This week the Germany finally came forward and blamed Russia for the drone attack at Leipzig airport. I suggested weeks ago that this attack may have been intended to fail since actually bombing a German airport might lead to a unified NATO response. But the Germans seem convinced that the failure of detonators on the bombs attached to those drones was just a fluke, i.e. Russia really was planning to blow up those planes.
Either way, the key point is that the attack at Leipzig is just one of many low-level attacks taking place in several different countries. The BBC put together a partial list:
4 August Germany: The first drone at Leipzig airport is discovered.
10 August Bulgaria: A major fire breaks out at a factory of the defence firm EMCO, with initial reports that a truck ignited during a fuel delivery.
13 August Italy: A fire at KNDS Ammo Italy outside Rome triggers a large explosion.
The local prosecutor is looking into possible outside interference, La Repubblica newspaper reports. Publicly, his office will only confirm that a case has been opened for negligent disaster against "unknown persons".
15 August Estonia: The Milrem Robotics factory in Tallinn, which the Kyiv Post says supplies drones to Ukraine, goes up in flames. Two suspects are arrested.
Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal says the possibility of Russian sabotage is being "taking seriously" by investigators.
25 August Slovakia: Police announce they have averted an arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned drone manufacturer and seized a "large amount of incendiary mixture". The firm itself blames Russia and police arrest three suspects who they say were "following orders". Slovakia is Russia's close ally in Europe.
30 August Poland: A country which is heavily targeted for sabotage reports two more fires.
One is in Lublin at a company which produces helicopter components. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said arson "cannot be ruled out".
An attack on the drone producer, WB Group, is clearer cut. A masked man is caught on CCTV throwing incendiary devices. Tusk calls it a "continuation of Russia's escalatory activities".
These attacks mostly seem to involve hiring people to carry out attacks on companies connected to the war in Ukraine. That's obviously not a coincidence, but the whole point of these attacks is that they can be denied by Russia, even as it continues to carry them out. Already this month there was another firebomb attack on a defense contractor in Munich which works on Ukrainian drones. Two Bulgarian men have been arrested.
NEW: German police have arrested two people from Bulgaria after incendiary devices were thrown at a construction site in Munich linked to defense contractor Rohde & Schwarz.
— GeoInsider (@InsiderGeo) September 3, 2026
The devices were thrown from a car shortly before midnight. One started a fire, while another had to be… pic.twitter.com/wFlG2TJwUn
What's happening here is a kind of mirroring of what Ukraine has been doing to Russia this year. In the same way that attacks inside Russia have brought the war home, Russia is trying to bring European support for Ukraine home.
"The intensity of military sites being attacked we've seen over the past couple of weeks is unusual," Daniela Richterova of the Department of War Studies at King's College says...
"We've basically seen Ukraine take the war to Russia and strike deep inside Russian territory…They [Moscow] are under pressure, they have to do something."
Whilst some sabotage is staged to sow chaos or fear, Richterova believes the Kremlin's aim right now is "coercive signalling": pressuring countries to stop supporting Kyiv by raising the stakes.
After a slow start, Germany is Ukraine's biggest supplier of military aid.
So far, no one has been killed in any of these attacks (which is another reason I think the detonators on those drones were never intended to go off). But obviously a miscalculation could have major consequences.
No one has been killed or seriously injured in the attacks, but any bloodshed would present a profound crisis for NATO, which was created to deter and fight a land invasion and lacks the tools to respond to a slowly escalating conflict. Already it has struggled with how to adequately respond to Russia’s aggression.
“Russia has gotten pretty lucky,” said Julianne Smith, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Biden administration. “At some point, it is going to go off the rails and somebody is going to get hurt and it’s going to present a different dilemma for the alliance.”
Russia really doesn't want to create an Article 5 situation with NATO but with the gas shortages and other problems, Putin may feel desperate enough to walk right up to that line.
“I don’t think they want a third world war, but they have to demonstrate to everyone that it is not the time to mess with them,” said Piotr Krawczyk, the former director of Poland’s foreign intelligence service.
So what can Europe/NATO do about Russia's hybrid attacks? Well, there are some options.
...a number of covert responses are open to Western countries, including increasing intelligence support to Ukraine, conducting cyberattacks and undermining Russian interests in other parts of the world. In August, the German government passed draft legislation to authorize its intelligence services to carry out active measures like sabotage and cyberattacks. If approved by the parliament, the agencies would gain that power for the first time in Germany’s postwar history.
One thing that Germany can continue to do is supply the weapons which are making Putin miserable. Another deal for long range drones was just announced yesterday.
Production has officially begun on over 5,000 medium- and long-range drones for Ukraine through a joint German-Ukrainian venture, the German news outlet Handelsblatt reported on Sept 3.
The 300 million euro ($349 million) deal is set to be completed by mid-2027, as reported by Handelsblatt. The joint venture was established between the German-American defense company Auterion and the Ukrainian drone producer Airlogix in February 2026 at the Munich Security Conference.
My take is that Putin must know by now that a clean win in this war is unlikely. I think he's looking for a moment of strength from which to finally climb down from the special military operation. He won't do that now because it would appear weak. But if he can continue to send ballistic missiles into Ukraine between now and winter and look like he's got the upper hand, I think he'll start dealing.
In the meantime, the low-level attacks on NATO will continue unless NATO makes it too costly for Putin to keep it up.
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