The BASF factory in Ludwigshafen, one of the sensitive sites visited by drones possibly of Russian origin.
AFP
Unidentified drones have been observed in recent weeks above sensitive industrial equipment in Germany and the American air base at Ramstein, a police source said on Friday confirming press information.
“Several drone flights over critical infrastructure have been observed in recent days in Rhineland-Palatinate,” a spokesperson for the criminal police in this region of south-west Germany told AFP.
“Initially, the BASF factory site in Ludwigshafen was affected by these overflights”, then “drone overflights followed over the American air base at Ramstein”, adds the source.
At nightfall
The flights took place after dark: “the drones could be detected at the beginning of dusk and were clearly visible in the dark thanks to light signals”. The devices were “larger than usual commercial recreational drones,” adds regional police.
An investigation is underway, without there being any “concrete risk for the establishments concerned”, adds the source.
The overflights over the Ramstein base, headquarters of the American Air Force in Europe, date back to the evenings of December 3 and 4, says the magazine “Der Spiegel”. An investigation by public television channels WDR and NDR also reports these thefts.
In addition to the vast compound of the chemist BASF in Ludwigshafen, drones have also been observed above facilities of the Rheinmetall group, one of Europe’s largest arms manufacturers, according to der Spiegel citing a report from German security services.
Suspicious drones regularly fly over the group’s largest ammunition production site in Lower Saxony, in Unterlüss, according to information from AFP.
In August, suspicious drone flights were observed several days in a row over a German industrial zone in Brunsbüttel, notably flying over a shut down nuclear power plant and a liquefied natural gas terminal, not far from the shores of the North Sea.
Investigation opened, Russian ships suspected
A judicial investigation for espionage was opened by the local prosecutor’s office, with media citing the hypothesis of a reconnaissance operation launched from Russian ships in the North Sea or the Baltic Sea,
The German Foreign Minister was concerned about this presence “not there to observe the magnificent local landscape, but because there is a chemical park and a nuclear waste storage facility nearby”.
Western politicians and experts believe that Russia is increasing acts of “hybrid warfare”, particularly in northern Europe, organizing campaigns of hostile actions intended to destabilize states.
(afp)
