Germany has been hit by a second suspected sabotage attempt involving a major electricity grid, intensifying concerns over the security of the country’s energy infrastructure.
The latest incident has sharpened fears that Russia may be waging a hybrid campaign against Germany by targeting critical infrastructure, coming on the same day a power plant facility was attacked with what officials described as “home-made explosive rockets.”
Police said they were investigating deliberate vandalism against technical equipment at a power substation near the western city of Bergheim on Tuesday evening.
A police spokesperson did not disclose the scale of the damage, but confirmed that electricity supplies in the area were not disrupted.
Grid operator Amprion said the incident was likely the result of external interference, adding that both power supply and overall grid stability were maintained throughout.
Separately on Tuesday, a key installation near the Janschwalde coal-fired power plant in Brandenburg was repeatedly struck with rockets, while emergency crews found and safely defused further devices.
Brandenburg Interior Minister Jan Redmann later described the attack as an “act of sabotage.”
In a statement issued Tuesday, power plant operator LEAG said: “This morning, September 1, 2026, unknown perpetrators allegedly caused damage to several lines in the 50Hertz transmission network.”
German police officers secure the area after a second sabotage attempt on Germany’s electricity grid, with local police saying they are investigating an attack on a substation in Bergheim, Germany, September 2, 2026
Russian President Vladimir Putin answers journalists’ questions after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026
The Amprion electricity substation in Bergheim-Rheidth, Germany, 02 September 2026, which appears to have been the target of an attack
The Janschwalde lignite-fired power plant is the largest in Brandenburg.
Redmann said there appeared to be parallels between the attacks but that investigations were at a very early stage.
He also added that there were some differences between the Brandenburg attack and a 2024 arson attack by far-left extremists targeting the power supply of Tesla’s German plant, but he could not rule out any suspects.
Calling for better protection, Redmann said: ‘Just a few weeks ago, we were discussing our airports at length; now, the focus has shifted back to energy supply facilities.’
Alexander Throm, who heads the German parliament’s domestic affairs committee, told Reuters the number of disruptive incidents before this weekend’s election in the state of Saxony-Anhalt was ‘extremely suspicious’.
Both incidents come after Berlin formally blamed Russia for an incident involving an explosive-laden drone at a strategic airport last month.
Nato member Germany, which supports Ukraine in its fight against Russia, has long accused Moscow of targeting it with a campaign of hybrid attacks involving espionage and sabotage – charges denied by Russia.
Germany has for months reported suspicious drone sightings over military and industrial sites, but the Leipzig incident on the night of August 4 raised the alarm as a drone found there carried explosives.
Police used a robot to defuse the device found near a Ukrainian cargo plane, and another drone was reportedly found weeks later near the airport, also with traces of an explosive substance.
The airport in eastern Germany plays a key role in the transport of military goods, including by the German military and Nato allies, and also serves as a base for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz later said Germany had increasingly ‘found itself in the crosshairs of hybrid attackers’.
But Berlin has so far refrained from blaming Russia, speaking only of the possible involvement of ‘foreign powers’, until Tuesday, when it said Moscow was responsible for last month’s drone attack.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the Leipzig airport attack followed the ‘well-established pattern of Russian hybrid operations in Europe’, and the assumption was that Germany would be targeted again.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by accusing Germany of planting evidence to blame Moscow for the attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport.
Merz had warned on August 25 that the perpetrators of hybrid attacks against Germany would ‘pay for them’, without naming a target.
German news outlet Der Spiegel said possible countermeasures could include the expulsion of Russian diplomats and the closure of Russia’s consulate in Bonn.
There has also been much discussion of whether Germany should shut down a Russian cultural centre in Berlin that security services believe is an intelligence hub.
It comes after a key installation near the Janschwalde coal-fired power plant in Brandenburg was repeatedly targeted with rockets. Pictured: The Janschwalde lignite-fired power plant in eastern Germany
Both incidents come after Berlin formally blamed Russia for an incident involving an explosive-laden drone at a strategic airport last month. Pictured: An explosive-disposal robot is deployed near a Ukrainian aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport
The Russian House of Science and Culture in Berlin, a seven-story building opened in 1984 in what was then East Berlin, is located near the Russian embassy.
Conservative lawmaker and security policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter recently told Welt TV that the facility is assumed to be a hub for espionage.
He said more than 100 people lived there ‘with no one knowing who they are’ and the building’s power consumption is disproportionately high.
It was ‘presumably filled with technical surveillance equipment’, he said, and used by ‘people who are not well-disposed toward Germany’.
Moscow has already been accused of waging a shadow war across Europe through sabotage, cyber attacks, drones, disinformation and intimidation – tactics designed to cause disruption while staying below the threshold for a military response.
Russian cyber units have targeted critical systems including power plants since at least the mid-2010s.
On the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a cyber attack against the Viasat satellite internet system caused outages across central and eastern Europe. The EU, US and UK later condemned the attack as Russian.
Nordic and Baltic countries have also recently reported increased GPS jamming and spoofing since 2022, affecting civilian aircraft, ships and drones.
Separately, Putin smirked today as he renewed his threats to target Britain – with the taunt that attacks UK factories were a ‘military secret’.
During an interview with Russian state media RT, the Kremlin dictator issued an ominous warning after the UK agreed to supply Ukraine with classified blueprints for long-range missiles last week.
When asked: ‘Could British military industrial facilities located on British territory become military targets?’ Putin replied with a smirk: ‘That’s a secret, a military secret.’
He made clear that any ‘British military facilities’ inside Ukraine were ‘absolutely’ a Russian target.
The Russian leader was speaking at a nighttime press conference in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, after attending the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) summit.
His taunt was the latest increasingly brazen threat from Moscow to target British military and defence companies after the UK increased its support for Ukraine.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova warned last week that ‘any British military installations and equipment in Ukraine and beyond its borders’ could be attacked in retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russia using British weapons.
