German police opened a terrorism investigation this week after saboteurs struck two power substations hundreds of miles apart within hours of each other, the latest and most serious in a string of incidents officials fear form part of a wider campaign of Russian-linked "hybrid warfare" against European infrastructure.
The first attack hit the Turnow-Preilack substation in Brandenburg, in eastern Germany, early Tuesday, when improvised explosive devices resembling large fireworks were fired at the facility, damaging power cables and briefly disrupting supply from the nearby Jänschwalde lignite plant. Hours later, someone deliberately laid conductive material across overhead lines at the Bergheim substation near Cologne, causing a short circuit that knocked five generating units offline at two coal-fired power plants operated by RWE, according to wire reports. No widespread customer outages resulted from either incident.
"They're trying to hit our country."
Herbert Reul, North Rhine-Westphalia interior minister
Russia in the frame, but not confirmed
North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister, Herbert Reul, said investigators were examining whether the attacks were directed by "a foreign state" or carried out by left-wing extremists, and that authorities had not ruled out either possibility. The incidents came a day after Berlin formally blamed Russia for an attempted drone incursion at Leipzig airport, part of a run of suspected sabotage and airspace incidents across Europe this year that officials have linked to Moscow, according to the Insurance Journal.
The timing has added a political edge to the investigation: the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which favors closer ties with Moscow, was leading polls ahead of a state election this weekend in one of the affected regions. German federal police, the domestic intelligence service and regional investigators are coordinating on both cases, though officials cautioned Wednesday that no suspect or definitive motive had been identified in either attack. Grid operators said they were reviewing security at other substations as a precaution.
German officials have grown increasingly alert to attacks on energy infrastructure since the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, an episode that remains formally unresolved but that Western governments have long suspected involved state or state-linked actors. Investigators are examining whether the two substation attacks are linked, given how closely they followed one another, and are coordinating closely across the state lines separating Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia as the inquiry continues.
