MADRID, January 29. /TASS/. Statements by a number of high-ranking European military officials about the possibility of a conflict between Russia and NATO are due to bureaucracy to increase defense budgets and efforts to scare the population tired of the conflict in Ukraine, an analyst said.
"In general, I think [such comments] are mainly due to two factors," the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia quoted Mark Galeotti, an analyst at the UK Royal United Services Institute, as saying. "The first is very simple: top military officials are ultimately bureaucrats, and all bureaucracies exist to increase their budgets, so at a time of such great pressure on defense budgets, they clearly want to raise the tone to protect what they have or, if they are lucky, increase it," he pointed out.
Galeotti also noted that he sees some irritation in military circles because Europe, dependent on US aid, is not devoting enough resources to its own defense and now has to fund the conflict in Ukraine and wage an economic war with Russia. "People are tired, there are clear signs of fatigue with the Ukrainian war, and in response some want to scare the public, to bring up a hypothetical Russian invasion to justify [the message] that if we don't help Ukraine defend itself, we will have to fight for real in Europe," the analyst said.
Galeotti emphasized that Russia has the capabilities to attack, but the Russian leadership has no grounds for such a move.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier, Russia did not attack NATO countries and has no plans to do so in the future. According to him, the issue of the "Russian threat" is being promoted by the US, which is afraid of losing the status of the "master" on the European continent. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, called the statements about Russia's alleged intention to attack NATO countries "nonsense."