Rail traffic in northern Germany was halted for about three hours. A cutting of communication cables is said to have been observed and the Russian track called up.
Multiple managers germans on Sunday, the day after a large-scale railway sabotage, called for strengthening protection of key national infrastructure in the context of the war in Ukraine, raising the possibility of Russian responsibility.
“We cannot rule out that Russia is also behind the attack on the railway company,” said a German Green Party official, member of the governing coalition, Anton Hofreiter, given that the recent leaks of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 in the Baltic Sea already bore “the trail of the Kremlin”.
“Maybe both cases were warnings because we support Ukraine,” added the chairman of the European Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies in an interview with the Funke press group.
20 billion euros to protect
He called for the release of 20 billion euros to better protect critical infrastructure, strengthen police and computer security.
German police have so far given no specific indications following the ‘sabotage’ of radio link cables at two locations the day before, which disrupted train traffic in northern Germany for nearly three hours.
A senior German military official also issued a warning on Sunday. “Every electrical transformer, every power plant, every power transmission line is a potential target,” General Carsten Breuer warned the daily. Imagespeaking of growing “hybrid threats”.
The conservative opposition also ruled that “regardless of this matter, we must rethink the security architecture of Germany and the European Union”.
According to German media, German investigators are convinced that Saturday’s railway sabotage was the work of professionals who had information within the national railway company.
According to Der Spiegel, it was the branch of the Berlin police that was responsible for investigating state threats, such as attacks or espionage cases, that took over the investigation.