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VLAD’S FRENZY<\/p>\n
Russian cops ‘snatching men from gyms’ to join Putin\u2019s meatgrinder army<\/p>\n
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An army spokesperson said: \u201cThe background and guiding principle of this regulation is to ensure a reliable and informative military register for when needed\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cIn case of emergency, we need to know who might be staying abroad for an extended period.\u201d<\/p>\n
For millions of men in\u00a0Germany,\u00a0it remains unclear how the requirement for a travel permit will be implemented in practice \u2013 and what happens if they don\u2019t know about it.<\/p>\n
According to RND, a large newspaper chain, the Defence Ministry initially declined to explain why the public had not been clearly informed about the new rules.<\/p>\n
Germany aims to ramp up the number of soldiers from the current level of 184,000 to between 255,000 and 270,000 soldiers by 2035.<\/p>\n
All men born in 2008 or later must now complete a questionnaire about their willingness to serve.<\/p>\n
While the survey is mandatory for men, it remains voluntary for women.<\/p>\n
If war was to break out, the military would draw on the questionnaires and medical exams for potential recruits.<\/p>\n
The country has stopped short of reintroducing mandatory conscription, but hopes boosting numbers will give potential recruits more insight into military life.<\/p>\n
The revelation about the new rule comes weeks after Lieutenant General Gerald Funke, the head of the German armed forces support command, said Russian \u201chybrid warfare\u201d is his biggest concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile in Afghanistan I had a regrettably high but manageable number of wounded, I now have to plan for the possibility of a thousand injured personnel a day,\u201d he told The Times.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe closer you look at it, the more complex it becomes and the harder it is to imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWhat worries me \u2026 at the moment is the hybrid side, the covert side: sabotage, sleeper cells, some kind of targeted attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t rule out the use of long-range missiles. But I think\u00a0the hybrid threat\u00a0is very high.\u201d<\/p>\n
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius speaks with soldiers during a visit to the Luftwaffe officer training school on February 3, 2026Credit: Getty<\/p>\n
Recruits hold G36 rifles during live-fire training in Ahlen, GermanyCredit: Reuters\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEN of fighting age in Germany must obtain permission from the army to leave the country for an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,2335,2336,2337,2338],"class_list":{"0":"post-2189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-germany","9":"tag-global-politics","10":"tag-nuclear-weapons","11":"tag-travel-advice","12":"tag-ukraine-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/newspress-collage-lggrskarb-1775320102512.jpg\")
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