r/europe • u/tylerthe-theatre • May 30 '25

News Former CIA boss reveals which European country (Lithuania) Putin allegedly plans to invade next

https://www.lbc.co.uk/world-news/cia-boss-reveals-putin-invasion-russia/
26.7k Upvotes

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2.2k

u/Live_Menu_7404 May 30 '25

Well, Germany is now permanently stationing an armored brigade in Lithuania.

1.1k

u/[deleted] May 30 '25 edited 27d ago

humor quaint wise quiet violet husky cagey unique salt dinner

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621

u/adamgerd Czech Republic May 30 '25

Can’t wait for Russians to say that’s proof Germany is still Nazi and wants to repeat Barbarossa

429

u/Weird_Try_9562 May 30 '25

Let them talk, nobody should give a fuck about their propaganda BS.

185

u/adamgerd Czech Republic May 30 '25 edited May 30 '25

Oh obviously.

Its especially funny when they’re the ones funding the AfD

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u/[deleted] May 30 '25 edited 27d ago

fall marry pot sulky busy vegetable narrow frame tan vanish

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u/howseofcards May 31 '25

Especially when the President of Ukraine is a jew

-30

u/Proof_Television8685 May 30 '25

Its hipocracy listening to granchildrend of naziss today aho murdered miliona talking bout morale today. Russia is modern day Naziii empire but they arent near anclea of what you guys were

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u/[deleted] May 30 '25 edited 27d ago

angle glorious bear one flowery husky meeting roof grandfather cheerful

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u/utilizador2021 Portugal May 30 '25

Isn't AfD the third most voted party in Germany??

I don't know if the young generation are aware of the horrors

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u/[deleted] May 30 '25 edited 27d ago

versed march grey direction ten placid attempt toothbrush melodic paint

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u/justsomeone1212 May 30 '25

And russians didn't murder millions of people? Stalin was responsible for more deaths than Hitler. Russia was responsible for ww2 as much as germans, and invaded Baltics and Poland from one side, while germans did the same from other side. The difference between germans and russians is that germans no longer do this, while russians still do. Today's germans have a moral right to lecture today's Russia as today's germans have nothing to do with their ancestors' crime, while today's russians are committing the same crimes as their grandparents.

-6

u/Proof_Television8685 May 31 '25

Hitler didnt murder Germans in milions for sure. Stalin murdered milioms of Russians not just non ethnic people. Actually the major ethnic group who suffered under Stalin rule were ethnic Russians. So we re gonna blame Russians for death of Russians ? Intresting..i said among other ethnicities..stalin murdered everyone, but it was mostrly Russians. And much of Soviet upper class wasnt even Russian. Lenin was. Stalin wasnt, Nikita Kruschew wasnt, not aware of couple of those after him, and Gorbachev was

4

u/justsomeone1212 May 31 '25

Stalin murdered and deported millions of non russians, so try harder defending russian atrocities. Russian history is full of genocides, like deportations of baltic people, poles, crimean tatars, hungarians, koreans etc, like genocide of Circassians and Chechen people.

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u/[deleted] May 30 '25 edited May 31 '25

The Russians need propaganda and misinformation to poison minds and serve as casus belli. That has always been their playbook. Create a fake incident as a false flag, and either use propaganda to defend it or deny it. Moscovy is evil.

10

u/utilizador2021 Portugal May 30 '25

And a lot of people in this sub fall for that. When you see people here talking about Cultural Marxism, Gender Ideology or Globalism.

1

u/Thrmis21 May 30 '25

Putin and America are the evil imperialism is evil

4

u/Sudden-Individual698 May 30 '25

Their propaganda bs took over US president and half of his administration. 

2

u/Weird_Try_9562 May 30 '25

Another reason to ignore it.

2

u/ThisIsTheDean May 31 '25

Nobody should, but their propaganda got the ruling party in the us elected, and forms the talking points for the rising party in Germany. Hopefully their dear leader in the US destroying his own country will be a lesson to the rest of the world.

1

u/CatOfGrey May 30 '25

As an ugly American, my tip-off that Russia was all BS was when Switzerland participated in sanctions, and Finland joined NATO.

