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Police probe attempted arson attack on German defense firm · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: We've got some breaking news for you. Police in Germany
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  Speaker 1: have arrested two people in connection with a suspected arson
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  Speaker 1: attack on a construction site that belongs to a defence company. Now,
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  Speaker 1: no one was injured and the fire caused little damage
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  Speaker 1: at the site near Munich in southern Germany, but... This
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  Speaker 1: attack comes as Germany is on high alert for attacks
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  Speaker 1: on its infrastructure. This week, the government officially blamed Russia
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  Speaker 1: for being behind an attempted drone attack on a cargo
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  Speaker 1: plane in the city of Leipzig. That was last month.
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  Speaker 1: Let's get the latest from our political correspondent, Hans Brandt.
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  Speaker 1: He can tell us more about what happened. So, Hans,
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  Speaker 1: tell us what is known so far.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, this happened in the night between Wednesday and Thursday.
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  Speaker 2: Two people apparently threw two devices across a fence into
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  Speaker 2: the site right next to a building housing a number
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  Speaker 2: of defense companies in Munich in southern Germany. An eyewitness
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  Speaker 2: saw this, called the police, and the police was able
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  Speaker 2: to extinguish the one fire. and to defuse the other device.
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  Speaker 2: Later during the night, two people were arrested at a
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  Speaker 2: filling station in the Munich area. One is a 28-year-old woman,
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  Speaker 2: the other is a 38-year-old man, and both are of
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  Speaker 2: Bulgarian nationality. So nothing much really happened in the end,
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  Speaker 2: but the police are treating this as a politically motivated
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  Speaker 2: incident as something with a terrorist or some sort of
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  Speaker 2: other background, not as a simple criminal case. That's really
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  Speaker 2: as far as we can go at the moment. Nothing
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  Speaker 2: much more than that is known at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the timing of this, Hans, because
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  Speaker 1: Germany is on high alert right now, isn't it?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, indeed. This is partly because of this attack on
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  Speaker 2: an attempted attack on an airplane at Leipzig Airport, which
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  Speaker 2: is south of Berlin. That's an airport that's very important
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  Speaker 2: as a logistics hub, amongst other things, for supplying arms
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  Speaker 2: to Ukraine. That also was not a successful attack. It
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  Speaker 2: was investigated for several weeks. And just this week, the
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  Speaker 2: German government said that it was Russia responsible for this attack.
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  Speaker 2: and announced several countermeasures against Russia. At the same time,
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  Speaker 2: there have been a couple of other attacks in very
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  Speaker 2: recent days on electricity infrastructure here in Germany. One attack
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  Speaker 2: just south of Berlin, the other one in western Germany
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  Speaker 2: near Cologne. In both cases, electricity power stations had to
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  Speaker 2: be shut down briefly because of these attacks. But again,
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  Speaker 2: the damage that was eventually caused was not particularly major.
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  Speaker 2: There's no reason to believe that all of these incidents
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  Speaker 2: that I've mentioned are connected to one another, except the timing,
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  Speaker 2: except the fact that they are happening very close together
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  Speaker 2: right now. In all cases, the authorities are investigating these
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  Speaker 2: as incidents of potential terrorism, but we cannot yet attribute
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  Speaker 2: them to particular actors. It's a possibility that there are
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  Speaker 2: left-wing protest groups behind this. It's also a possibility that, again,
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  Speaker 2: this might be part of the hybrid warfare situation that
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  Speaker 2: is part of the conflict in Ukraine between Russia and
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  Speaker 2: the rest of Europe.
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  Speaker 1: So it is being suggested that these kind of hybrid
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  Speaker 1: attacks are being carried out by, I believe the government
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  Speaker 1: calls them low-level agents. So essentially people who don't get
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  Speaker 1: much money to carry these attacks out. They don't get
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  Speaker 1: much training. So how difficult is it? to prevent these
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  Speaker 1: kind of attacks by the people who carry them out?
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  Speaker 1: Can the government do anything to stop them from happening?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, indeed. That's a big problem. The government this week
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  Speaker 2: said that Germany is not at war, but that there
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  Speaker 2: are continuous hybrid attacks on Germany. These range from disinformation
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  Speaker 2: on social media channels, attempts to influence German election campaigns,
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  Speaker 2: attempts to influence the mood inside Germany and the German population,
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  Speaker 2: to acts of sabotage, to acts of cybercriminality, cyberattacks, these
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  Speaker 2: kinds of things, all of this an attempt to destabilize Germany, basically.
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  Speaker 2: Some of these attacks, as I've said, have been attributed
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  Speaker 2: to Russia. Russia has been officially made responsible by the
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  Speaker 2: German government and by European governments for these attacks, but
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  Speaker 2: there are many that cannot be attributed to to any
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  Speaker 2: particular actor. But what is certainly the case is that
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  Speaker 2: these kinds of attacks are increasing. And the difficulty in
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  Speaker 2: defending against these, obviously, is that there are such a
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  Speaker 2: large number of targets, tens of thousands of kilometers of electricity,
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  Speaker 2: transmission lines, for instance, endless companies that are in some
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  Speaker 2: way involved, for instance, in defense technology. It's almost impossible
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  Speaker 2: to defend against all of these attacks. The German government
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  Speaker 2: has now called on companies in Germany to take some
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  Speaker 2: of the defense into their own hands to make sure
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  Speaker 2: that their security arrangements are beefed up. But, as I say,
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  Speaker 2: it's not possible to defend against all of this. At
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  Speaker 2: the same time, we have a situation where in Germany
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  Speaker 2: the regional elections that are particularly crucial– are about to
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  Speaker 2: be held this weekend, so the political situation is also
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  Speaker 2: fairly tense. It's a time, I think, when it's not
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  Speaker 2: too surprising that such attempts at destabilising the situation are increasing.
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  Speaker 1: And, Hans, you talked about affecting people's moods. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: this incident in Munich hasn't caused a huge amount of damage,
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  Speaker 1: but that and other incidents like it would you say
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  Speaker 1: are they making people feel increasingly uneasy?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I think one can say that. There have been
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  Speaker 2: a number of opinion polls. These kinds of questions have
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  Speaker 2: been asked repeatedly over the last couple of years since
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  Speaker 2: the conflict in Ukraine, since Russia attacked Ukraine. And there
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  Speaker 2: is certainly a noticeable increasing feeling of discomfort in the
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  Speaker 2: general population about a feeling of uncertainty. I think it's
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  Speaker 2: not necessarily a feeling of, how shall I say, being
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  Speaker 2: personally threatened that people fear violence against themselves or that
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  Speaker 2: they might themselves be targeted or victims of such attacks.
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  Speaker 2: But the feeling that things like electricity supply or energy
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  Speaker 2: supply in general are are not quite as reliable as
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  Speaker 2: they may have been in the past, that these might
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  Speaker 2: be subject to attacks and so on, calls from authorities
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  Speaker 2: for people to get some supplies for emergencies, to keep
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  Speaker 2: batteries in their cellars, to have certain foods available, to
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  Speaker 2: keep radios on, this kind of thing, to prepare for
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  Speaker 2: possible emergencies. All of this contributes to a feeling that
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  Speaker 2: that tensions are rising. And much of this really has
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  Speaker 2: to do with a perceived threat from Russia. And I
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  Speaker 2: think one can say that Russia, too, has at times
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  Speaker 2: threatened Western European countries, including Germany.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for bringing us up to date. That's our political correspondent,
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  Speaker 1: Hans Brandt.