In Germany, they want to conduct large-scale inspection of about million reservists - Bild
In Germany, they announced plans to conduct a large-scale inspection of reservists - servicemen sent to the reserve after serving in the army. With an active army of 200,000 people, there are about a million reservists in the country.
This was reported by the German publication Bild with reference to the head of the Association of Reservists of Germany, Patrick Sensburg.
According to Sensburg's analysis, Germany will need about 800,000 soldiers to defend itself in the event of an armed attack.
Currently, the number of regular German army is 200,000 people. And this means that the other 600,000 will be recruited from reservists.
According to Sensburg, who is himself a reserve colonel, there are about 900,000 ex-soldiers or conscripts in Germany who have reservist status and have not reached the age of 65.
"We must very quickly assess their state of health and readiness for service <...> If at least half of them are in good health, we will have almost as many reservists as we need," the publication quotes Sensburg's words.
He emphasized that the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces of Germany) should first of all increase the number of reservists undergoing annual service from the current 34,000 to 50,000.
According to Bild, the defense expert of the liberal Free Democratic Party Alexander Müller supports Sensburg's conclusions.
"Many would like to be drafted into the reserves, but cannot apply because there are no vacancies. Instead of spending money on advertising campaigns, it would be much smarter to use this free potential," Müller said.
He added that in Finland or Switzerland, for example, reservists are a permanent part of the army, where almost all soldiers attend training on a regular basis.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in early April, Germany's Federal Agency for Digital Security admitted that the country was not ready for large-scale cyberattacks from russia.
It will be recalled that in March of this year, a Bundeswehr officer was accused of espionage for russia.
We also reported that the German government submitted to the country's parliament a scenario of a possible confrontation between NATO and the russian federation for the preparation of civil defense.