Drone sightings near bases, infrastructure unnerve German officials

BERLIN — A series of suspicious events near military bases and critical infrastructure throughout Germany has put policymakers and military officials on edge.

This month, nocturnal drone flights were repeatedly spotted over an area packed with critical infrastructure in the country’s far north. The unmanned vehicles were seen seemingly spying on a defunct nuclear power plant, a large chemical factory and a liquefied natural gas terminal, German public broadcasters reported.

The LNG facility was hastily constructed to help wean Germany off Russian gas following Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Prosecutors are keeping tight-lipped about the case, but Schleswig Holstein state police have asked the country’s military for assistance. The intruding drones escaped at speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour, outrunning the police drones, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported. The military has provided prosecutors with radar data and other information, a spokesman for the German Defense Ministry told German news agency DPA.

The public prosecutor’s office in Flensburg, the northern state’s capital, has launched an investigation into the case on suspicion of espionage for sabotage purposes, the French news agency AFP reported.

Last week, the NATO air base in Geilenkirchen in western Germany was temporarily put on the second-highest alert level after foreign intelligence suggested a threat may be imminent. German media reported that the danger was allegedly drone-based, though German authorities have not publicly confirmed this.

A spokesperson for the base told reporters last week that “nothing flew over the base,” calling speculations to the contrary “absurd.”

Officials at U.S. European Command, which oversees America’s force posture in Germany and elsewhere on the continent, declined to discuss specific threats. The command “routinely implements and adjusts appropriate force protection measures to ensure the security and safety of our personnel and our equipment,” a spokeswoman wrote in a statement for this article.

“As always, USEUCOM advises personnel in the European theater remain vigilant and report suspicious activity and implement prudent personal risk mitigation measures. The safety and security of our military communities is paramount.”

Unidentified drones have been reported over military training grounds, including those where Germany instructs Ukrainian soldiers. The flights and suspicious activities have been going on for well over a year, though little progress on countermeasures or investigations into their origin appears to have been made.

German intelligence agencies have, however, said that they suspect Russian involvement.

Two Germans of Russian heritage were arrested in Bavaria in April for allegedly planning to carry out sabotage attacks for Moscow in Germany. The prosecutors allege that they had already scouted out railroad tracks, military training areas and defense infrastructure for this purpose.

The Munich-based newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported this week that in 2023 alone, more than 400 drone flights over or near restricted German military areas were reported.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, expects to get new counter-drone technology soon, with Thomas Hitschler, the agency’s parliamentary state secretary, writing to lawmakers earlier this summer that new system would be delivered to the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, by the end of the year.

He clarified that defending against drones in and above military installations is the Bundeswehr’s job, while state police officials are responsible for doing so outside of bases.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a significant uptick in investment in the German military. Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a “watershed moment” in the war, and his administration shored up defense budgets and started to address longstanding deficits in the country’s armed forces.

Concerns surrounding possible Russian acts of sabotage have spread throughout Western Europe. Earlier this year, a critical communications cable was cut in a “deliberate act,” as Norwegian authorities called it, at an air base in the Nordic country. Cables were also cut for Norway’s hydrophone system, which Oslo uses to surveil movements in the North Sea.

Other, as of yet unsolved cases of apparent sabotage, such as cases of apparent arson in countries like Poland, the U.K. and the Baltic States, suggest that a foreign actor with a gripe against the West may be stepping up its unconventional warfare activities.

The German domestic secret service has issued repeated public warnings of hybrid warfare, including recently in July: “The cases observed across Europe since 2023 and increased evidence of possible activities in Germany are currently leading to an adjusted assessment,” warned the so-called Office for the Protection of the Constitution. “There is an increased risk of sabotage activities or corresponding preparatory acts in Germany.”

The intelligence agency said in its most recent annual report that “hybrid threats such as cyberattacks and espionage, particularly by the Russian regime,” were at the center of its attention.

Noah Robertson in Washington contributed to this report.