Travelers on the platforms of Berlin’s main station, October 8, 2022 (AFP / John MACDOUGALL)
Several German officials called on Sunday, the day after a large-scale railway sabotage, to strengthen the protection of major national infrastructure in the context of the war in Ukraine, and raised the possibility of Russian responsibility.
“We cannot exclude that Russia is also behind the attack on the railway company,” said an official of the German Green Party, member of the government coalition, Anton Hofreiter, considering that the recent leaks from the Nord Stream 1 and 2 in the Baltic Sea already bore “the trace of the Kremlin”.
“Perhaps in both cases it was about warnings because we support Ukraine”, added the president of the committee of the chamber of deputies for European affairs, in an interview with the press group Funke .
He called for the release of 20 billion euros to better protect critical infrastructure, strengthen the police and computer security.
German police have so far not mentioned any particular leads after the “sabotage” the day before of radio link cables in two places which caused the interruption of train traffic in northern Germany for almost three hours.
But the government quickly denounced sabotage. “It is clear that this is a targeted and deliberate action,” said Transport Minister Volker Wissing.
A senior German military official also issued a warning on Sunday.
“Every electrical transformer, every power station, every energy transmission pipe is a potential target,” General Carsten Breuer warned in the daily Bild, speaking of growing “hybrid threats”.
The conservative opposition also judged that “irrespective of this case, we must rethink the security architecture of Germany and the European Union.
“The modern era marked by the conduct of hybrid wars requires that we adapt our concepts,” a party official of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, Thorsten Frei, told the RND press group.
According to German media, German investigators are convinced that the railway sabotage on Saturday was the work of professionals who had information inside the national railway company.
According to Der Spiegel, it was the section of the Berlin police responsible for investigating acts threatening the state, such as attacks or espionage cases, which took over the investigations.
© 2022 AFP
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