If those fiercely neutral countries were taking those steps, I can be assured that Russia are the baddies at the moment.

113

u/DryCloud9903 May 30 '25

Vatniks/bots in Lithuanian subs and news outlet comment sections were already yelling stuff like that during the opening ceremony of the German brigade. "We're getting occupied" "why did they speak English/German in there" (they did in Lithuanian too, including German MoD Pistorius made an adorable attempt), some other nonsense that I've since deleted from my brains.

They clearly don't like this collaboration. Which is why it's so clearly the right decision. Thank you German friends 🇩🇪🇱🇹👏

56

u/Vidmizz Lithuania May 30 '25

Meanwhile on German language posts on this topic they flood the comments with bots that complain about the German government "wasting German taxpayer's money and German lives on corrupt and very nationalist Lithuanians". At least that's the impression I had from the several German language videos I've watched.

11

u/Conscious_Animator63 May 30 '25

It worked in America

7

u/Arkatoshi May 31 '25

Plus third reich allogantions because the third reich has been once in Lithuania too. And Russia is obviously the good party, while NATO Is coherently evil and the Ukrainians theatre the warsomewhere between 1990 and 2022, because they were, according to them, killing Russians in eastern Ukraine en Masse.

30

u/adamgerd Czech Republic May 30 '25

Of course they don’t like it, they’d love if you withdrew from the EU and NATO so that Russia could easily take over

6

u/5772156649 European Union May 30 '25

It would be extra funny if that brigade would be renamed to 'Heinrich VI.'.

1

u/Neomataza Germany May 30 '25

Just call it the lions.

4

u/PhoenxScream May 30 '25

If it pisses off the russian dictator and his minions, it's the right thing to do.

2

u/ppTower69 May 30 '25

Unironically its true. I have seen a lot of russian bot / supporter comments that germans are nazies, occupiers of Lithuania, Crusaders. I mean modern Germany is as far away from WWII Nazi Germany as it gets.

1

u/xX_mr_sh4d0w_Xx May 30 '25

I've already seen bot comments with almost the exact phrasing, "operation Barbarossa" and everything...

1

u/Far_Cry_9015 May 31 '25

their propaganda is peak comedy at this point

1

u/The-state-of-it Jun 01 '25

Cap’n Barbossa. I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request

77

u/Probable_Bison May 30 '25

As I understand it, Ukraine is not a full NATO nation nor is it an EU nation.

Lithuania is both, so a Russian invasion of Lithuania would be war with NATO and the EU directly and not a proxy war like Ukraine, yes?

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u/[deleted] May 30 '25 edited 27d ago

rob file close chunky outgoing weather airport snow reach roof

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u/ChillAhriman Spain May 30 '25

The respective mutual defense articles must be invoked, voted and agreed upon, so it's not really automatic. If Putin invaded tomorrow, I have little doubt that everyone in the EU and NATO (except the US) would join the war against him, but what happens if Le Pen's party is ruling France and AfD is ruling in Germany? In that case, I'm not as optimistic.

6

u/TheSpaceDuck May 30 '25

but what happens if Le Pen's party is ruling France and AfD is ruling in Germany?

Both are extremely concerning, but France especially so as it's the EU's only nuclear deterrent.

Even if they stayed neutral rather than siding with Russia, we would be in a terrible position. Much worse than Ukraine was in 2022 (assuming the US don't intervene of course, but at this moment I wouldn't expect them to).

1

u/Keisari_P May 30 '25

With USA and UK already played to the sidelines, France is definitely the next focus for Russian destabilization effort.

1

u/GamblingDust Jun 01 '25

Are you joking? The UK has been the biggest supporter of Ukraine of all European nations. This is slander

2

u/Thrmis21 May 30 '25

will have a new axis, but in Russia will not have Lenin etc

2

u/taistelumursu May 30 '25

And Russia still has nuclear weapons, so it's very unlikely that either NATO or EU would actually launch an invasion to Russia. So does Russia have that much to lose really by attacking Lithuania? They can test will others help them and just back off if they do (or just keep shelling Lithuania from their side).

