“Russia is still capable of waging a long-distance war” – with soldiers being recruited again and again, said Kahl. This also applies to armaments and ammunition. In this respect, there is no question of weakness or that activities could collapse. There are vulnerabilities and surprises – for example in terms of the performance of the armed forces. However, if the West does not support Ukraine in a very organized manner and organize resistance, Putin’s strategy of relying on the long term and the masses could prevail.
When asked when exactly the BND knew that Russia would attack its neighboring country, Kahl said: “About 14 days before the start of the war, we also noticed phenomena that could not be interpreted differently.” started February last year.
Kahl rejected criticism that the secret services in the US and Great Britain had expected an attack much earlier than the BND. The colleagues there would have predicted the probability of a war relatively strongly based on criteria that they had observed. The BND, on the other hand, attached importance to the fact that the decision to attack was ultimately made by Putin. The Kremlin chief made this dependent on many things “that did not consist of counting rockets or tanks”.