intentions by Russia. But if such views gain ground in the government headquarters in Moscow, the risk of a military confrontation also grows in the coming years,” he said.

Kahl does not believe Russia would engage in such a confrontation to gain territory, but rather to quash NATO.

“Certainly not expansive territorial acquisition would be the focus,” he said, but “(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s aim is for NATO to fail as a defence alliance.”

Before a military confrontation with NATO, the Kremlin would likely first threaten Europe - “the occasionally audible nuclear rumblings are part of this too,” Kahl said.

Russia reportedly wants to test the willingness to assist before an offensive confrontation and to deter individual allies from common political lines and defence. Moscow would thereby try to divide NATO even before a possible war begins, the BND chief warned.

“The Kremlin probably assumes that the West, in a world characterised by multiple conflicts, has difficulty finding the right joint responses,” he added.

Moscow’s readiness for further such escalation has reached an unprecedented high level, Kahl noted. This increases the risk that the NATO alliance might have to come to the collective defence of a member, adding that a further worsening of the situation was likely.

With the build-up of Russian military potential, “a direct military confrontation with NATO becomes a possible course of action for the Kremlin,” Kahl said.

He believes Russia’s armed forces are likely to be both personnel-wise and materially capable of conducting an attack against NATO by the end of the decade.