{"id":1143,"date":"2026-05-26T03:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T03:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabnewsmonitor.com\/2026\/05\/26\/fewer-germans-buying-into-warnings-of-russian-attack-poll\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T03:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T03:40:07","slug":"fewer-germans-buying-into-warnings-of-russian-attack-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/?p=1143","title":{"rendered":"Fewer Germans buying into warnings of Russian attack \u2013 poll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Only 38% of respondents believe that Moscow poses a military threat, compared to 52% last September, according to Bild<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The number of Germans who believe Russia may launch a military attack on their country has fallen sharply since last year, according to a recent poll.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, senior German officials have repeatedly claimed that Moscow could pose a direct military threat to NATO by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with the S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung earlier this month, Germany\u2019s top military officer, General Carsten Breuer, asserted that Russia could be ready for such a confrontation by 2029.<\/p>\n<p>However, only 38% of Germans now consider an attack from Russia to be a plausible threat \u2013 down 14 percentage points from September of last year, Bild am Sonntag reported on Saturday, citing an INSA survey.<\/p>\n<p>Half of respondents said they <em>\u201care no longer afraid of a Russian attack at all,\u201d<\/em> according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>The poll also found that only 17% of those surveyed believe the German military would be capable of defending the country in the event of an attack, while 43% doubt the US would come to Berlin\u2019s aid in such a scenario.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n        <span><strong>Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<figure>\n            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mf.b37mrtl.ru\/files\/2026.05\/thumbnail\/6a0341c120302722b4651ab4.jpg\" alt=\"RT\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/639899-war-necessity-germany-militarization\/\">\u2018A war of necessity\u2019: Germany marches East again<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Germany launched a major rearmament drive, with defense spending projected to exceed \u20ac500 billion ($585 billion) by 2029.<\/p>\n<p>Despite mounting economic challenges and a widening budget deficit, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged to turn the Bundeswehr into the <em>\u201cstrongest conventional army in Europe.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly dismissed claims that Moscow plans to attack NATO as <em>\u201cnonsense,\u201d<\/em> accusing European leaders of using the narrative to distract their citizens from domestic problems.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on Germany\u2019s military buildup last month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that the country\u2019s rearmament could trigger a global tragedy comparable to World War II.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Only 38% of respondents believe that Moscow poses a military threat, compared to 52% last&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}