Germany is currently in a situation that can be classified neither as war nor as peace with regard to its relationship with Russia, General Carsten Breuer has told DW.

Breuer, the inspector general of the Bundeswehr, said, however, that both German society and German armed forces needed to become very aware of the threat posed by Russia to Germany's security in order to develop the necessary resilience.

Hybrid warfare

"The categories of peace, crisis or war that we so like to use [...] are not used by the Russian side," he said.

"Russia sees war as a continuum and thus uses measures that can already look like war but probably are not yet war," Breuer said, adding that he meant, above all, hybrid measures.

"So a state is produced that is no longer completely peace but also not completely war. And it is in this gray zone that we are operating, also with regard to Russia," he said.

Possible Russian attack on NATO territory in 2029

Breuer said current analyses showed that Russia was considerably upgrading its military potential, including by repairing old battle tanks or producing new ones at a rate of 1,500 per year.

"And these 1,500 battle tanks, like some 4 million rounds of artillery ammunition [...] do not go directly to the front in Ukraine but into depots, where they are prepared or kept," he said.

"At the same time, we see that Russia will enlarge its armed forces to around 1.5 million soldiers next year. And we are seeing new military structures, military districts, for example, that are clearly aimed against the West," he went on.

"If we combine that with the intention that we can infer from Putin's speeches, from video statements, [...] it shows me clearly that 2029 is the point when the material and the personnel can have grown enough to make an attack on NATO territory possible," Breuer said.

German armed forces must grow

When asked what the next German government should do to increase the country's preparedness for possible Russian aggression, Breuer said that the armed forces needed to be bigger.

"From a military point of view, I can say that we have to have growth potential. That is, we have to enlarge our armed forces. Our calculations show that we have to reach 460,000 soldiers, including reservists and active soldiers," he said.

"This growth potential has to be guaranteed through some form of military service, whether compulsory or voluntary," he said.

Breuer also called for efforts to increase resilience across the whole of German society.

"We have to face up to this possibility (of Russian aggression). We have to face up to this worst-case scenario, but not by saying, 'something is happening and we can't do anything about it,'" he said. "Instead, we have to do it so we are aware of the possibilities for countering such a threat."

"That is resilience. We make a society stronger and more resilient by an interplay of all factors, by having politicians, society, the business world and the military looking at this threat and considering together what can be done about it," Breuer said.

"It is not something where we can only react, but where we can be active. And we have to arrive at this state of positive action."

The interview was conducted on Monday by DW's chief political correspondent, Nina Haase. The  inspector general of the Bundeswehr oversees the overall military defense concept of the German armed forces.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn