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 said 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 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 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'.
President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as one for the 'history books', revealing it took 18 months to plan the top-secret mission dubbed 'Operation Spiderweb'.
He added that 117 drones were used - each with their own pilot - and that the headquarters of the operation were 'right next to the FSB', Russia's security service.
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.
He 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 told the BBC.
'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.
'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.'
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.
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