Germany faced two further suspected attempts to disrupt its electricity network overnight, with the country already on heightened alert after an attempted drone attack that Berlin has attributed to Russia.
In Dormagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, local police said someone had tried to trigger a short circuit at a power grid facility, according to German newspaper Bild. Authorities have also received a letter claiming responsibility.
In a separate incident, police in the northern town of Ganderkesee, Lower Saxony, sealed off a transformer station on Friday after citing suspicious circumstances.
A police spokesman said officers made a discovery overnight that required intervention, though he did not provide further details. He added that there was no threat to the public.
The fresh alerts come after Germany had already been dealing earlier this week with two suspected cases of sabotage.
In the first, authorities were investigating vandalism at a substation in Bergheim in North Rhine-Westphalia that prompted lignite power plant units with 4,200 megawatts (MW) in combined capacity to temporarily go off the grid.
In the other, devices carrying conductive material damaged power lines at one of the most critical high-voltage nodes in the eastern state of Brandenburg.
Nato member Germany, which supports Ukraine in its fight against Russia, has long accused Moscow of targeting it with a campaign of hybrid attacks involving espionage and sabotage – charges denied by Russia.
Germany has for months reported suspicious drone sightings over military and industrial sites, but the Leipzig incident on the night of August 4 raised the alarm as a drone found there carried explosives.
German police said an attempt had been made to short-circuit a power grid installation in Dormagen (pictured)
Germany has long accused Vladimir Putin (pictured) and Russia of targeting it with a campaign of hybrid attacks involving espionage and sabotage
Police used a robot to defuse the device found near a Ukrainian cargo plane, and another drone was reportedly found weeks later near the airport, also with traces of an explosive substance.
The airport in eastern Germany plays a key role in the transport of military goods, including by the German military and Nato allies, and also serves as a base for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz later said Germany had increasingly ‘found itself in the crosshairs of hybrid attackers’.
But Berlin has so far refrained from blaming Russia, speaking only of the possible involvement of ‘foreign powers’, until Tuesday, when it said Moscow was responsible for last month’s drone attack.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the Leipzig airport attack followed the ‘well-established pattern of Russian hybrid operations in Europe’, and the assumption was that Germany would be targeted again.
Other EU members are also warning of Russia’s increasingly aggressive moves. On Thursday, Denmark’s national security and intelligence service warned that Russia is recruiting Danish citizens to help plan sabotage against Danish defence firms with ties to Ukraine.
‘Russia is both planning and carrying out acts of sabotage against defence companies and the defence industry in Europe,’ PET’s head of counter-espionage, Emil Gresholm, said in a statement.
‘We see that Danish companies are also targets of concrete Russian sabotage planning, and that Russian intelligence services are actively preparing acts of sabotage directed at the defence industry in Denmark,’ he said.
Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, said in an emailed statement on Thursday that Mr Gresholm had failed to provide any concrete evidence to support the allegations.
‘Gresholm’s statements should also be seen as an acknowledgement that Copenhagen’s reckless involvement in the conflict in Ukraine and the transformation of Danish territory into a production and logistics rear base for the Ukrainian armed forces poses security risks to Denmark and its citizens,’ Mr Barbin said.
Mr Gresholm said PET has uncovered concrete examples of Russia attempting to recruit Danes on social media and gaming platforms for tasks such as taking photos of companies or infrastructure, which could be used in the planning of acts of sabotage.
‘It is extremely serious if ordinary Danes help Russian intelligence services – either deliberately or unwittingly,’ he said.