A Nato official has delivered a sobering warning to the West at the Berlin Security Conference – ‘war is back on the European continent’.

Admiral Rob Bauer, Chair of the Nato Military Committee, delivered the remarks as he warned businesses to prepare for ‘war-time’ scenarios.

‘Business leaders in Europe and America need to realise that the commercial decisions they make, have strategic consequences for the security of their nation.

‘Businesses need to be prepared for a war-time scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly,’ he said.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, war is back on the European continent. And over the past years, more and more people in Europe realise that war can happen to them too… again.’

Admiral Bauer’s remarks came after his warning earlier this year that people could be conscripted if Nato enters an all-out war with Russia.

The 61-year-old also said large numbers of civilians would need to be mobilised in case World War Three breaks out and that governments would need systems in place to manage the process.

He added: ‘We need public and private actors to change their mindset for an era in which everything was plannable, foreseeable, controllable and focused on efficiency to an era in which anything can happen at any time. 

‘You need to be able to fall back on an industrial base that is able to produce weapons and ammunition fast enough to be able to continue a conflict if you are in it.’

Eastern Europe is all too familiar with the omnipresent threat from Russia – Finland, which shares a large land border with the nation, has an astounding 50,500 bomb shelters.

It’s a stark contrast to those available and operational in the United Kingdom and other Western European countries.

An escalation in nuclear threats from Russia has raised further concerns that tensions with the West could trigger a catastrophic war, which the West is largely unprepared for.

Russia’s official nuclear doctrine, which previously said the country could only use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack, now says the country can use such weapons in response to conventional strikes.

It also now states, in Putin’s words, that Russia is ‘entitled to use our weapons’ against countries which allow their weapons to be used against Russian forces.

Analysts say the move is an open threat to the US and UK, who recently allowed Ukraine to fire longer-range Western-supplied missiles into Russia, although they disagree over how likely Putin is to follow through.

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