Vice Admiral Niels Andreas Stensønes, the head of the Norwegian Defence Intelligence Service, has said that over the past year, Russia has significantly strengthened its positions and succeeded in conducting combat actions against Ukraine despite international sanctions.

Stensønes called, in an interview with the Norwegian TV channel TV2, a full-scale war in Ukraine "World War I in colour": both sides have fortified positions, offensive operations are limited and do not lead to significant changes, and artillery plays an important role.

At the same time, Stensønes said that Ukraine was unable to produce the necessary weapons on its own and was "completely dependent on material support from the West", while much of the Western equipment it has already received has been "lost or used".

Meanwhile, Russia, as he said, is "in the process of gaining military superiority" and is already able to increase production of ammunition and long-range precision weapons.

Stensønes listed several measures where Russia had succeeded: Russia is able to conscript about three times as many people as Ukraine; Moscow is coping with Western sanctions better than expected; and Russian arms production is proceeding at a faster pace.

"We see that Russia will need less time to recover from the war than we estimated last year," he added.

In this regard, Stensønes urged Europe to prepare "for more changes and a more unpredictable situation", in particular, that Russia "will use all its tools to try to influence the West."

Last week, Norwegian Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram called for preparations for a possible conflict even after Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine ends.

Similar statements have recently been made by the military in many other countries. For example, the German Minister of Defence suggested that Russia could attack a NATO member country in 5-8 years.