Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 9, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleGerman intelligence warns of Russia's plans to test NATO, extending conflict beyond Ukraine. Germany pledges more support for Ukraine.
By Thomas Escritt
BERLIN (Reuters) -Russia is determined to test the resolve of the NATO alliance, including by extending its confrontation with the West beyond the borders of Ukraine, the Germany's foreign intelligence chief told the Table Media news organization.
Bruno Kahl, head of the Federal Intelligence Service, said his agency had clear intelligence indications that Russian officials believed the collective defence obligations enshrined in the NATO treaty no longer had practical force.
"We are quite certain, and we have intelligence showing it, that Ukraine is only a step on the journey westward," Kahl told Table Media in a podcast interview.
"That doesn't mean we expect tank armies to roll westwards," he added. "But we see that NATO's collective defence promise is to be tested."
Germany, already the second-largest provider of armaments and financial support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, has pledged to step up its support further under the new government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, promising to help Ukraine develop new missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.
Without detailing the nature of his intelligence sources, Kahl said Russian officials were envisaging confrontations that fell short of a full military engagement that would test whether the U.S. would really live up to its mutual aid obligations under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
"They don't need to dispatch armies of tanks for that," he said. "It's enough to send little green men to Estonia to protect supposedly oppressed Russian minorities."
Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea involved occupation of buildings and offices by Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms and civilian clothes, who came to be known as the "little green men" when Moscow initially denied their identity.
Kahl did not specify which officials in Moscow were thinking along these lines.
Merz, who visited Donald Trump in Washington last week, pushed back against the U.S. president's assertion that Ukraine and Russia were like two infants fighting, telling Trump that where Ukraine targeted Moscow's military, Russia bombed Ukraine's cities.
Kahl said his contacts with U.S. counterparts had left him convinced they took the Russian threat seriously.
"They take it as seriously as us, thank God," he said.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt, editing by Deepa Babington)
Bruno Kahl, head of the Federal Intelligence Service, stated that Russia aims to test NATO's resolve and extend its confrontations beyond Ukraine.
Germany is the second-largest provider of armaments and financial support for Ukraine and has pledged to increase its assistance under the new government.
The term 'little green men' refers to unmarked soldiers used by Russia during its 2014 annexation of Crimea, indicating a strategy of low-level confrontations.
Kahl expressed confidence that U.S. officials take the Russian threat as seriously as their German counterparts, highlighting a shared concern.
Kahl indicated that Russia might engage in confrontations that do not involve full military engagement, such as sending small groups to protect Russian minorities in other countries.
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