Russia’s land forces are bigger now than at the time of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 but their quality has decreased since, a NATO top military official said on Monday.

“The quality of those forces has gone down,” the Chair of NATO’s Military Committee, Dutchman Admiral Rob Bauer, said, pointing to the state of the force’s equipment and the level of training of its soldiers.

“At the moment, the Russians are not the same threat as in February 2022, so we have a bit of time to prepare ourselves,” he said, adding that this meant ramping up investments into the defence industry.

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