NATO is developing mass evacuation and rescue plans in case of a future war with Russia, a senior general has declared.
Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO's logistics command, confirmed this week the security bloc is working to ensure it has the operational capability to extract large numbers of wounded troops from the front lines.
The German general warned that, unlike allies' experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, an all-out war with Russia would likely see NATO incur heavy losses across a huge battlefield.
What's more, Russia's air force and its vaunted rocket and missile stockpiles mean that medical evacuations via aircraft would be too risky - a factor that could force NATO's troops to operate 'hospital trains' to extract the wounded en masse.
'The challenge will be to swiftly ensure high-quality care for, in the worst case, a great number of wounded,' he said.
Sollfrank's warning comes as the German military says it expects Russia to be able to attack a NATO country as soon as 2029.
Sollfrank runs NATO's Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC), tasked with coordinating the swift movement of troops and tanks across Europe as well as logistical preparations such as the storage of munitions on NATO's eastern flank.
But since Vladimir Putin sent his troops streaming across the border with Ukraine in February 2022, relations between Russia and the West have plunged to lows not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
