Bild claimed that Germany is preparing for war with Russia in February. NATO refutes this

Journalists of the German tabloid Bild, referring to a classified document of the Bundeswehr, wrote that the Armed Forces of Germany are allegedly preparing for a hybrid Russian attack on the eastern flank of NATO in February 2024. The Alliance responded by saying that this article is based on a document that is a training scenario and "has nothing to do with reality."

The secret document of the German Ministry of Defense refers to the allegedly detailed "path to conflict" between Russia and NATO. The actions of Russia and the West are described month by month, culminating in the deployment of hundreds of thousands of NATO soldiers and the inevitable start of war in the summer of 2025.

Director at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence Jānis Sārts reacted to the publication in a post on X (Twitter).

According to him, Bild has a training scenario at its disposal, which "is always an imaginary situation".

"The scenarios used to be completely fictitious with non-existent countries and geographic regions. Now it's more appropriate to use real countries and geographic regions," Sārts explained, adding that the training document aims to test military capabilities in a particular area.

On September 26, 2023, in an interview with Welt, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevičs stated that the victory of Vladimir Putin in the war against Ukraine could spark the Third World War.

On January 3, the president of Latvia announced that his country would strengthen the military infrastructure on the border with Russia and Belarus.