By: Behzad Ahmadi, Faculty Member, University of Tehran, and Member of the Scientific Council of the Institute for Iran–Eurasia Studies (IRAS), September 2026
In August 2026, after an explosive-equipped drone was discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport, the German government initially spoke cautiously of the possibility of a hybrid attack. Less than a month later, however, Johann Wadephul, Germany’s foreign minister, declared on 1 September that Germany considered Russia responsible for the foiled Leipzig operation. He described the incident not as an isolated act, but as part of a wider set of Russian sabotage, cyber, information, and security operations directed against Germany and Europe. Moscow rejected the allegation, called Berlin’s measures an unprecedented escalation of bilateral tensions, and ordered the closure of Goethe Institutes in Russia (Auswärtiges Amt, 2026; Embassy of the Russian Federation in Germany, 2026).
German–Russian relations had long since moved away from the era of strategic cooperation and, following the war in Ukraine, had effectively entered a phase of confrontation. What makes the Halle incident distinctive is the heightened and altered German perception of the Russian threat. If the German government’s assessment of Halle is confirmed, Russia will come to be seen as an actor whose threat can manifest itself directly on German soil, against the country’s infrastructure, and in close proximity to the everyday lives of German citizens. Halle cannot therefore be understood apart from the transformation that German foreign and security policy has undergone over the past decade. It was this transformation that introduced the concept of the Zeitenwende, or historic turning point, into German politics and, under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, has given rise to a broader effort to rebuild the country’s economic, military, and security power (Hamilton, 2023; Roth, 2022; Scholz, 2022; Stelzenmüller, 2025).
From Ostpolitik to Deterrence
For several decades, Germany’s policy toward the Soviet Union and later Russia rested on one of the Federal Republic’s most important foreign-policy doctrines: Wandel durch Annäherung, or change through rapprochement, which gradually evolved after the Cold War into Wandel durch Handel, or change through trade. The underlying logic was straightforward. Economic ties, trade, energy, social contacts, and interdependence were not only beneficial to the German economy; over the longer term, they were also expected to reduce Russia’s incentives to confront Europe. In this view, Russia was a country to be integrated into Europe’s political and economic architecture, rather than contained outside it (Hamilton, 2023). German reunification and the end of the Cold War reinforced this understanding. Germany found itself in an environment in which, unlike for much of its history, almost all of its neighbours were partners or allies. The United States largely provided hard security, Russia supplied cheap energy to the German economy, and global markets, above all China, offered opportunities for the expansion of German exports and industry (Stelzenmüller, 2025).
The Crimea crisis of 2014 dealt the first serious blow to this model, but did not yet bring about its collapse. Germany supported sanctions on Russia, and Angela Merkel played a central role in shaping Europe’s response; at the same time, Berlin kept channels of communication with Moscow open, energy dependence continued, and Nord Stream 2 proceeded even after 2014. German policy in that period still rested on the assumption that pressure and engagement could operate in parallel and that Russia, for all its problems, should ultimately remain part of Europe’s security architecture. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought this calculation to breaking point. Olaf Scholz’s declaration of a Zeitenwende in German foreign policy before the Bundestag was not merely a reaction to the war; it was an acknowledgement of the failure of a broader set of German foreign-policy assumptions. Scholz stressed that the world after 24 February was no longer the same, and Berlin embarked on a course—creating a €100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr, increasing defence spending, supplying weapons to Ukraine, and sharply reducing dependence on Russian energy—that departed from the Federal Republic’s strategic culture of several preceding decades (Scholz, 2022, 2023).
A transformation that had begun under the pressure of wartime shock gradually became institutionalised. Germany’s 2023 National Security Strategy defined security as an integrated concept linking military defence, protection of critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, and economic and social resilience. Ostpolitik, too, shifted from a logic of accommodation and interdependence toward a security architecture based on deterring Russia. In this new perspective, the issue was no longer merely Russia’s conduct in Ukraine, but whether European security could be built with Russia at all, or instead had to be organised against it (Bundesregierung, 2023; Meister & Jilge, 2023; Roth, 2022).