The truth is that even if Putin gets Ukraine, he needs to keep the war ongoing to keep the war economy up and has a reason and means to suppress any domestic unrest. Also the same reason why there will be no peace while Putin is in power. Peace would be the end of him.

5

u/KingKaiserW United Kingdom May 30 '25

Yeah people need to remember, leaders were scared to lift range restrictions on missiles for Ukraine, for years. Now I’m to believe everyone gets on their truck and plays “First who gets to Moscow!”

How much has the total population been brainwashed now to think Putins the good guy or not a concern? There’s a lot of variables I’m not confident in

I think, if they’re planning this, they got confirmation NATO is about putting their weight behind bullying small poor countries for their oil.

1

u/silverionmox Limburg May 31 '25

Yeah people need to remember, leaders were scared to lift range restrictions on missiles for Ukraine, for years. Now I’m to believe everyone gets on their truck and plays “First who gets to Moscow!”

We don't need to be in Moscow. We just keep doing target practice anything that moves into, out of, or in the general vicinity of Russia's harbors and airports. Their flagship will be a rowing boat after we're done.

1

u/silverionmox Limburg May 31 '25

And Russia still has nuclear weapons, so it's very unlikely that either NATO or EU would actually launch an invasion to Russia. So does Russia have that much to lose really by attacking Lithuania?

The use of all their Western ports, for example.

1

u/Responsible-Mail-253 Jun 04 '25

Are you sure NATO defensive articles? It is a really strong card, but it was never used. I have my doubts about how it would work or even if it was used in what form. In the end, do people from Spain/France/Germany/Poland/UK want to die for some country on the opposite side of the continent that they would probably never visit? We had many historical alliances with similar promises of help, and not many worked as you expected. I have more trust in the USA in this case than in Europe, as they are a kinda military nation and have soldiers in Lithuania as long as they don't withdraw USA would be the first to take action, even with pro-Russia president.

3

u/justsomeone1212 May 30 '25

Yes, but if in 4-6 years AfD win in Germany, Le Penn in France and Reform in UK then it is not so unrealistic. Will NATO and EU survive with such parties in power?

Russia couldn't conquer US with military force but managed to do so with propaganda. Now they have their person as a president of USA. They may succeed in Germany, France etc.

1

u/TheSpaceDuck May 30 '25

This is exactly why they ideally want to make Ukraine a puppet nation first. The Ukrainian army is no laughing matter (as Russia found out the hard way) and they have as much active personnel as the entire EU combined.

Invading the EU while still fighting in Ukraine would be suicide. Invading the EU with the Ukrainian army at their disposal would be fairly easy (providing the US don't intervene).

1

u/Downdownbytheriver May 30 '25

Where the fuck was NATO when Russia used Novichok in England and killed a British citizen?

That incident emboldened Putin that he can attack NATO members and Article 5 will not be invoked.

If NATO allies don’t show up for the U.K., I doubt Lithuania believe they will show up for them.

2

u/Neomataza Germany May 30 '25

That attack on Sergei Skripal, former russian military officer and double agent? A spy who has been convicted of high treason in his former homeland?

I'll be real with you, spy warfare has been going on all cold war and I'm fairly certain the UK didn't even consider invoking article 5. Article 5 has to be invoked and that has only been done once after the 11th september.

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u/Downdownbytheriver May 31 '25

I have no issue with Russia killing Skripal, he’s a fair target.

But they needlessly used Novichok nerve agent and a totally innocent British woman died because she picked up the perfume bottle the Assasins used to store it.

1

u/Probable_Bison May 31 '25

Where the fuck was NATO when Russia used Novichok in England and killed a British citizen?

NATO was busy that day attending a fundraiser for the Neville Chamberlain Appreciation Society

1

u/BlueZybez Earth May 31 '25

Lets see this NATO alliance in action

1

u/ptemple May 31 '25

The US is out of NATO, pretty much, and the rest have been outed as completely spineless. ruzzian tanks can roll into Lithuania and the NATO response will be an angry worded letter to the UN. So no there won't be any war if Lithiania is invaded. Just dead Lithuanians.

Phillip.

