[Interview] ‘In Germany, everyone is constantly afraid Putin will get angry’. German military expert on Berlin’s response to Leipzig drone plot and Moscow’s hybrid attacks

There are still many citizens and politicians in Germany who, according to military expert Nico Lange, are singing a “pro‑Kremlin tune”. The airport drone incident in Leipzig, where the German government blamed Russia. A secret weapons cache near Berlin, used by the Russian intelligence service. Suspected arson targeting an arms manufacturer in Munich and signs of sabotage at power stations. These are just some of the events German authorities have had to deal with in recent weeks, with many of them being linked to Russia to a greater or lesser extent – a country waging total war against Ukraine and conducting intelligence operations in various forms across Europe. “It is important to understand that from Russia’s side there is no such thing as ‘hybrid war’. From the Russian side it is simply war, which is ongoing all the time. It uses various military and non‑military means to wage this war. We should take seriously that Russia sees it this way,” the well‑known German military expert Lange, who served for several years in the Bundeswehr and at the German defence ministry, told Dennik/EUobserver. In this interview, we discuss: how he views the increasing number of incidents on German soil; whether the unexploded device at Leipzig airport finally marked the crossing of a red line for Germans; how he assesses the reaction of the German government, and whether people in the Kremlin will be laughing at that response; whether there could be an escalation between Berlin and Moscow; whether the country is capable of defending itself effectively against hybrid war, and whether we should rather be speaking of acts of war; and what Moscow wants to achieve with its attacks in Germany. How would you assess the current security situation in Germany in light of the growing frequency of various types of hybrid incidents on German territory, for which Russia is more or less openly responsible? It is a pattern we have been observing for quite some time, and it does not concern Germany alone but other countries as well. For example, Danish intelligence services are warning about plans for arson attacks targeting the Danish arms industry. In Poland there was an attempted sabotage at a drone‑manufacturing plant. All this fits into the pattern of Russian activities around the defence industry and in countries that support Ukraine. What is new for Germany is that, in connection with the drone attacks in Leipzig, people have become more aware of what is going on, given the use of military‑grade explosives that almost detonated, bringing us to the brink of a very major catastrophe. It took a long time, but in the end the German government decided to officially attribute responsibility. It is interesting to listen to interior minister Alexander Dobrindt, who not only named Russia as responsible for the drone attack on Leipzig airport, but also held it responsible for the entire pattern of attacks, which includes far more than this single event. That is the right approach – not to see this as a series of isolated incidents, but as a system of Russian attacks, which is exactly what it is. In recent years there have been many hybrid or so‑called hybrid attacks, but now the German public also knows more about them and the media report on them more extensively. This in a way creates the impression that the situation is now fundamentally different from what it was in the past. Yet this is only a continuation of what we have been observing for many years. "Everyone is obsessed with escalation and likes to talk about it, but it cannot be escalation if you are defending yourself against an attack" You mentioned interior minister Dobrindt. A few days ago, he appeared at a press conference together with foreign minister Johann Wadephul, and they attributed the Leipzig airport incident to Russia – something some observers described as a kind of turning point in the rhetoric of the German government. Did the incident at Leipzig airport cross some sort of red line in Berlin? I think it did. The notional red line was crossed by the use of military‑grade explosives and the fact that it almost ended in catastrophe. Many observers have described this as a new quality of attack. In my view, however, the genuinely new element is that the German government finally found the courage to attribute responsibility to Russia. Because in a certain sense it was almost ridiculous that, until now, people spoke cryptically about some mysterious foreign powers. I mean – who else was it supposed to be?