Germany’s defence chief has starkly warned that NATO should be prepared for a possible attack by Russia in the next four years.
General Carsten Breuer told the BBC that Russia poses a ‘very serious threat’ to the Western defence bloc, the likes of which he has never seen in his 40-year military career.’
The stark warning comes amid one of Ukraine’s most audacious attacks, in which it used a swarm of kamikaze drones unleashed from the backs of trucks to devastate $7billion dollars worth of equipment at two of Russia’s most critical airfields.
Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, claimed to have destroyed ‘34% of strategic cruise missile carriers at the main airfields of the Russian Federation.’
Breuer pointed to the massive increase in Vladimir Putin’s armoury and ammunitions stock, including a massive output of 1,500 main battle tanks every year as well as the four million rounds of 152mm artillery munition produced in 2024 alone.
Breuer said that not all of these additional military equipment was going to Ukraine, which signalled a possible building up of capabilities that could be used against the NATO bloc, adding that Baltic states were at a particularly high risk of being attacked.
‘There’s an intent and there’s a build up of the stocks’ for a possible future attack on Nato’s Baltic state members, he said.
‘This is what the analysts are assessing – in 2029. So we have to be ready by 2029… If you ask me now, is this a guarantee that’s not earlier than 2029? I would say no, it’s not. So we must be able to fight tonight,’ he said.
Breuer said that the Suwalki Gap, a region that borders Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus, was particularly vulnerable to Russian military activity.
Russian TU-95 Bear strategic bombers at the Olenya airbase on the Kola Peninsula being destroyed by Ukrainian drones thousands of miles away from the front
General Carsten Breuer (pictured) told the BBC that Russia poses a ‘very serious threat’ to the Western defence bloc
Fire burns in the debris of a private house that was destroyed in a Russian rocket strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Markhalivka, Kyiv region, Ukraine, May 25, 2025
Military vehicles and soldiers parade through Red Square as part of the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War at Red Square in Moscow, Russia on May 9, 2025
‘The Baltic States are really exposed to the Russians, right? And once you are there, you really feel this… in the talks we are having over there,’ he said.
The Estonians, he said, had given the analogy of being close to a wildfire where they ‘feel the heat, see the flames and smell the smoke’, while in Germany ‘you probably see a little bit of smoke over the horizon and not more’.
Earlier this week, David Petraeus, a respected former US general and CIA chief, claimed Lithuania would be most at risk to an attack from Russia.
He said Russia could launch an incursion into that Baltic state to test Western resolve or as a precursor to a wider offensive.
Breuer urged fellow NATO nations to build up their militaries again, following a long period of demilitarisation across dozens of nations.
‘What we have to do now is really to lean in and to tell everybody, hey, ramp up… get more into it because we need it. We need it to be able to defend ourselves and therefore also to build up deterrence’, he said.
But with NATO apparently falling apart, amid a surge of distrust between each of its member states, Breuer was quick to allay fears that NATO wouldn’t be cohesive enough to fight Russia.
He pointed to Finland and Sweden’s ascension into the bloc: ‘I’ve never seen such a unity like it is now’ among nations and military leaders.
‘All of them understand the threat that is at the moment approaching Nato, all understand that we have to develop a direction of deterrence, into the direction of collective defence. This is clear to everyone. The urgency is seen.’
NATO members Hungary and Slovakia have, since Russia invaded Ukraine, have developed closer relations with Putin, in many instances using their powers in groups like the EU and NATO to push the dictator’s agenda.
Russian Belaya Air Base in Irkutsk region, Siberia, was ablaze today after a suspected drone strike linked to Ukraine
Russian TU-95 Bear strategic bombers at the Olenya airbase on the Kola Peninsula being destroyed by Ukrainian drones thousands of miles away from the front line
Russian war-channels immediately began calling for Putin to respond by using nuclear weapons
And US president Donald Trump, who commands the largest military in the bloc, has consistently sided with Putin on military matters, especially when it comes to NATO.
Just yesterday his envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, declared that Russia’s historic feud with NATO were ‘fair.’
