Since the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, incidents involving "unknown" aerial reconnaissance vehicles flying over critical facilities in Germany have become more frequent, especially following Germany's commitment to training Ukrainian military personnel and supplying defense equipment. The most recent case was in August 2024, when a russian Orlan-10 drone was roaming over northern Germany looking at nuclear and chemical plants.
Seeing such occurrences on the rise, German members of parliament decided to ask the Ministry of Defense whether the Bundeswehr is equipped to shoot down or disable these "unknown" drones near key facilities, both legally and practically, Hartpunkt reports.
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From a legal standpoint, the German Defense Ministry responded: yes, it is possible, but emphasized that handling such incidents primarily falls under the jurisdiction of the state police, which is "fundamentally responsible for taking action against suspicious non-military drone flights over and near Bundeswehr bases."
At the same time, the Ministry of Defense also acknowledged that, as of now, no specific agreements exist between the military and police to regulate cooperation in such situations. In practice, this means that while legal frameworks are in place, the actual measures one has to take in such cases have not yet been established, a point that has drawn criticism from opposition MPs.
Ingo Gädechens, a Bundestag member from the CDU/CSU opposition bloc, expressed frustration, saying he had been expecting decisive action from the Ministry of Defense for months. "Reading the ministry's response, however, one gets the feeling that the political explosiveness [of the issue] has still not been recognized," Gädechens said.
To illustrate the scope of the problem, Hartpunkt provides the following scenario: soldiers spot an unknown drone near a military installation, and seeing it with the naked eye, they cannot be certain whether the drone is conducting surveillance or simply belongs to a careless operator who flew it too close to a restricted area. Unless the soldiers are absolutely certain it is a spy drone, they must call in the police. However, the policemen often lack the necessary equipment to neutralize the drone and the most they would do is search for its operator on the ground.
The article also describes a more dangerous hypothetical scenario in which a drone carries a warhead. If the soldiers suspect the drone carries weaponized payload, they are allowed to shoot it down, but would likely only have access to pistols or rifles. The chances to succeed are very low in practice. Moreover, they must consider the risk to civilians — as exemplified by a 2004 precedent in which a child was injured 600 meters from a Bundeswehr shooting range.
The article concludes by highlighting that currently, the Bundeswehr simply does not have the means to organize defenses against drones: "There are a number of systems on the market that can effectively detect and classify drones. There are also interceptor drones available that can bring down potentially dangerous drones using nets without endangering innocent bystanders." However, purchasing them requires money.
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