Bruno Kahl, President of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND), stated that Russia is preparing to test the credibility of NATO's Article V, adding that German intelligence has concrete evidence of the Kremlin's preparations for potential aggression against the Alliance. The BND chief emphasized that Moscow no longer believes in the reliability of NATO's collective defence system " particularly Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty, which guarantees a joint response in the event of an attack on a member state. "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." German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has issued similar warnings in the past, repeatedly stating that Germany must be "ready for war" by the end of this decade. Ukraine's intelligence chief publicly echoed the same analysis.