A week ago I asked why the Germans were being such wimps about the Leipzig airport attack. Common sense strongly suggested that the two drones found at an airport where military supplies for Ukraine were being shipped out probably came from Russia. The fact that the drones contained Semtex strongly suggested this had to be the work of a nation state, not some small-time terrorist group.
Everyone who looked at it seemed to agree, including Germans who were not currently part of the government.
“It seems very likely that Russia is the perpetrator in the Leipzig case,” said Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, a former deputy director at Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, explaining he was basing his view on Russia’s recent behavior patterns, where “Europe-wide there is a massive uptick in hybrid aggression in every sphere.”...
“Of course, it needs to be proven,” Freytag von Loringhoven said. “But if I were to advise the government, I would advise them to say it is likely Russia. They are still reluctant to do that. But I personally think this is a mistake, as it projects weakness.”
U.S. intelligence agencies had decided by last week that it was pretty clearly the Russians.
An explosive drone found near a Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig airport in Germany earlier this month bore the hallmarks of devices typically employed by Russia's Military Intelligence Directorate, the GRU, a U.S. intelligence source told ABC News.
The U.S. official, who was briefed on the investigation into the alleged sabotage plot, said the explosives fitted to the drone as well as the structure of the lethal device were "typical" of those used by Russia's GRU.
This U.S. assessment was made in conjunction with German security and intelligence agencies, the source added.
Despite all of this, the official word from the German government was only that they would make an announcement about the incident soon. Soon turned out to be almost another week, but today they finally stated the obvious: It was Russia.
Alexander Dobrindt, Germany’s interior minister, said on Tuesday that investigators had proof that the drone was controlled by agents who were working “on behalf of Russian state entities.”
“Taken together, police investigations, patterns of operation, and intelligence findings prove Russian responsibility for the attempted attack,” Mr. Dobrindt said at a news conference. “The federal government therefore concludes that Russia is responsible for the hybrid attack,” he added.
CNN has more:
“We are not at war, but we are a daily target of hybrid attacks,” Germany’s interior minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters on Tuesday, as he raised the country’s threat level assessment from “general” to “high”.
In response, Germany is kicking a bunch of Russian spies out of the country.
To punish Russia, the German government said on Tuesday that it would:
- shut down the Russian diplomatic mission in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany
- cancel a contract for a Russian cultural center in central Berlin
- tighten restrictions on Russians traveling to Germany
- put more pressure on Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, oil tankers flying under foreign flags that help Russia to circumvent embargo
- ask European Union officials to place more Russians under Europe-wide sanctions
Only one of these, pressuring Russia's shadow fleet, seems like a real response to Russia trying to blow up planes at a German airport. The rest are purely defensive measures. Think about it for a moment. Russia tries and fails to blow up at least two airplanes (a third drone was found not far away) and Germany's response is to say it might stop a few of Russia's illegal tankers. Not blow them up or seize them and take the oil, just add "pressure," whatever that means. And it took them four weeks to even say that.
Russia is of course denying everything.
Russia said the suggestion that Russia was responsible for the drone attack was absurd. Moscow’s ambassador to Germany, Sergey Nechayev, accused Berlin of an “unprecedented escalation of Russian-German relations” rejected the accusations as “unsubstantiated, absurd, and irrational,” and warned of retaliatory measures.
Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, said in a statement to CNN: “The Russian House has long haunted them. That’s why they were looking for something to latch onto. Moscow will respond to all anti-Russian decisions.”
Even as Germany finally gets around to denouncing this attack, there is yet another hybrid warfare attack today on Germany's electrical infrastructure.
The power grid in the eastern German state of Brandenburg was the target of sabotage on Tuesday after unexploded incendiary devices damaged power lines, the state's interior minister said...
Rockets carrying conductive material were fired into extra-high-voltage lines, causing two short circuits, Interior Minister Jan Redmann said at a press conference.
He added that authorities were searching the site, and the number of devices found, in the double digits, was still rising.
This was a pretty low-tech attack and authorities haven't ruled out some sort of left-wing group being behind it. Still, it shows that there is a lot of room for more attack, which Russia can instigate and then deny while Germany slowly and carefully tries to figure out who did what.
Russia is getting desperate and is going to keep trying these attacks against NATO members until someone stops them. Right now no one seems willing to do that, except of course Ukraine.
