The Prosecutor's office of Flensburg, a city in the north of Germany, started a preliminary investigation into sabotage activities, the measures were prompted by the uncontrolled flights of unknown unmanned aerial vehicles over the country's critical infrastructure. The proceedings were announced by chief prosecutor Bernd Winterfeldt.
Unidentified drones were seen primarily over an industrial zone in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, where a local nuclear power plant (non-working), chemical plants, and an LNG terminal are located. The security services suspect russia is behind those unauthorized flights, Bild reports.
Read more: Unknown Drones Fly Over Ukrainians Training on Leopard Tanks in Germany, After Year of Debate the Problem is Still Unsolved
For the first time, drones were spotted over this territory on August 8 this year, they flew near the closed nuclear power plant, then several more times, the last instance recorded was on August 22. Police found out that one of the drones traveled at a speed of 100 km/h.
The newspaper, citing its own sources, claims that these reconnaissance drones could be russian Orlan-10 reconnaissance drones. In autonomous operating mode, they can dive 600 km into hostile airspace to take footage of the area before returning back. Possibly, the Orlans could've been launched from the russian ships in the North Sea. No other details about these incidents are currently available.
Defense Express notes that this is not the first time unknown spy UAVs have entered German airspace unimpeded. From October 2022 onward, at regular intervals, reconnaissance vehicles were seen over training camps in Germany where Ukrainian military personnel were undergoing special courses, particularly, spy drones were seen loitering above Leopard main battle tank schools. Despite being aware of the issue, the German military couldn't do anything about these drones for 1.5 years, mainly because of disputes about who should take responsibility and bureaucratic hurdles.
Although military infrastructure and an industrial zone are two different types of facilities, these instances are an alarming sign of Germany lacking capabilities to shut down attempts to gather intel, especially when these drones freely enter the country's airspace.
A factor that should not be disregarded is the possibility that in such way, russian military might be attempting to probe weak points in air defense aiming for a deeper reconnaissance over other important objects, such as the German defense-industrial complex or tracking the logistics routes for delivery of equipment and weapons, for example, the ones going to Ukraine.
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