"Kaliningrad And Sevastopol Will Be Destroyed In The First Hours."

• 14.10.2025, 17:53

A U.S. general described how NATO would respond to a Russian attack.

If Russia decides to attack a NATO country, its military facilities in Kaliningrad and Sevastopol will be destroyed in the first hours. General Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Forces in Europe, said this in an interview with the "Here We Go" project.

He noted that Russia's clash with NATO would not be like the war in Ukraine.

"If Russia were to attack Poland in 2025 the way it attacked Ukraine, it would be destroyed by NATO Air Force and Alliance ground forces. You can be sure: Kaliningrad would have been destroyed in the first hours. In the first hours - Kaliningrad is gone; all Russian facilities have been destroyed. Any Russian military facilities in Sevastopol as well. So direct comparisons are inappropriate here," Hodges said.

He also noted that in 2014, when the war started, Europe, the U.S. and Canada were generally supportive of Ukraine, but many countries were still too dependent on Russia for oil and gas supplies.

"People were saying, 'Oh, don't be dramatic, Russia is an important country, it has nuclear weapons.' And we failed then, back in 2014, to make it clear that Russian aggression would not go unpunished. Even the Minsk agreements turned out to be a farce. No sanctions changed Russia's behavior - it had no respect for these measures," Hodges said.

He also emphasized: if NATO countries had been better prepared and had clearly warned Russia immediately after the full-scale invasion began that they would give Ukraine everything it needed to restore its sovereignty, "if that had been our clear goal, the situation would be very different, and Ukraine would be in a different position."

"Instead, we have wasted years of talking along the lines of, 'What if Russia uses nuclear weapons?' Perhaps we should negotiate? We should be negotiating Russia's withdrawal from Ukrainian territory,'" Hodges emphasized.