With the Danish, another secret service warns for Russia: “We must respond to it” After unrest in parliament: postponed elections in Senegal on December 15

The Danish Defense Intelligence Service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, FE) has released a new threat assessment on the Russian threat. As Danish media report, the secret service concludes in a report that the situation has deteriorated. Accordingly, it is now believed that Russia could no longer attack NATO states only through hybrid means, but could also use military force.

After Sweden, Norway, Poland and the German government, which in the person of Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, have already warned of a military emergency in the coming years, the Danish government is now also painting a pessimistic picture of the threat posed by Putin’s Russia. The FE report considers the possibility that Putin will “challenge the NATO states” as “very likely.”

Last week, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen called for the reopening of a national defense plan approved in 2023, saying it was not sufficient given the Russian threat. “If we look at the fact that Russia has increased production of military equipment very decisively and very quickly, it puts pressure on us in Europe and in NATO. We have to respond to it,” Poulsen said in an interview with “The Local” newspaper.

Last year, the parties in the Danish parliament agreed on a military budget for the coming years, according to which 150 billion Danish crowns (about 20 billion euros) are intended for defense spending in 2030. Poulsen now calls on the parties to renegotiate this package and significantly extend it.

Instead of a direct attack on NATO land

“There is no doubt that the Russian threat is real. If you ask around and talk to your colleagues, which I did yesterday with, for example, Poland, then it cannot be ruled out that Russia could attack the NATO states in a few years,” said the Danish Defense Minister.

Only on Monday did Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz not rule out the possibility of war with Russia. Poland must prepare for such a war, he told the Super Express daily.

Asked whether he considered a military defeat for Ukraine and a direct attack on Poland by Russia possible, the conservative politician replied: “I expect every scenario and take the worst scenarios most seriously. That is the job of a Minister of Defense in the situation we find ourselves in today.”

But the Danish secret service FE also concludes in its report that Putin will probably be careful not to initiate the NATO alliance. This means that the intelligence services consider a direct attack on a NATO country rather unlikely. In contrast, the Russian autocrat will put pressure on NATO countries by regularly sending planes and warships to violate national borders or by massing his army along the border of a NATO country.

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