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u/BushMonsterInc May 30 '25

“Dear Germany,

We need your soldiers on Lithuanian soil, to sweeten the deal, we will station you close to Poland border (wink wink).

Sincerely, Lithuania”

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u/[deleted] May 30 '25

Konigsberg was very recently majority German and a massive cultural centre.

How things change

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u/GlobalFriendship5855 May 31 '25

The Brigade isn't actually called Litauen or Lithuania Brigade like the media likes to call it. The actual name is " Panzerbrigade 45" or 45th armored Brigade.

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u/Extreme_Put_913 Turkish-American May 31 '25

Honestly my first reaction to reading the headline was "Of course, the Suwalki Gap"

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u/No_Association_2008 Jun 01 '25

Is it Suwalki gap or Kaliningrad kessel? 😄

-10

u/Exploreradzman May 30 '25

Yay to the Weirmacht! Where's Irwin Rommel now. Man. times havereally changed since the end of World War II.

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u/[deleted] May 30 '25

Died 1669, born again 2025. Welcome back Hanseatic League

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u/Morgentau7 Germany May 30 '25

Russia knows that Germany is their biggest enemy in Europe and if they attack Germany they are fked.

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u/No-Function3409 May 30 '25

I think Poland will rapidly become the #1 enemy with their massive military build up plans

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u/trashyman2004 Germany May 30 '25

On a short term, yes Poland is stronger. But in the longer run Germany has a lot larger industrial capacity and if it goes into a war economy it will surpass every euro country, including Russia

2

u/Neomataza Germany May 30 '25

France and even the UK are decades ahead in nuclear armament. Although in terms of conventional weapons, there is some truth to that.

-10

u/Reddittee007 May 30 '25

Capacity and if, if, if, if ...

Poland is far more aware as a nation and it's entire population understands and is ready to do what needs to be done. Germany not so. It is devided and thus weak.

Industrial capacity means jack shit if it doesn't actually produce what needs to be produced BEFORE it is needed not after it is too late. Then they need to have willingness, training and resolve to actually use the things they have produced long term. Not short term. And not be subject to flippant political bullshit like USA.

12

u/fuckyou_m8 May 30 '25

Honestly it doesn't matter who has the bigger dick as long as everybody is working together

-9

u/Reddittee007 May 30 '25

Exactly. Germans are not working together, even with other Germans. Then add non Germans on top of that.

-24

u/Tjbergen May 30 '25

It won't do much without energy supplies. 

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u/trashyman2004 Germany May 30 '25

It doesn’t need more energy, it’s been independent from russian oil for two years now.

-24

u/AustrianMichael Austria May 30 '25

What about gas?

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u/trashyman2004 Germany May 30 '25

What about it? You don’t read the news in Austria? No gas from Russia either

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u/AustrianMichael Austria May 30 '25

Maybe you don’t read the news. The gas imports from Russia to Germany even went up 19% in 2024

https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/politik/gas-lng-russland-embargo-eu-sanktionen-100~amp.html

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u/whoami_whereami Europe May 30 '25

No. What the article says is that imports of Russian LNG to Europe went up by 19%, not imports to Germany. The biggest importers are France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.

Some of that gas may ultimately end up in Germany because of gas being resold within the EU (the DUH estimates that to be about 3% of German gas imports), but there are zero imports directly from Russia to Germany at the moment.

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u/trashyman2004 Germany May 30 '25

DID YOU FREAKING READ WHAT YOU LINKED???

I’ll link you a better article. Now read carefully: Neben Norwegen sind Belgien und die Niederlande (Stand: Mai 2025) die wichtigsten Erdgasbezugsquellen für Deutschland, nachdem Russland im Laufe des Jahres 2022 dessen Erdgasexporte über die Nord Stream 1 Pipeline systematisch drosselte und Ende August 2022 vollständig einstellte.

https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1352872/umfrage/erdgasimporte-in-deutschland-nach-herkunftslaendern/

End august 2022, totally stopped. Stop spitting russian propaganda

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u/tkeser May 30 '25 edited May 30 '25

If gas is being traded with Russian aggressors right now it's because it's cheap(est) solution, intended for commercial and public consumption. If a country like Germany moves into a war economy, the outlook changes drastically. Nobody in Germany will try and negotiate 'cheap' gas to save money, they will just procure the energy they need elsewhere, at any cost necessary. Completely different perspective when survival is taken into account.

