Putin could attack Europe within three years, warns senior Nato official

A senior Nato official who was once Britain’s top military figure in the alliance has issued the starkest warning yet that Russia may look to launch an attack on Europe within the next three years.

On Monday, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said that Vladimir Putin may look to launch an attack on the alliance within five years. However, speaking to The i Paper, Sir James Everard, Nato’s former deputy supreme allied commander Europe, said he feared the Russian leader might move earlier.

Sir James, a current senior adviser to the alliance, went further than Rutte and said: “If Russia gets unstoppable momentum in Ukraine why wait three to five years as Nato grows stronger? For a land grab Putin could go early.”

Asked why Rutte indicated Russia’s readiness to attack would be further down the line, Sir James who advises Nato commanders as they prepare for operations, replied: “You can apply a timeline for a Russian attack based on any number of metrics.

“I think the Nato Secretary General has pitched his three-to-five-year timeline perfectly: not distant because it would be ignored, not immediate because this makes life too difficult for Western leaders, but close enough that we have to do something now because a Russian threat is very real.”

In his speech, Rutte outlined the need to “make our alliance stronger, fairer and more lethal” in order to defend against Russia’s capacity to rearm and threaten alliance countries in the near future.

He said: “Let’s not kid ourselves, we are all on the Eastern flank now. The new generation of Russian missiles travel at many times the speed of sound. The distance between European capitals is only a matter of minutes. There is no longer East or West – there is just Nato.”

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, responded to his remarks by saying that Nato “is demonstrating itself as an instrument of aggression and confrontation”.

Jamie Shea, a former deputy assistant secretary general at Nato, said military planning must look at the “extreme end” of Russia’s potential next moves, but warned this might not come in the form of an all out military attack.

He told The i Paper: “It’s good like any military plan to take the extreme end of the scenario but you’ve got to look at capabilities; how is the Russian army going to reconstitute, how fast? What type of Russian army will emerge from Ukraine? A Soviet army or something different?

Shea – whose role at Nato focused on emerging security challenges – said that Nato must develop capabilities so it can “nip hybrid operations in the bud” before Russia can use them to seize parts of neighboring countries, such as Lithuania, Estonia or Finland.

He said: “I think Nato has to pay just as much attention to its quick-reaction capabilities to because Putin will probe bit by bit, salami-style, than launch a big attack out of the blue.

“He would try to launch some sort of hybrid activity by seizing Narva [in eastern Estonia, next to the border with Russia] disguised as a popular uprising, and see how Nato reacts.”

John Foreman, the UK’s defence attaché to Moscow until 2022, said he understood the comments that Putin might attack Nato, but did not think the Russian leader was poised to launch an immediate assault against the alliance.

He said: “I don’t believe Russia wants to attack the west or has the capability of doing so for a decade.”

Tensions between Nato and Moscow have been rapidly increasing since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Recently, Putin has deployed intelligence specialists and experienced combat units from Ukraine to the Finnish border. The move forced Britain to send military officials to support a Nato mission in the country amid fears of escalation.

The warnings by experts come just weeks before a Nato summit in The Hague where Donald Trump is expected to press European countries to commit to greater defence spending.

Joe Devanny, from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, said: “To state the obvious, there is a difference between Putin being “ready” to use military force against Nato – whether in five years or even sooner – and his actually deciding to do it. Part of that difference is the deterrent effect of Nato.”

Britain has promised to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, with a goal of increasing that to 3.5 per cent within a decade. It follows the Government’s Strategic Defence Review, published earlier this month, which committed the UK to taking the lead in Nato to increase European security.

After a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels last week, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was encouraged by the discussion and that there was “almost near consensus” on a 5 per cent commitment from members.

Echoing that, Rutte said: “At the summit in The Hague, I expect allied leaders will agree to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence. It will be a Nato-wide commitment. And a defining moment for the alliance”.

The Ministry of Defence was approached for a comment.