Civil protection agency chief says country is ill-prepared for conflict and calls for urgent upgrades to cold war shelters

Germany is drawing up plans to rapidly expand its network of bomb-proof bunkers and shelters, the government’s most senior civilian protection official has said, warning the state needs to be prepared for an attack from Russia within the next four years.

Ralph Tiesler, the head of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), said Europe’s largest economy needed to wake up to the reality of conflict, and that in its current state Germany was inadequately prepared.

“For a long time, there was a widespread belief in Germany that war was not a scenario for which we needed to prepare. That has changed. We are concerned about the risk of a major war of aggression in Europe,” he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung news outlet.

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Everyone on the planet needs to send the same message to Russia: Your warm water ports in Crimea will be useless, drones would just sink your fleet each year.

    Same for any mining minerals operations you managed to set up. The prize you’re trying to capture is no longer worth keeping it. Go home.

    The change in the nature of war has made the spoils into liabilities. Drones will keep the world’s borders set for some time now.

    • huppakee@piefed.social
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      2 hours ago

      Putin cannot keep the Russian economy going without spending a lot of money on weapons, he has no way back.

  • Stamets@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Not even sure Russia has the capability to even fire anything long range at this point. Not even from Ukranian attacks, just from being fucking worthless. That being said… better safe than sorry. Not much more to fear than a cornered sociopath with nothing left to lose. Willing to take themselves down if it means even hurting you too. Not to mention the fact that Russian weapons might not work… but American ones do.

    • Damage@feddit.it
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      3 hours ago

      They managed to build and launch ICBMs with '50s technology, I’m sure they could still scrape enough together to ruin everybody’s day

        • kelpie_returns@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          I think the possible motivations/reasons behind this prolonged effort could be read in a number of ways tbh.

          Scenario 1: they simply haven’t played all their cards yet.

          This is, in my opinion, the least likely on its own because it was made clear early on that Putin intended for this to be a quick operation. It only undermines his perceived power to say this and then choose to feign weakness. Compound it with either or both of the following, though, and it does start to seem like a picture is coming together…

          Scenario 2: putin is not acting on reason.

          There are rumors that he is terminally ill and acting on a desire to shore up his legacy before dying, leading to frantic miscalculations. Who knows if the rumor is true, but, given his age and the commonality of mortality, I could be convinced. He’s clearly got the ego necessary to fall into this sort of thought if circumstances gave a little nudge and securing Ukraine as a Russian territory would probably do wonders for a fragile pride like his.

          Scenario 3: the invasion of Ukraine is not the actual point of this operation.

          With the Kremlin’s well known affinity for espionage and psyop tactics, this one seems the most likely to me. I won’t pretend to know what the actual goal beyond control would be here, but it would never surprise me to learn that they have done one thing 100% in order to set up or hide another. From wars, to negotiations, to tactical games; controlling where the opposition looks, or further, what they think of when they see it, is often a key aspect of securing a win condition.

          Their wheels have been turning toward toppling their fellow contenders for the title of #1 world power for a long time now, and Putin seems real ready for something to budge. Either he is a mad fool, lashing out at the world to appease his ego, or he is playing a devious long game and aiming for something bigger than he is letting on. Whatever the cause and whatever else he’s still got up his sleeve, it seems very likely that he is confident in the cards he has yet to play. If he doesn’t secure that legacy and he’s on his way out anyway, why would he care if he permanently blacks the skies with nuclear war? I wouldn’t put it past him to hold his confidence up on this final “fuck every fucking one of you” to the world.

          But at the same time, I’m a legitimate dumdum so idk whatever. Just like people obsess over ww2 these days, people are gonna go nuts over this era someday soon tho. I’d bet on that

  • B-TR3E@feddit.org
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    2 hours ago

    Not even in the days of the cold war there was remotely enough bunker capacity for everyone. What for anyway? Want to spend the next 100 or 1000 years in a subterranean hole? Good luck with that. Waste of money and resources but probably just the pipe dreams of some beaurocrat in a mostlly irrelevant institution.

  • Finch9678@europe.pub
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    3 hours ago

    The idea that you can hide yourself from a nuclear war is just as stupid as the idea you can win one.

    The only outcome here is to not have a nuclear war.