German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the past summer may have been “the last peaceful one” for Europe.

“We always assumed that a Russian attack on NATO could happen in 2029. But now we’re hearing assessments pointing to possible escalation as early as 2028, and some military historians even believe we have already lived through the last peaceful summer,” the minister said.

Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius has distanced himself from alarmism within NATO. In an interview with Die Zeit, he said he does not believe in a scenario of a full-scale war between Russia and the Alliance.

He was commenting on remarks by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who said the Alliance must be prepared for a war “on the scale experienced by our grandfathers and great-grandfathers”.

Pistorius responded bluntly, saying this was most likely a figurative exaggeration. “I do not believe in such a scenario. In my view, Putin does not intend to wage a full-scale global war against NATO.”

Just last month, Boris Pistorius warned a German newspaper that Europe may already have seen its last peaceful summer and that Russia and NATO could be at war next year.

Now he says there will be no Third World War and that talk of a NATO–Russia conflict is “figurative exaggeration.”

What changed, and why did it change so fast?

The ‘European peacemakers’ are surprising. Pistorius said he doesn’t believe war will break out between NATO and Russia, and Stubb admitted our country has no interest in attacking alliance members.
So, what happened? Sobering up or have the Christmas holidays simply begun?

DNI Tulsi Gabbard @DNIGabbard – 21:02 utc · Dec 20, 2025

No, this is a lie and propaganda @Reuters is willingly pushing on behalf of warmongers who want to undermine President Trump’s tireless efforts to end this bloody war that has resulted in more than a million casualties on both sides.

Dangerously, you are promoting this false narrative to block President Trump’s peace effort, and fomenting hysteria and fear among the people to get them to support the escalation of war, which is what NATO and the EU really want in order to pull the United States military directly into war with Russia.

The truth is the US intelligence community has briefed policymakers, including the Democrat HPSCI member quoted by Reuters, that US Intelligence assesses that Russia seeks to avoid a larger war with NATO. It also assesses that, as the last few years have shown, Russia’s battlefield performance indicates it does not currently have the capability to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine, let alone Europe.