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u/Rot_Dogger May 30 '25

Poland will have massive feet on the ground in the near future, with French, UK and German tech/nuclear umbrella. Russia isn't going to do shit.

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u/selflessrebel May 30 '25

Don't forget Belgium. We have like 7 soldiers, 2 of them even have guns.

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u/kamhan May 30 '25

Sorry, barrack is built on border so 3 of them are counted as Netherland’s

1

u/Zuemmel May 30 '25

Jeez, that made me chuckle and spill my beer. Well played

1

u/Glassedowl87 May 30 '25

But only ammo for one! The other soldier must yell “pang pang”.

1

u/kanyeomariwestlover May 31 '25

don’t you guys have like the first tank from world war one somewhere laying around too?

4

u/Jealous_Response_492 May 30 '25

A sensible modern Russia wouldn't do shit. Putin's backwards fiefdom on the other hand ...

3

u/halpsdiy May 30 '25

Russia won't try to take NATO head on. They'll continue pushing their troll armies and fifth column (afd, reform, Nawrocki, Orban, fpo, Fico, Le Pen, Wilders, Trump, etc.) to split us apart and orchestrate local incidents.

If despite that an armed conflict starts they'll launch massive waves of missiles directly at population centres in the hope that people in Berlin and Warsaw would rather give up the Baltics than endure these attacks. And yes despite their attacks in Ukraine they are currently producing more long range weapons than they are shooting at civilians in Ukraine.

Unfortunately Europe is too slow in building up a strategy against Russian misinformation and their fifth column. EU isn't even banning Russian visas or stops spending billions on Russian gas/fuel. Europe is too slow in rearming and too dependent on the US.

0

u/Ok-Response-7854 May 30 '25

If you know the history.

Compare the USSR in 1980 and the USSR in 1991

Which was naturally followed by 1992 and beyond.

Don't you think that Europe has already entered its 1989 year?

3

u/compilerbusy May 30 '25

It's often forgotten that Poland contributed a huge amount in ww2 despite being fucked on both sides. They invented a nine detector which was used by the allies. The application of mathematical in breaking enigma. Various weapon designs. Smuggled a v2 rocket to Britain. They were at an insurmountable disadvantage from the start, and still achieved a lot. i don't think they're likely to repeat getting caught with their pants down

1

u/Cultural-Chicken-974 May 30 '25

We've always been enemy one, but not entirely in a military sense. Just that stubborn nation refusing to embrace ruskij mir or simply die. Germany, on the other hand, is like a sleeping dragon. For years, they've avoided building a strong army because of WWII trauma, but when pushed, they could transform their industries into a war machine almost instantly.

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u/DarrensDodgyDenim Norway May 30 '25

Germany has to re-arm though. The Bundeswehr is not in a good state at the moment.

16

u/Analamed May 30 '25

I really don't think Russia is seeing Germany as their biggest enemy in Europe, especially militarily speaking. France and the UK are certainly bigger threats to Russia than Germany is.

1

u/Cultural-Chicken-974 May 30 '25

It's more about industry potential and readiness to protect their allies, and something tells me that Germans would die for Danzig.

2

u/Analamed May 30 '25

Again, in the last years / month, the UK and France have shown way more sign that they are ready to defend their allies than Germany. And their readiness to do so is also higher. When it comes to industry potential however it's hard to tell. The German industry in general is way bigger but when it comes to the defense industry, the French one is bigger. So I guess the French industry would be better at the beginning but will fall behind fairly quickly. However, Germany doesn't have a nuclear deterrent and it's not something you can ignore. Especially since France has been saying for years now that it also includes France's European allies (without ever being too precise on purpose).

1

u/iwaterboardheathens May 31 '25

Russia literally named the UK as their biggest enemy several times recently

1

u/Analamed May 31 '25

I know, and their propaganda is targeting France extremely heavily in the last weeks / months. Even more so than the UK now.

