Threat of Russia
BND boss warns: “Ukraine only one step on the way to the west”
09.06.2025 – 9:30 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
What does Russia have with Ukraine and the West? The goals of Moscow are clear for the German foreign intelligence service.
The President of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Bruno Kahl, warns against underestimating the Russian intentions regarding the West and NATO. “We are very safe and also have intelligence evidence that Ukraine is only one step on the way to the west,” said Kahl in Podcast Table.Today.
“In Moscow there are people who no longer believe that Article 5 of NATO works. And they would like to test it.” This article is the heart of the collective defense and regulates the assistance obligations in the event of an attack. Specifically, he says that an attack on a NATO country would be regarded as an attack on all partners and triggers a common defense obligation.
The aim of the Russian leadership is to expand the sphere of influence to the west. “You want to catapult NATO back to the state of the late 1990s. They want to kick America out of Europe and every means is right for them,” said Kahl. To do this, Russia does not have to “fly large bombing or set armor armies”.
It is enough to send “small green males” to Estonia in order to protect suppressed Russian minorities. “Would the calculation in Moscow really send an American President GIS over the Atlantic?” And would they die there then? “This is the test for the alliance that will be done,” said Kahl.
“We have to be aware of that. We have to take into account and we have to make efforts to be so deterrent that Putin doesn’t even come up with these thoughts.” After what he hears of his contacts in the USA, it is still “very serious”. In the past, US President Donald Trump had been ambiguous.
Negotiations of the West with Russia, however, do not currently consider the head of the German abroad to be promising. “There is not the slightest indication that Putin has changed something in his thinking, in his aggressive way of wanting to bring this problem to the end,” said Kahl. With regard to the recent negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul von Moscow, the BND leader said. “The last paper, which has been handed over in Istanbul, is a best proof that a surrender is actually required and nothing else.”
