By Andrew Gray and Andreas Rinke
BRUSSELS/BERLIN, Sept 2 (Reuters) – European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Wednesday to increase pressure on Russia, including with new sanctions, after an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany that she said showed Moscow’s growing “recklessness”.
Airport workers last month found a drone laden with explosives and a detonator at the airport, an important civilian freight and NATO logistics hub in eastern Germany that is also a base for several giant Ukrainian Antonov An-124 cargo planes.
Germany blamed Moscow for the attack, characterising it as part of hybrid warfare meant to intimidate and cause divisions in countries that have rallied around Ukraine after the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Russia denies involvement and says it will respond to what its foreign ministry spokesperson called “anti-Russian action”.
“Europe and NATO will not just maintain our pressure on Russia; we will increase it, and we will not stop — not until Russia stops bombing and killing innocent children, men and women in Ukraine,” von der Leyen said in Brussels after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“Europeans are faced with the hard truth that this is the new normal. We have to step up, and that means being ready to respond to Russia’s recklessness faster and better.”
The full scope of new sanctions was not immediately clear.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc was working on sanctions related to Russia’s military complex, and France’s foreign minister called for action against Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of ships accused of circumventing energy sanctions.
Rutte said more drones and missiles had crossed into NATO airspace on Europe’s eastern flank, and there was an increase in malign activities including the Leipzig attack.
“If Russia thinks we will be divided by the threat, or if they think we will be deterred from supporting Ukraine, they are mistaken,” he said.
The EU and several EU member states summoned Russian embassy officials. Germany said it would close Russia’s consulate general in Bonn and terminate its agreement with the Russian House cultural centre in Berlin.
“It is obvious Russia does not see the political cost of its hybrid activities against us. So for them, this is the cheap way to make tensions in our society,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys at a meeting of foreign ministers in Ireland.
GERMANY PROBES SABOTAGE CASES
As the EU prepared its response, Germany was grappling with two new suspected sabotage cases within 24 hours.
In the first, authorities were investigating vandalism at a substation in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) that prompted lignite power plant units with 4,200 megawatts (MW) in combined capacity to go off the grid.
Also on Tuesday, devices carrying conductive material damaged power lines at one of the most critical high-voltage nodes in the eastern state of Brandenburg.
No suspects were immediately named, though NRW’s interior minister said the work of foreign powers or left-wing extremists could not be ruled out.
Brandenburg’s interior minister, Jan Redmann, said that there appeared to be parallels between the attacks but said investigations were still at a very early stage.
The incidents come at a particularly sensitive political moment as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which calls for closer ties to Moscow, is topping polls before a state election this weekend.
“It is extremely striking that a surge in these attacks and incidents is once again occurring immediately prior to elections,” lawmaker Alexander Throm, an interior policy expert from Germany’s ruling conservatives, told Reuters.
“The clear goal is to unsettle the public. Of course, that is a goal shared not only by Russia but also by others, such as left-wing extremists.”
(Additional reporting by Bart H. Meijer, Padraic Halpin, Conor Humphries, John Irish, Dominique Vidalon, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Lili Bayer, Christoph Steitz, Matthias Inverardi and Miranda Murray; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Timothy Heritage)
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