Germany is being hit by hybrid warfare attacks from foreign powers on a “daily” basis, the country’s interior minister has warned, after a drone packed with explosives was found at Leipzig Airport earlier this week.
Espionage, sabotage, cyber attacks and covert actions “with the aim of destabilizing Germany or directly harming it” are a “constant reality,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told BILD in an interview on Sunday.
Dobrindt suggested on Thursday that a drone incident at Leipzig Airport may have been an attack by a state actor. The minister has stopped short of specifying which foreign powers are behind the hybrid attacks.
Leipzig Airport serves as a strategic hub for NATO, including for military transports to Ukraine. The airport is also the international courier service DHL’s largest European air hub and serves as a temporary home for some Ukrainian Antonov aircraft, protecting them from Russian attacks. An armed drone was found just meters away from such a plane, German officials said Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Germany’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Russia is behind daily attempts to “exert influence here in Germany in a manner that seeks to undermine our democracy and erode trust in politics and politicians.”
The Kremlin has been accused of seeking to sway September’s elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, states in the former communist East Germany where pro-Russian sentiment remains strong and where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could take power for the first time at the state level.