Escalation in Europe: Another act of sabotage in Germany and assassination attempt on a Russian general
Molotov cocktails were thrown overnight at a construction site near the headquarters of Rohde & Schwarz in Munich; two suspects have been arrested. This is the third such incident in Germany this week. Meanwhile, in Russia, the commander of the 22nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Division, General Nikolai Varfolomeyev, was shot and critically wounded by a motorcyclist.
The series of sabotage incidents on infrastructure in Germany continues: overnight, Molotov cocktails were thrown from a passing vehicle at a construction site near the headquarters of the technology company Rohde & Schwarz in Munich, which also operates in the defense sector. Two suspects were arrested near the scene.
Bavaria's State Office of Criminal Investigation stated that they believe it was an attempted attack against a defense-related company and that the investigation is being conducted on suspicion of an ideological motive. The incident occurred two days after Germany accused Russia of attempting to sabotage a Ukrainian plane in Leipzig and following actions against two electrical facilities in the country within a week.
According to the police, a witness who noticed the incident around midnight alerted the authorities. One of the two Molotov cocktails thrown ignited in the area of construction containers located opposite the company's headquarters, and a patrol that arrived at the scene immediately extinguished the fire. No one was injured and the damage was minor. A second Molotov cocktail that did not ignite was found at the scene. In a search launched following the incident, a 28-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man, both Bulgarian citizens, were arrested at a nearby gas station. Investigators stated that their connection to the act is under investigation.
However, a spokesperson for the Bavarian police told Reuters that there is currently no evidence that the attack was specifically directed against Rohde & Schwarz. The company confirmed that an incident occurred at a construction site near the headquarters, and a spokesperson for the company told the Bavarian broadcaster BR that "the factory area itself was not damaged."
At the same time, German authorities are investigating two acts of sabotage at electrical facilities, in both of which the perpetrators have not yet been identified. On Tuesday, improvised rocket-like charges were fired at power lines in the east of the country, and on the same day, a short circuit in power lines in the west led to the shutdown of five production units at two power plants.
On Wednesday, the police announced that they had opened a terrorism investigation into the first case. The Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul, said it is being examined whether a "foreign state" or a left-wing extremist group is behind the sabotage. "More sabotage, more hybrid attacks. Such interference is not happening far from us, it is happening right on our doorstep," he said.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that foreign powers, led by Russia, may be using left-wing extremist groups as proxies to carry out sabotage. On Tuesday, when accusing Moscow in the Leipzig case, Dobrindt raised the threat level in Germany from "general" to "high." "We are not at war, but we are a daily target for hybrid attacks," he said. Since the war in Ukraine began, Russia has been conducting a campaign of sabotage against European countries in an attempt to deter them from continuing their support for Kyiv, and its scope is growing.
In NATO, they call the method "hybrid warfare," designed to destabilize the continent without crossing the threshold that would be considered a clear military attack, and intelligence services in Germany estimate that Moscow is preparing for the possibility of a confrontation with NATO by 2029.
In April, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a list of European factories it accused of producing drones for Ukraine, including facilities in London and Munich. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev wrote that this should be seen as a "list of potential targets for the Russian Armed Forces."
Following the Leipzig case, Germany announced the closure of the Russian consulate in Bonn and the closure of the Russian Cultural Center in Berlin. Vladimir Putin called the steps a "serious mistake" and accused Berlin of fabricating evidence to distract from the political difficulties of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Moscow announced it would respond with reciprocal measures. Today, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced the closure of the Goethe Institutes in Russia.
At the same time, Russia is dealing with a series of assassinations of its senior officials on its territory, which it attributes to Ukraine. This morning, an attacker on a motorcycle ambushed a senior officer in the Russian Aerospace Forces in the settlement of Probuzhdeniye near the Engels airbase. He fired two shots into his face and body, wounded his driver, and fled. A Russian Telegram channel identified the officer as General Nikolai Varfolomeyev, commander of the 22nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Division, and reported that his condition is critical. Ukraine recently accused him of a series of bombings against civilian targets in the country, including the children's hospital in Kyiv in the summer of 2024.
These events join a series of assassinations of senior officers in Russia over the past two years, which Moscow attributes to Ukraine's security services. The latest of these was at the beginning of August when an explosive device detonated in a restaurant in central Moscow, an event that claimed the lives of five people and wounded 21. Russian media and Telegram channels estimated that the target was the 55th birthday party of the commander of the Russian Air Force, Alexander Chayko.
