German politicians have pointed the finger at Russia after two military bases in the country had suspected incursion incidents overnight, with base drinking water apparently targeted.
A German army air base was placed on lockdown for several hours after water testing detected “abnormal values” in the on-base drinking water, and a man-sized hole was discovered in the fence surrounding the facility’s water plant. A second base, a NATO airbase hosted in Germany was pulled into the incident when there was a foiled attempt to gain entry overnight.
The attempts on both bases are being treated as linked acts of sabotage by some German politicians, and condemnation of the Russian Federation was swift. German broadsheet newspaper Die Welt states the centirst-liberal politician Marcus Faber, who is the chairman of the German Parliament’s Defence Committee, had said: “Due to the proximity in time of the incidents in the two barracks, one can assume that a hostile actor wants to demonstrate its sabotage capabilities here”.
The obvious culprit in water tampering is Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said. The paper further cited left-green politician Konstantin von Notz who hit similar notes in his remarks, saying Russian involvement is the “concrete working hypothesis”. He asserted: “Nobody should doubt today that something like this is possible and that Russia has the ruthlessness to carry out such actions.”
The Cologne airbase of the German military is adjacent to the civilian Cologne airport and employees around five-and-a-half thousand people, military and civilian. A spokesman said: “As the drinking water system was showing unusual values, the drinking water supply in the barracks was cut off”, a memo was circulated ordering staff at the base not to drink the tap water in any circumstance.
The base was searched and no intruder was found, but a man-sized hole was discovered in the fence surrounding the base’s drinking water plant on Wednesday morning. Counter-intelligence and political crime police are assisting in the investigation.
Troops have been issued with bottled water, further tests are ongoing, and the base is now out of lockdown.
The second incident was at Geilenkirchen, a NATO airbase. While NATO is generally an alliance of cooperating partner nations, one of the only military capabilities that NATO itself as an organisation has is a squadron of Airborne Early Warning and Control (AWACs) planes, which are based out of Geilenkirchen.
On Wednesday, it had been reported that Geilenkirchen was also under lockdown due to an intruder alert and water sabotage concern, but a NATO spokesman clarified this was incorrect. An intruder had been prevented from entering the base, and due to the close proximity in time to the Cologne incident the water was also tested as a precaution, but no issues were detected.
No injuries over tainted water have yet been made public and the defence ministry has refused to comment. Nevertheless, German Army Command went ahead and said in their statement: “We wish Bundeswehr members who may have been injured in connection with the incident a speedy and full recovery”, reports Die Zeit.
The airbase incidents are the latest in a long chain of acts, or attempted acts, of sabotage across Europe attributed to Russian-directed agents. As reported in May when a top British spy warned of more Russian attacks to come against the West:
There were several such incidents across the continent in April, including the arrest of a Polish national in his home country, accused of conducting hostile reconnaissance against the airport used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he flies abroad.
Because Ukraine is covered by a no-fly zone, when politicians enter and leave the country they travel first by VIP train across the Polish border and then to Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, where flights can then take them worldwide. The Polish Prosecutor said of the allegations against the man: “The findings of the investigation show that the suspect’s tasks included collecting information that would be helpful in planning a possible assassination attempt on the life of the President of Ukraine by the Russian services… the detainee was charged with reporting readiness to act for foreign intelligence against the Republic of Poland… The act is punishable by up to 8 years in prison.”
In the same month two German-Russian dual citizens were arrested in Germany over alleged hostile reconnaissance of a U.S. Army base in Bavaria used to train Ukrainian soldiers. The pair were said to be planning to “commit explosives and arson attacks, especially on military infrastructure and industrial sites in Germany”. One of the suspects in the case, Dieter S., was accused of: “conspiring to cause an explosive explosion and arson, acting as an agent for sabotage purposes… membership in a foreign terrorist organization and preparing a serious act of violence that endangers the state.”
Again in April five people in the United Kingdom were facing charges over an arson attack that burnt out a Ukrainian-owned business in London. At least one of the group was charged with hostile activity intended to “assist a foreign intelligence service carrying out activities in the UK”. In February of this year Estonia arrested ten alleged saboteurs, who were accused of working to spread fear as part of a “hybrid operation”, the neologism now in currency for war by other means.
A remarkable case in December 2023 saw 14 ‘spies’, who among their number were Ukrainian refugees, sentenced by a court for a plot to gather information and launch a variety of actions and attacks. The court heard how the group were in communication with Russian intelligence and had been promised payments in cryptocurrency payments in return for their work.
The bounties on offer from Moscow were said to have included $5 for putting up a poster disseminating pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian propaganda, or $400 for installing a wireless surveillance camera watching a port, airport, or railyard where military equipment transited from Europe to Ukraine. $10,000 in crypto was apparently offered in return for derailing a military train carrying equipment to Ukraine.
While derailing a train may seem fanciful, such tactics are already in widespread use in the Ukraine war itself and beyond, with pro-Kyiv saboteurs working overtime behind Russian lines to prevent ammunition and resupply trains reaching the front line, frequently blowing lines, burning equipment, and derailing trains. In some cases the Ukrainian partisans have gone further, planting car bombs on the personal vehicles of targets within Russia.
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