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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will blame Russia for the August drone incident at Leipzig Airport and use it as justification for a new round of far-reaching sanctions on Moscow, critics fear that will only lead to more retaliation which Germany is not prepared for.
According to Politico/Welt am Sonntag three officials from the German government — who are to remain anonymous — said that the announcement of the new sanctions could take place as early as next week, in time for the EU-foreign ministers meeting in Ireland on Tuesday. There the same package of sanctions will be discussed by the EU leaders in Brussels.
The officials weren’t able to provide details on what kind of sanctions Merz would propose, ranging from increased economic pressure on Russia to even more military support for Ukraine. Simple measures such as expelling individual Russian diplomats or shutting down the Russian House in Berlin, previously considered by the German government, would no longer be sufficient, one official said.
Germany is already bracing itself for the potential countermeasures that Russia is expected to take against the country in response to the announced sanctions. Berlin is preparing itself for the potential measures that it expects from Moscow, Politico was told by three officials.
The Merz government is preparing for state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, to be held on September 24. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, elections will follow two weeks later. In all of these regions, the Alternative for Germany party is polling strongly. Many of its supporters are skeptical of NATO’s confrontational policy towards Russia and advocate a more diplomatic policy. With the elections just around the corner, the government would not be doing well to announce any hardline policy towards Moscow. It is questionable whether Merz is basing his sanctions policy on concrete intelligence or whether he wants to score points with the Western public.
The incident at Leipzig Airport in early August was caused by an explosive drone, German authorities concluded. While Germany has so far stopped short of officially blaming Russia for the incident, Chancellor Merz seems to be treating it as a given. That he is now planning to formally blame Russia for the attack just days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a surprise visit to Moscow during which he reportedly (unconfirmed) warned the Russian government against further NATO aggression, is likely to be seen as Berlin acting in concert with Washington.
In stark contrast to the way Merz and other German politicians are painting Russia as intending to attack countries within NATO, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on Friday that there was ‘no evidence’ to back up claims by some German politicians that Russia intended to launch an attack on countries within NATO.
It remains to be seen whether the sanctions of the German government will have any impact on Russia. So far, all EU and German sanctions have not had any impact on the operation of Russia and in several cases they have even been intensified by Russia in other directions. Above all, this also means a further pivot of Russia to Asia, which is already having an impact on energy trade and on other areas of global trade, to the detriment of Europe.
