On Friday, August 23, German authorities confirmed that they had opened an investigation after several unknown drones were spotted flying over a sensitive industrial site in Brunsbüttel (Schleswig-Holstein), less than 100 kilometers from Hamburg. On Thursday night, the drones overflew a chemical and gas industrial zone considered critical to the country's energy security.

The threat is all the more worrying in that it appears to be recurrent: Several flights of the same type have been recorded in the last two weeks at the same location, with incursions of up to five aircraft per night, police said. On Friday morning, the public prosecutor's office in Flensburg (north) said that the investigation was based on "suspicion of agent activity for sabotage purposes" against critical infrastructures, without giving further details. Intelligence services are seriously considering the possibility of a Russian operation. According to the Bild newspaper, the devices could have taken off from civilian ships in the North Sea, piloted by Russian agents.

Brunsbüttel is a target as strategic as it is symbolic. The small town at the mouth of the River Elbe is famous for its liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, which was connected to the grid in early 2023. The site is home to one of three floating terminals currently in operation in Germany, hastily ordered by Berlin after the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022. These gigantic vessels, which serve as LNG storage and regasification units, have enabled Germany to partially replace its Russian gas supplies with LNG imports, mainly from the US.

For years, Berlin had refused to equip itself with terminals of this type, relying on the security of Russia's more economical pipeline supplies. According to the German government's plans, five floating units will eventually be connected to the grid. In Brunsbüttel, the energy site, which also includes chemical facilities, is off-limits to overflights.

The repeated incursions over the site in recent weeks confirm that Germany is particularly vulnerable to attacks of this kind. None of the measures taken by the police to date have been able to put an end to these drone overflights, so much so that the German army has been called in. Over the past few months, the Ministry of Defense has set up a specialized drone task force, after observing multiple illegal overflights of Bundeswehr training sites. This was particularly the case at the Klietz base in the east of the country, where Ukrainian soldiers are training to handle Leopard tanks.

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