'UK mothers must be prepared for sons to die defending Finland'

Daily Mail​

12-06-2025

Ukraine's former foreign minister has starkly warned that British mothers must accept their sons have to die defending Europe, otherwise there is no Nato. Dmytro Kuleba told Metro that Vladimir Putin's goal was to 'expose' the 'falsehood' of the Nato alliance, which has a mutual assistance clause that compels its members to fight for each other in the event of an attack of another member.
He said: 'Putin may invade Nato territory soon – so now what? Is Nato going to send a division to fight back? Many people believe that the real test for Nato is whether the US is going to fight for Europe. The real test will be whether British mothers will actually accept that their sons have to die for Finland or Estonia or Poland. If they don't, there is no Nato.'
The chilling warning comes after Germany's spy chief warned that Putin is plotting to attack a Nato territory to test the bloc's mutual assistance clause. 'This is is how World War II started. 'Why fight for Danzig [now the city of Gdańsk]? Let's give it to Hitler, it is just a city in Poland. Why should we die for it?' That was the question asked by western European nations [at the time]. 'And this is exactly the question that Putin is going to pose to Nato. Europe is already spending money on weapons, but it has to do so much faster. 'But the real question is, who is going to tell the voters that the threat of the war is real?'
Mr Kubela (pictured), who was in office between March 2020 and September 2024, said his warning comes from personal experience, telling Metro that as minister of foreign affairs during Russia's invasion, he made the mistake of believing that Russia would withdraw after losing 'like 10,000, 20,000 soldiers.' But as Russia nears the point of having one million soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine since war broke out in February 2022, he pleaded with British citizens not to underestimate Putin. He said: 'People in Britain or any other country can listen to what I'm saying or they can decide that I am a warmongering Ukrainian who is trying to pull them into my war. 'I am perfectly fine with any choice they make. What I can say, what I can urge them, is not to repeat our mistakes.
'The biggest mistake Ukraine made was that we did not believe that this can happen to us on this scale. We, in Ukraine, also believed that it is not going to happen to us because Putin would never dare to do it. So this is the mistake that people are making. I look around in Europe and I just see the same pattern happening. The same pattern of behaviour. 'Do you think that if Ukraine was able to attack airfields in Russia, 1,000 miles away from Ukraine, Russia is not able to attack any piece of infrastructure in any European country? That would be a very, very big mistake to think so.' Earlier, Bruno Kahl, the outgoing head of Germany's federal intelligence service (BND), said in a rare interview that it has 'concrete' evidence Russia no longer believes Nato's Article 5 will be honoured. This is the clause which guarantees that if one member is attacked, all others will come to its aid. He told the German podcast Table Briefings: 'We see that Nato is supposed to be tested in its mutual assistance promise. There are people in Moscow who don't believe that Nato article 5 still works.'
He said: 'We are very sure, and we have intelligence evidence to back this up, that [Russia's full-scale invasion of] Ukraine is only one step on Russia's path towards the west.' But Kahl was quick to say: 'This doesn't mean that we expect large tank battalions to roll from the east to the west.' He added that Russia didn't need to do this, as they could simply send 'little green men to Estonia to protect supposedly oppressed Russian minorities.' Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea involved occupation of buildings and offices by Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms and civilian clothes, who came to be known as the 'little green men' when Moscow initially denied their identity. Kahl, who is set to become Germany's ambassador to the Vatican, did not specify which officials in Moscow were thinking along these lines. He said that Moscow's ultimate aim was to push NATO back to its 1990s borders, 'kick out' the US from Europe and aggressively expand its influence. 'We need to nip this in the bud', he said.
Key to NATO cooperation, he pointed out, was the US and its enormous army. Kahl said his contacts with U.S. counterparts had left him convinced they took the Russian threat seriously. 'They take it as seriously as us, thank God,' he said. It comes after NATO boss Mark Rutte warned that Britons should start learning Russian if the UK doesn't ramp up defence spending. Mark Rutte issued the chilling message while in London for talks with PM Sir Keir Starmer , ahead of a NATO summit later this month. NATO allies are expected to be asked at the gathering to agree a commitment on allocating 3.5 per cent of GDP to core defence spending by the 2030s. A further 1.5 per cent of GDP would be required for 'defence-related expenditure' under Mr Rutte's plan to strengthen the alliance.
It follows pressure from US President Donald Trump on European members of NATO to hike their military budgets. There are questions about how the UK would fund such an huge increase - roughly equivalent to an extra £30billion annually. Britain allocated 2.33 per cent of GDP to defence last year, and Sir Keir has only committed to reaching 2.5 per cent by April 2027. The Labour Government has an 'ambition' of increasing that to 3 per cent in the next parliament - likely to run to 2034. Speaking at Chatham House on Monday, Mr Rutte was asked if he believed Chancellor Rachel Reeves should raise taxes to meet NATO's commitments.
The NATO secretary-general replied: 'It's not up to me to decide, of course, how countries pay the bill. Look, if you do not do this, if you would not go to the 5 per cent, including the 3.5 per cent core defence spending, you could still have the NHS... the pension system etc., but you had better learn to speak Russian.' Mr Rutte (pictured) would not reveal the deadline for when he hopes NATO allies will spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence. Asked about a deadline, he told reporters: 'I have a clear view on when we should achieve that. 'I keep that to myself, because we are having these consultations now with allies, and these discussions are ongoing. 'We will in the end agree on a date when we have to be there.'