German intelligence: Russia may mobilise another million men

President of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) Bruno Kahl has suggested that Russia could mobilise up to one million more troops for war against Ukraine.

About 300,000 men were mobilised in the autumn of 2022, some of them are still undergoing training, while others have already been sent to the battlefield, Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland quotes Kahl as saying.

"Russia's mobilisation capacity is a reserve of up to a million people if the Kremlin deems it necessary," the BND chief said.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not ready to negotiate, he said.

Putin is currently seeking to make a decision on the battlefield and gain as many advantages as possible so that he can possibly promote peace on his own terms in the future, Kahl admits.

The war in many aspects turned out to be completely different from what Moscow, Kyiv and the West believed, the BND chief added.

According to him, at first, Russia thought it could establish control over the neighbouring country with a small amount of "precise military action, rather symbolic and demonstrative".

However, they failed to do so, giving the Ukrainian side a significant situational advantage, Kahl said adding that it was only much later that the Russian army was able to put its numerical superiority into action.

“The Ukrainian army still manages to defend itself effectively against the superior Russian forces, the German intelligence chief pointed out. But in the long term, the Ukrainian side's success depends on unflagging support from the West,” Kahl added.

The BND chief noted that more Russian troops are arriving in Donbas, which is the focus of the Russian army.