Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard, whom TASS describes as “a retired Swiss lieutenant colonel and an expert in political and military strategy,” stated in an interview with that news service that, from the military point of view, German Chancellor Merz’s remarks look like “a dress rehearsal for Europe’s next war against Russia…. The English term for that would be ‘probing.’ This is about examining the possibility of a powerful strike on Russia with strategic weapons as part of a revanchist war, which is already in the works,” he said. Bosshard was a military adviser to the OSCE head from 2014-2020.