The operation lasts only a few seconds: two or three sprays of foam into the exhaust of a parked car are enough. Once the foam hardens, the car is no longer usable - it cannot be started. Is this a joke or rather property damage committed by a teenager or environmental activists?
According to media reports, 270 vehicles have been damaged in this way since December, and police in the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin and Brandenburg believe that the traces probably lead to Russia.
Four suspects were questioned. One of them admitted that he was recruited by a Russian and that the instructions came from Russia - via a mobile phone app. For each damaged car, they paid 100 euros and a start-up capital of several thousand euros.
Investigative authorities assume that this is a Russian sabotage operation aimed at influencing the current campaign for parliamentary elections in Germany. The damaged cars were often covered with stickers with the face of the Green candidate for chancellor Robert Habeck and the inscription "Be greener!". Therefore, investigators initially assumed that environmental activists or Green Party supporters could be behind the foam attacks. After the testimony given by the suspect, this version was dropped.
Berbock: Kremlin is trying to destabilize
Federal Foreign Minister Analena Berbock is also convinced that Russia is behind the alleged sabotage. "It has long been clear that the Kremlin uses various methods to destabilize European democracies and discredit inconvenient parties. Anyone who advocates politically for the European peace order and opposes Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine in violation of international law falls under the sights of the Kremlin and its supporters," she pointed out. Baerbock herself is also among the Greens' leading candidates for the early elections on February 23. And the Greens are firmly on the side of Ukraine.
According to the German government, Russia already interfered in the election campaign during the last federal elections in 2021. Since the start of Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine, these attacks have multiplied, according to an analysis by the military counterintelligence - one of Germany's secret services.
"We cannot ignore the fact that the situation with hybrid threats has intensified since then. A few months ago, it was reported that fighters on the information front of the pro-Kremlin "Social Design Agency" are using fakes and lies to deliberately divide and destabilize societies. The so-called "doppelganger campaign" is also targeting German democratic parties," Foreign Minister Analena Berbock clearly stated in a statement. The "doppelganger" campaign is a Russian network of hundreds of thousands of so-called "bots" on social media that simulate real users and spread pro-Russian propaganda.
More and more registered cases
The foam attacks are not the first case of "cheap" sabotage operations on a limited scale. For months, the Federal Service for the Protection of the Constitution has been observing a trend of Russian services hiring petty criminals in the target countries to carry out the planned operations. The one with the clogged exhaust pipes involved four young men from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Germany.
The list of incidents is getting longer: self-igniting postal items - in parcel distribution centers and on airplanes, drones flying over Bundeswehr facilities, holes in the fences of military units, unauthorized penetrations into military training grounds, damaged railway lines and public infrastructure, a planned attack on the head of the arms company "Rheinmetall", etc. The hybrid Russian strategy probably also includes damaging underwater cables in the Baltic Sea by tankers from the Russian "shadow fleet" - old tankers that transport Russian oil to Asia.
Germany is not the only country in the European Union where Russian saboteurs and their assistants are allegedly operating. In an interview with Deutsche Welle, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaia Kalas pointed out that Russia is trying to exert influence everywhere. "We should not look at each of these incidents in isolation, but in a broader context. We need to understand that Russia's intentions towards Europe and the European security architecture have not changed," Kalas said in the DW studio in Brussels.
As a result, warships from countries bordering the Baltic Sea are now patrolling together to prevent Russian attacks on undersea cables. In Germany, prosecuting suspected sabotage suspects takes a long time, say politicians specializing in homeland security. It takes months, if not years, for all the connections to be established, trials to be held, and convictions to be handed down. By then, hackers abroad, Russian agents, and proxies will have long been busy with their next operation.
Author: Bernd Riegert