Europe presses Russia with sanctions, Ukraine aid after Leipzig drone plot

Rutte accuses Russia of escalating attacks on NATO territory

European leaders are calibrating their response to an escalating Russian gray-zone campaign across the continent, weighing deeper sanctions and expanded military aid to Ukraine against the risk of wider conflict. The sharpening of that dilemma came this week when Germany formally accused Russia of orchestrating a failed drone attack on Leipzig airport on August 4 — a rare direct attribution of blame in what European officials describe as a widening campaign of sabotage, drone incursions, and cyberattacks across NATO territory.

“Russia has grown increasingly reckless,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Wednesday. He accused Moscow of “an increase in malign activities targeting our territory directly,” including arson attacks on arms factories helping Ukraine and the failed Leipzig attack, which appeared to target at least one Ukrainian cargo plane. Russian President Vladimir Putin denied responsibility, accusing the Germans of “planting evidence” to pin the blame on Russia.

The episode captures the constraint European governments face in responding to what European and German officials describe as a sustained Russian campaign. European officials last month directly attributed 20 incidents of sabotage and similar activities to Russia, according to Ukraine’s Sahaidachnyi Security Center, a think tank that tracks such activities. That tally ranks among the highest monthly counts since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Berlin’s reaction to the Leipzig incident stayed within the diplomatic and economic pattern it has followed after previous Russian provocations. German officials said the response was calibrated partly because the drones malfunctioned and caused no damage or victims. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to leave himself room for a sharper response should Russia continue or intensify such attacks, the officials said. For now, the most important message is a measured response signaling to Moscow that nothing Russia does will shake Berlin’s support for Ukraine, they added.

German police discovered one explosive-laden drone on the tarmac at Leipzig airport in an area used by Ukrainian-owned cargo planes that have flown military goods to Ukraine. A second drone, also carrying explosives, was found in a nearby field 10 days later, German media have reported. U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal that Russia was likely behind the plot. Germany’s decision to publicly hold Russia accountable is unusual; NATO members have generally stopped short of directly accusing the Kremlin despite an intensifying drumbeat of sabotage attempts, drone incursions, and cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in recent years.

This week, German officials said they were investigating two failed power-station attacks but did not say who was responsible. Police in two locations across Germany said they had discovered fireworks in fields designed to shoot “conductive material” onto high-tension power lines to cause short-circuits. The discoveries came after explosions had temporarily stopped power transmission in both areas. If the incidents are linked to Russia, Merz could face fresh pressure to act.

NATO would be the venue for any coordinated military response to Russian provocations, but the alliance’s European members have so far shown little appetite for using NATO — built around a doctrine of collective defense — for anything beyond defending their borders and channeling military aid to Ukraine. Instead, Europeans want to create dilemmas for Putin, primarily by deepening support for Kyiv, European and German officials said.

European financial and military backing is helping Ukraine launch strikes deep inside Russia, hitting facilities central to Moscow’s petroleum industry and logistics bases vital to the war. Ukraine is also crimping Moscow’s ability to resupply its forces on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, turning what had been a Russian military success into a resource-draining burden.

Germany has limited legal options to harm its adversaries beyond diplomatic and economic sanctions short of declaring war, officials said. The country’s intelligence service lacks the statutory mandate or capacities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to carry out covert operations abroad; it functions primarily as an information-gathering outfit, though an overhaul underway would enable it to take more executive action, mainly in the cyber realm. A German official said Tuesday that Berlin would send fresh air-defense batteries and thousands of strike drones to Ukraine and intensify intelligence cooperation with Kyiv.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday, standing alongside Rutte at EU headquarters, that “Europe and NATO will not just maintain our pressure on Russia — we will increase it.” She said talks on a new loan to Ukraine of several billion dollars for air defenses were advancing, part of the €90 billion loan package — equivalent to roughly $104 billion — agreed earlier this year to cover Ukraine’s financial needs through next year. The EU is also looking at new sanctions against Russian military officials and companies for their involvement in Moscow’s gray-zone campaign against Europe, and new measures targeting Russia’s ability to finance its war.

Across Europe, politicians have expressed broad support for narrow sanctions or expulsions targeting Russians, though many officials say any more-forceful reaction should come through the EU or NATO. Attempts at stronger action there are often thwarted by the need for consensus. Further limiting Europe’s room for action is its long list of steps already taken. While options remain, many are complex or expensive — such as stopping third countries from abetting Russian sanctions evasion — or painful to European voters, such as completely ending natural-gas imports from Russia. Dramatic, visible diplomatic actions have largely been exhausted; when Russian agents in 2018 were found to have used the nerve agent Novichok to target a former spy in Salisbury, England, most EU countries and the United States in coordination expelled dozens of Russian diplomats, including a large number believed to be linked to Russia’s spy services.

Some Europeans say the response remains too timid to deter further Kremlin troublemaking. “Putin needs to be pressured where it hurts,” said Nico Lange, a former chief of staff for Germany’s Defense Ministry and a senior fellow at the Munich Security Conference. He said Russia’s entire “shadow fleet” of illicit fuel tankers should be blocked and Russian diplomats forbidden from moving freely among EU countries, while other countries’ evasion of EU sanctions to help Russia should also face more pressure. “For every hybrid attack, Germany should increase its assistance to Ukraine,” Lange said.

This report follows Germany’s formal accusation of Russia over the Leipzig drone plot earlier this week and the broader escalation of Russia-linked gray-zone attacks across Europe that officials flagged at the end of August, detailing the EU’s emerging sanctions package and additional Ukraine aid that European leaders are assembling in response.