Putin ‘could use chemical weapons on German cities’
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Vladimir Putin could use chemical weapons on German cities if war with Nato breaks out, German MPs have been warned as the government steps up contingency planning for a global conflict.
The Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, has issued a 14-page briefing paper to MPs, outlining a worst-case scenario in which Russia wages war on Berlin in four stages – culminating in a ground invasion – as part of a wider conflict with Nato.
During phase one, Russia would mount disinformation campaigns on social media and national media to undermine trust in German democracy and destabilise society.
This would be followed by a second phase in which Moscow would deploy soldiers to the eastern flank of Nato states. It would also step up cyber-attacks, espionage and acts of sabotage to try to disrupt the troop movement of Nato members, including Germany.
In the third phase, Russia would launch a conventional military assault on Nato’s eastern flank and strike targets, such as Germany, deeper inside the Western alliance.
In the fourth and final phase, Russian troops would break through Nato defensive lines and invade Germany, leading to full-scale “land, sea and air” warfare between Russian and German forces.
The briefing paper the risk of Moscow launching chemical attacks on Germany and stepping up threats to use nuclear weapons could not be ruled out.
The paper mentioned the Salisbury poisonings and the attempted murder of Alexei Navalny by poisoning in August 2020.
“Past experience in recent years shows that a potential aggressor may be prepared to use unconventional weapons. This was the case in Salisbury in 2018 and in Russia in 2020, where chemical attacks were carried out against individuals,” it said.
It also stressed that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had led to “a fundamental change in the security situation for Europe as a whole”, which called for closer scrutiny of Germany’s civil and national defence procedures.
Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister, has warned that Russia could launch an attack on Nato in as little as five to eight years and has vowed to ensure the country is “kriegstuchtig” – war-ready.
In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph earlier this month, General Carsten Breuer, the chief of defence of the German armed forces, said he was confident that Russian forces would be defeated if they attacked a Nato state in the immediate future.
Gen Breuer also said he did not anticipate that Putin would resort to using nuclear weapons in Ukraine in the next stages of the war, because doing so would incur “unforeseen” consequences.
