They keep on saying they’re already at war with the West - perhaps we should start listening?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/p...ears-g8rbpwr67
Nato has three years to prepare for Russian attack, warns Poland
The countries on Nato’s eastern flank have as little as three years to prepare for the possibility of a Russian attack, the head of a Polish national security agency said.
As Ukraine suffered a series of setbacks in its defensive war against Russia, and Europe and the United States have struggled to secure their next packages of military aid to Kyiv, attention is turning to the threat the Kremlin will pose to
Nato if the conflict becomes “frozen”.
In a stark report, one leading German think tank has argued that the military alliance must be ready to fend off a Russian offensive within six to ten years. However, Jacek Siewiera, the chief of Poland’s National Security Bureau and a minister in President Duda’s chancellery, said the paper probably understated the urgency of the situation.
“Unfortunately this analysis is consistent with studies drawn up in the US,” he told Nasz Dziennik, a Polish Catholic newspaper. “But in my opinion the time frame presented by the German analysts is too optimistic. If we want to avoid war, the Nato countries on the eastern flank should adopt a shorter, three-year time horizon to prepare for confrontation.”
Siewiera added: “This is the time window when we have to create a capability on the eastern flank that would provide a clear signal deterring aggression. The arms industry in Russia is working in three shifts [each day] and can rebuild its resources within the next three years.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last February, President Putin and several senior figures in his regime have alluded to possible
long-term designs on Nato’s eastern-most member states.
There is particular concern about the three Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — which successive Russian governments since the early 18th century have identified as part of Moscow’s sphere of influence and “near abroad”.
In May Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said the regime would create new bases and 12 new “units or divisions” in its Western Military District next door to Nato’s eastern flank in response to Finland and Sweden’s moves to join the alliance. Those plans have been deferred by Ukraine’s resistance for the foreseeable future, with the vast bulk of Russia’s fighting strength remaining bogged down in a war of attrition.
However, many analysts and Nato leaders worry that the alliance has only a limited period of time to bolster its defences as Russia scales up its military industry and puts in place a mobilisation machine that could sustain or expand troop numbers for years to come.
In an impassioned speech at the Körber-Stiftung’s annual foreign policy conference in Berlin last week Gabrielius Landsbergis, the Lithuanian foreign minister, said Russia was already at war with the West and on course to regenerate its military capacity next to Nato’s borders.
This month Christian Mölling and Torben Schütz of the German Council on Foreign Relations think tank wrote in a much-discussed report that the alliance was now in a “race against time” to fend off a Russian attack that could come within six years….
Putin has issued a direct threat to Latvia, warning of a reciprocal response if the “mistreatment” of the Russian-speaking population in the country continues.
"I don't know the current percentage, but in Latvia, I believe, there was 40% of Russian-speaking population. If they continue such a policy towards people who wanted to live in that country, worked, created goods for that country, and if they are treated like pigs , then they will face such pig-like treatment within their own country," Putin stated during a conversation with members of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.