Asked by ABC News about a Reuters report that Russia wanted a written pledge over NATO not enlarging eastwards to include Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, Kellogg said: ‘It’s a fair concern.’
‘We’ve said that to us, Ukraine coming into NATO is not on the table, and we’re not the only country that says that’.
Shortly before Breuer’s comments, Ukraine launched one of its most audacious attacks of the war using a ‘swarm’ of kamikaze drones unleashed from the backs of trucks to devastate two of Russia’s most major airfields.
Dubbed ‘Operation Spiderweb’, the co-ordinated strikes have left Vladimir Putin humiliated and his prized warplanes in smouldering ruins, though Moscow has claimed to have ‘repelled’ all the attacks.
Two remote military airfields, Olenya in the Arctic Murmansk region and Belaya in eastern Siberia, were rocked by massive explosions overnight, with dramatic footage showing fires raging for hours.
The bases, located thousands of miles from Ukraine, are key to Russia’s nuclear strike capability and were considered untouchable.
Yet Ukraine appears to have struck them with deadly precision, using first-person-view (FPV) drones launched from unmarked vans parked near the airfields.
Both are thousands of miles from Ukraine but were ‘under drone attack’, with dozens of Moscow’s nuclear capable warplanes evidently destroyed.
Aftermath of the Russian attack on Kherson, Ukraine on June 1, 2025
The Russian army launched a combined strike on the Dniprovskyi district of Kherson, Ukraine
Olenya airbase is home to Russia’s ageing fleet of Tu-95 ‘Bear’ bombers – used both for conventional missile strikes and capable of launching nuclear weapons against the West. Several of the aircraft were reportedly left exposed in the open, despite repeated Ukrainian attacks on similar facilities.
Ablaze, too, was Belaya nuclear airbase in eastern Siberia’s Irkutsk region – some 2,900 miles from Ukraine.
More alarmingly, the strikes have triggered frenzied calls within Russia’s military circles for a nuclear response. ‘Disabling strategic aircraft gives Russia the right to use nuclear weapons,’ declared pro-Kremlin war analyst Vladislav Pozdnyakov. ‘Let me remind you.’
Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows for a nuclear response in the event of an attack on ‘critical government or military infrastructure’.
In particular, ‘an enemy attack that disrupts the operation of nuclear forces, threatening Russia’s ability to respond’ could lead to Putin ordering an atomic strike.
Ukraine’s SBU secret service was reportedly conducting a large-scale special operation to destroy Russian bombers.
The Ukrainian media claimed more than 40 Putin aircraft had been hit, including Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and A-50 strategic bombers.
The damage to the enemy was alleged to exceed £1.5billion.
A driver of a truck filled with drones that attacked Olenegorsk in Murmansk ‘may not have known about the cargo’, said a report.
According to Baza media, the driver has been detained.
‘A truck stopped at a gas station at the entrance to the city… drones started flying out of the back of the truck and then attacked various objects,’ said a report.
A similar account was heard from Siberia but there are no official comments yet.
This video grab from a handout footage released by Russia’s emergency ministry on June 1, 2025 shows specialists working at the scene after a road bridge collapsed onto a railway line late on May 31, 2025
The overnight collapse of two bridges in Russian regions bordering Ukraine that killed seven people were caused by explosions
Aftermath of the Russian attack on Kherson, Ukraine on June 1, 2025
Ukraine’s Pravda Gerashchenko Telegram channel said: ‘A special operation ‘Web’ is being conducted to demilitarise Russia.
‘The [SBU] report the destruction of Russian bomber aircraft behind enemy lines.
‘ In particular, the destruction of more than 40 aircraft, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M3.’
The audacious strike was described as ‘Russia’s Pearl Harbour’ and the ‘blackest day in aviation’ for the country by pro-Putin Telegram channels.
Russia’s ministry of defence said in a Telegram post that Ukraine had carried out a ‘terrorist attack’ in the regions of Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur.
It claimed that all of the attacks were ‘repelled’, adding: ‘As a result of the launch of FPV drones from the territory located in the immediate vicinity of airfields, several pieces of aviation equipment caught fire.’
