German politicians have criticised Russia after an intrusion into two German military bases last night which is believed to have targeted the bases’ drinking water.
A German military airbase was sealed off for several hours after tests revealed “abnormal values” in the base’s drinking water, and a hole large enough for a person to fit through was discovered in the fence surrounding the base’s water supply. Another NATO airbase in Germany was also caught up in the incident after a nighttime break-in was thwarted.
The attacks on both bases were treated by some German politicians as a series of sabotage attacks, and condemnation of the Russian Federation was immediate. Die Welt “The close temporal proximity of the incidents at the two barracks leads us to infer that hostile forces are trying to demonstrate their sabotage capabilities here,” said Markus Faber, a centrist politician who chairs the German parliament’s defence committee.
Suspected Russian spy arrested for allegedly preparing to bomb US military base in Germany https://t.co/Yi4jpWrHjb
—Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 18, 2024
He said the obvious culprit for the water tampering was Russian President Vladimir Putin. The paper went on to quote left-leaning Green politician Konstantin von Notz as saying the Russian involvement was a “concrete hypothesis.” He asserted that “today there should be no doubt that something like this could happen and that Russia has the ruthlessness to carry out such an act.”
The German military’s Cologne air base, adjacent to the civilian Cologne airport, is home to around 5,500 military and civilian personnel. “The drinking water supply to the barracks has been cut off due to abnormal readings in the drinking water system,” a spokesman said, adding that a memo had been circulated ordering base personnel not to drink tap water under any circumstances.
A search of the base did not find any intruders, but a hole large enough for a person to fit through was discovered in the fence surrounding the base’s drinking water plant on Wednesday morning. Police counterintelligence and political crimes investigators are assisting with the investigation.
Bottled water has been distributed to troops, further testing is underway and the base has been placed on lockdown.
Russian spy convicted in Poland for plotting to sabotage military train https://t.co/dzS6b7uAHn
—Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 21, 2023
The second incident occurred at a NATO airbase in Geilenkirchen. Although NATO is generally an alliance of cooperative partner nations, one of the only military forces that NATO has as an organization itself is the squadron of airborne early warning and control (AWAC) aircraft based at Geilenkirchen.
On Wednesday it was reported that Geilenkirchen had also been placed on lockdown due to intrusion alerts and concerns about damage to the water, but a NATO spokesman clarified that this was false: Intruders had been prevented from reaching the base, and given the close proximity to the Cologne incident, water quality had been tested as a precaution, but no problems were found.
No injuries from the contaminated water have yet been announced and the defence ministry has declined to comment, but the German military command said in a statement that it “wishes a speedy and full recovery to all members of the Bundeswehr who may have been injured in connection with this incident.” Reports Die Zeit.
The incident at the airbase is the latest in a series of acts of sabotage or attempted sabotage across Europe that have been blamed on Russian-directed agents, as reported in May when Britain’s top spy warned of further Russian attacks on the West.
Several similar incidents occurred across the continent in April, including the arrest in his home country of a Polish national for allegedly conducting hostile reconnaissance activities against an airport used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for overseas travel.
Ukraine is a no-fly zone, so politicians travelling to or from Ukraine must first cross the Polish border by VIP train to Rzeszów Jasionka airport, from where they can fly anywhere in the world. Polish prosecutors said of the charges against the man: “The investigation established that the suspect’s mission included gathering information that would help Russian intelligence in plots to assassinate the President of Ukraine… The detainee was charged with reporting on the preparation of a foreign espionage operation against the Republic of Poland… This act is punishable by up to eight years in prison.”
That same month, two dual German-Russian nationals were arrested in Germany for allegedly conducting hostile reconnaissance on a US military base in Bavaria used to train the Ukrainian military. They were allegedly planning “explosive and arson attacks, particularly targeting German military infrastructure and industrial facilities.” One of the suspects in the case, Dieter S., was accused of “planning explosions and arson, acting as a saboteur, belonging to a foreign terrorist organization and preparing serious acts of violence endangering the state.”
Also in April, five people were charged in the UK with arson that burned down a Ukrainian-owned business in London. At least one group was charged with hostile acts aimed at “assisting foreign intelligence services operating in the UK”. In February this year, Estonia arrested 10 suspected saboteurs who were accused of trying to spread fear as part of a “hybrid operation”, a term now coined to mean war by alternative means.
In one notable case that took place in December 2023, 14 “spies”, including a Ukrainian refugee, were convicted by a court for collecting information and plotting various actions and attacks. The court heard that the group was in contact with Russian intelligence services and had been promised payments in cryptocurrency in return for their work.
Bounties offered by Moscow reportedly ranged from $5 to hanging posters spreading pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian propaganda, to $400 to install wireless surveillance cameras monitoring ports, airports or rail yards where military equipment is being transported from Europe to Ukraine, and $10,000 worth of cryptocurrency was apparently offered for derailing a military train carrying equipment to Ukraine.
Derailing a train may seem fanciful, but such a tactic has already been widely used during the Ukraine war and beyond, with pro-Kiev saboteurs working overtime in Russian rear guard to stop ammunition and supply trains from reaching the front lines, frequently blowing up tracks, burning equipment, and derailing trains. In some cases, Ukrainian partisans have gone even further, planting car bombs in the personal vehicles of targets inside Russia.
