German air force chief names Russian targets NATO would hit in a war

Breaking

Russian attacks set fire to the 1,000 year old Dormition Cathedral at Kyiv's UNESCO-listed Pechersk Lavra, kills civilians overnight<br>//<br>German air force chief names Russian targets NATO would hit in a war<br>//<br>US - Israel - Iran war situationship allegedly reaches an agreement to negotiate a peace deal, end war.<br>//<br>Bill Gates testified that Jeffrey Epstein tried to blackmail him over his infidelity to Melinda Gates with Russian women<br>//<br>Albania Is Not for Sale: Kushner's $4 Billion Resort Triggers 'Flamingo Revolution', Asset Freeze and an EU Warning<br>//<br>Russian attacks set fire to the 1,000 year old Dormition Cathedral at Kyiv's UNESCO-listed Pechersk Lavra, kills civilians overnight<br>//<br>German air force chief names Russian targets NATO would hit in a war<br>//<br>US - Israel - Iran war situationship allegedly reaches an agreement to negotiate a peace deal, end war.<br>//<br>Bill Gates testified that Jeffrey Epstein tried to blackmail him over his infidelity to Melinda Gates with Russian women<br>//<br>Albania Is Not for Sale: Kushner's $4 Billion Resort Triggers 'Flamingo Revolution', Asset Freeze and an EU Warning<br>//

News<br>Investigations<br>Justice<br>Thought<br>Guides<br>Impact

Sign in<br>Support us

Photo from: German Air Force (Luftwaffe / Bundeswehr) .

The head of Germany's air force has named four Russian regions that NATO would strike if Moscow attacked alliance territory, and said the Luftwaffe is ready to go into combat at once.<br>In an interview with The Telegraph at the air force command in Berlin-Spandau, Lt.-Gen. Holger Neumann said Kaliningrad, the Kola Peninsula, St. Petersburg and the Black Sea would come into NATO's sights in the event of a defensive war. He told the paper the German military would defend every inch of alliance territory.<br>"Together, we will defend every inch of NATO territory if necessary." — Boris Pistorius, German defence minister<br>The remarks are among the bluntest from a serving German commander in years, and they land as Berlin pours money into rearmament under Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Neumann, 57, tied the threat to a wider message for NATO's eastern and northern members: there are no second-class partners in the alliance, and an attack on one is an attack on all.<br>Each site he listed carries weight. Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania, is surrounded by NATO members and packed with missiles and air defences. The Kola Peninsula in Russia's northwest holds nuclear weapons storage and the submarine bases of the Northern Fleet. St. Petersburg hosts naval command facilities, and the Black Sea is home to the fleet that has shelled Ukrainian ports since 2022.<br>Neumann has been clear about how he thinks NATO would fight in the air. Pointing to Israel's 12-day war with Iran rather than the drone duels over eastern Ukraine, he said the model is "executing decisive strikes far in the enemy's depth and controlling the aerial situation." Israeli jets destroyed much of Iran's air defences in that conflict, the precondition for hitting targets deep inside hostile territory.<br>He described a posture he called fighting tonight. If a call comes in now, he said, the force has to be ready, and it is. Should Russia hit the alliance, the answer would be overwhelming, a contest he framed as 32 against one, a reference to the combined air forces of every NATO member.<br>Berlin is spending billions to back the words. Neumann pointed to a government package expanding stocks of Patriot, Iris-T and Arrow 3 air defence systems. The buildup is part of Merz's stated aim of fielding Europe's strongest conventional army, a sharp turn for a country whose postwar identity was built on military restraint.<br>Defence Minister Boris Pistorius struck the same note at a NATO anniversary event in Berlin. "Together, we will defend every inch of NATO territory if necessary," Pistorius said, thanking Secretary General Mark Rutte for the June summit that reaffirmed the Article 5 commitment.<br>The pledge has direct meaning for Canada, which leads NATO's multinational brigade in Latvia, and for the Baltic states sitting closest to Russian forces. Neumann's insistence that there are no zones of different security was aimed squarely at them. An air attack on Estonia, he argued, would draw the same response as one on London.<br>None of this describes an attack Germany plans to launch. Neumann framed every target as a reply to Russian aggression, the collective defence set out in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The list is contingency planning and deterrence signalling, not an offensive in motion.<br>Moscow has treated such talk as provocation before. When a US general said in July 2025 that NATO could seize Kaliningrad faster than ever, Russian officials called the threat tantamount to a declaration of war and warned that any assault on the exclave would be treated as an attack on...