Agency Report –
The head of Germany’s military task force on assistance for Ukraine, Major General Christian Freuding, has warned that Russia is building up its forces beyond the requirements of the current conflict.
“We see that the Russian armed forces are not just able to compensate for their enormous personnel and material losses on their own and with the support of their partners, but that they are successfully rearming,” he told the Sunday edition of the Welt newspaper.
It is by no means certain that Russia will launch an attack on NATO states in the coming years, “but Moscow is clearly creating the conditions for it,” he warned.
Freuding said that month by month, the Russian military was acquiring more tanks, more ammunition, more missiles and more drones.
“Production is growing, the supplies in the depots are growing,” he noted.
‘Huge threat’ to Germany
EU lawmaker Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a defence expert with Germany’s Free Democrats, spoke of a “huge threat” to Germany and Europe from Russia, which has been waging a war against Ukraine for almost three years.
“Russia has an impressive troop strength and a wide range of highly effective equipment,” she told the newspaper, noting that Moscow had achieved this despite Western sanctions. However, quality issues and dependency on foreign technology were limiting factors, she added.
Roderich Kiesewetter, a foreign policy expert with the centre-right Christian Democrats, considers hybrid Russian attacks a “precursor to war.” This includes espionage activities and massive attacks on IT services, Kiesewetter told the newspaper.
NATO has strengthened its defence against sabotage and cyberattacks, with an eye on Russia and China.
In recent weeks, Russia has been accused of acts of sabotage on cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea by its so-called shadow fleet of ageing tanker ships used to export oil and circumvent strict Western sanctions.
By Gloria Geyer
