Germany has started preparing to expand its network of bunkers and shelters because of concerns that Russia could attack another European country within the next four years, according to reports.“For a long time, there was a widespread belief in Germany that war was not a scenario for which we needed to prepare. That has changed. We are concerned about the risk of a major war of aggression in Europe,” Ralph Tiesler, the head of the federal office of civil protection and disaster assistance (BBK), told news outlet Süddeutsche Zeitung, as reported by The Guardian. There are growing concerns that after its three-year war in Ukraine, Russia may be able to target a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) country by 2029. Germany’s chief of defence, General Carsten Breuer, told the BBC last week that Russia is making hundreds of tanks each year, which could be used in an attack on Nato countries in the Baltic region by 2029 or earlier. Meanwhile, Germany is focusing on using existing structures instead of building new bunkers, as new construction would take too long and be expensive. Tiesler’s agency is working on plans to use tunnels, metro stations, underground garages, car parks, and the basements of public buildings as shelters.
Tiesler said a national effort was needed to find and convert such spaces to “quickly create space for 1 million people.” His agency will present a full plan later this summer, as per the report of The Guardian. He said the country is in a race against time, and relying only on new construction is not enough. “Such shelters would take a long time to plan and construct and be very costly,” Tiesler said. So the focus must be on using existing spaces. Germany has about 2,000 bunkers from the Cold War era, but fewer than 600, 580 to be precise, are in working condition. Most will need costly repairs. But even then these would only shelter about 480,000 people, which is less than 1 per cent of Germany’s population. In comparison, BBK said that Finland has 50,000 protection rooms, which can shelter 4.8 million people — about 85 per cent of its population. Russia’s actions in Ukraine have led to similar actions across Europe. Poland, which borders Russia and Ukraine, plans to spend nearly 5 per cent of its GDP on defense this year — more than any other Nato country, according to a BBC report from last month.