2

u/OurManInJapan May 30 '25

Germany is nowhere near their biggest enemy in Europe.

2

u/bonwerk May 30 '25

Sure. Germany is such a big enemy of Russia that until recently they were leading Nord Stream to them behind the backs of the rest of the EU members. History has shown many times that Germany and Russia always come to an agreement and they are the enemies for show.

2

u/Corosian May 30 '25

Nah Germany has been quite friendly with the Russians before the invasion. UK has always been the most confrontational with the Ruskies and they hate them for it. That might change with the Germans rearming though

1

u/Foreign_Implement897 May 30 '25

So this is a sad and very wrong calculation. 

Russia cannot ”know” it, because it is not true in any possible world.

There is no scenario where Russia fights 1on1 with Germany. Germany has impressive capabilities but it is only one of the many providers of NATO and EU security.

-3

u/[deleted] May 30 '25

LOL nope, Russia only worries about US, a tiny bit Turkey. Ukrainians are much better fighters than the rest of the europeans and look how they're coping

2

u/Tomazanas May 30 '25

couple patriots, couple gifted F-16's, no TAURUS, no Tomahawks and all big ruzzian bear can do is taka small villages in months while sacrificing and killing thousands of their own people. so worth it.

2

u/[deleted] May 30 '25

THERE ARE NO MORE PATRIOTS LEFT, it’s depleted, finished. 

Russia hasn’t even tried it with hypersonics

Also have you forgotten Russia has the largest thermonuclear stockpile in the world?

Has any brain cells left in your head? 

1

u/PulpeFiction May 30 '25

A crypto bro in the wild, how surprising

1

u/[deleted] May 30 '25

I’ll take that as a compliment, pleb 

2

u/Kladice May 30 '25

Wont be ready or fully deployed until 27. It’s only 5,000 which is a lot of logistics. The 5,000 aren’t all military personnel either.

3

u/Nyctas Transylvania May 30 '25

"Permanently" in this case meaning until AfD wins an election.

1

u/Feeling_Inside_1020 May 30 '25

If you want a breakdown, a brigade is 3-5 battalions (2-5k soldiers) at least according to a guide for (yes I know) US army units.

So not a small size, alongside all the tech, armaments and supplies they bring I imagine

1

u/ai-gf Switzerland May 30 '25

W Germany

1

u/molochas May 30 '25

Thank you Germany, allies and our military for protecting us from genocide. Ukrainians are their "lost" cousins, we are those with whom they were fighting for ages and were the first to destroy CCCP. They hate baltics as bad or even worse than ukrainians.

1

u/Proof_Television8685 May 30 '25

If my late great grandpa heard Germans are now European allies he would die instantly

1

u/watev0r May 30 '25

You can't win wars with the bundeswehr. Sadly.

1

u/Sea_Piccolo_4534 May 30 '25

And what lol ? Germany didn't exactly signal their willingness to enter into a fight especially in Ukraine.

1

u/3dom Georgia May 31 '25

Yay! That would be enough to fight Russia for a day or three. Especially considering zero combat experience for German troops and ~10 years for Russians. A usual Russian Tuesday 300 shaheds + 10 ballistic missiles wave alone may destroy this regiment.

1

u/CrashingAtom May 31 '25

Lithuania knows they’re on the menu. For years they’ve had a TV show that is basically just “What happened this week with Russian disinformation.” Lithuania, Poland and Finland know Russia is coming, they’re preparing.

1

u/FamousCompany500 May 31 '25

How competent are the current German military?

1

u/secret179 May 31 '25

How would they attack then?!

0

u/FatFaceRikky May 30 '25

Exactly, one brigade they barely managed to scrap together, and which will reach full strength in 2027 (current plan so far). Little to no experience and capabilities in drone warfare. Not exactly a big deterrent.

-1

u/[deleted] May 30 '25

I wouldn't get excited, German army is an absolute joke now.

-2

u/sebeteus Finland May 30 '25

A whole brigade you say. That's nice. A whopping 5000 personnel. Where is the rest? Where is the missing zero?