The government of Friedrich Merz has not halted this process; it has made it more explicit and, to a considerable extent, more operational. Merz regards Russia as the greatest threat to European security and argues that Germany can no longer substitute economic strength for military power, as it did in the past. Sharp increases in defence spending, efforts to turn the Bundeswehr into Europe’s strongest conventional force, the expansion of the defence industry, a stronger German role on NATO’s eastern flank, and attempts to make Europe a more capable defence actor all form part of this approach (CDU, 2025; Koalitionsvertrag zwischen CDU, CSU und SPD, 2025; Merz, 2026). In the Merz government’s view, Germany is rebuilding a model of power that had become overly dependent on a favourable international environment during the previous two decades. Cheap Russian energy has disappeared, competition from China is placing greater pressure on German industry, and the full reliability of US security guarantees can no longer be taken for granted. Strengthening defence capacity is therefore part of a broader policy aimed at reducing Germany’s vulnerabilities. It is in this context that the Halle incident acquires its full meaning. But why does Halle matter?
At first glance, one might argue that Europe has faced several sabotage operations attributed to Russia in recent years and that Halle is therefore not an entirely new development. Even before August 2026, Germany had been the target of cyber operations, espionage, disinformation campaigns, and acts of sabotage for which German authorities held Russia responsible. The 2019 killing in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten park of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen origin and a Russian opponent, cyberattacks, plots involving military and industrial facilities, and the cases of incendiary parcels all contributed to the gradual shift in the German security establishment’s outlook. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has repeatedly argued that, after the expulsion of large numbers of its officers from Europe, Russian intelligence services have increasingly relied on intermediaries, criminals, and individuals whose organisational links to Russia are not easily proven (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, 2025, 2026). In July 2024, a self-igniting parcel caught fire at the DHL processing centre at the same Leipzig/Halle Airport. Similar parcels were discovered in Poland and the United Kingdom. By March 2026, a joint European investigation coordinated by Eurojust had led to the identification of 22 suspects in Lithuania and Poland. Eurojust stated that operatives had been recruited through online messaging services, tasks had been divided among different individuals, and payments had largely been made in cryptocurrency. The central allegation of the investigation was that the network had acted on behalf of Russian military intelligence (Eurojust, 2026). Thus, Leipzig/Halle had already featured in the geography of this kind of operation before the August incident.
Yet the new case is more significant for three reasons.
First is the means employed and the operation’s destructive potential. The use of a drone carrying explosives in the vicinity of an active airport narrows the gap between limited sabotage and an operation capable of causing casualties and major disruption to aviation. The significance lies not in the technological sophistication of the drone, but in the fact that an accessible and relatively inexpensive device can be used against an extremely costly and sensitive infrastructure, while even an unsuccessful operation can impose substantial security and economic costs (Berger, 2026).
Second is the airport itself. Leipzig/Halle is not merely a civilian airport. Its DHL hub is one of Europe’s most important logistics centres. In addition, the airport hosts strategic heavy-airlift capacity under NATO’s SALIS programme, and the Antonov aircraft based there are used for missions by NATO and European Union member states, including logistical support for the eastern flank (DHL Group, 2024; NATO, 2026). From this perspective, Germany is a strategic focal point of European defence, where disruption to transport, energy, and communications infrastructure can reduce NATO’s capacity even before a conventional conflict begins (Lange, 2025).
The third difference—and perhaps the most important—is Berlin’s decision to attribute the incident officially to Russia, a decision more consequential than the incident itself. In hybrid operations, ambiguity is part of the operational instrument, not a flaw in it. This is one of the principal advantages of grey-zone warfare. If the targeted country waits years for a judicial case to be completed, the operation’s planners can build a new network in the interim. If it accuses without sufficient evidence, it risks its political and intelligence credibility. If it does not respond, the cost of the operation remains low for the other side. One of the aims of hybrid operations, in fact, is to place the targeted government in precisely this difficult equation (Auswärtiges Amt, 2026; Bundesregierung, 2026a). Through official attribution, Berlin has moved away from the zone of ambiguity that had characterised many hybrid cases in recent years. The message is not directed only at Moscow. The German government is also telling its public, its European allies, and domestic security institutions that these incidents should no longer be viewed as isolated cases, but may be elements of a more coordinated strategy. This shift in political framing is highly significant.
Germany’s National and European Response
Germany’s initial response to the incident took shape in two stages. In the first, before attribution was announced, the matter was treated primarily as one of domestic security. The Federal Public Prosecutor General became involved, the National Security Council convened, and the Interior Ministry stressed the need to strengthen counter-drone capabilities. Even before the incident, the German government had established a Joint Counter-Drone Defence Centre, brought a framework law for the protection of critical infrastructure into force, and begun operating a Joint Centre for Countering Hybrid Threats. Halle did not create these policies so much as make them more urgent (Bundesregierung, 2026a, 2026b). With the announcement of attribution on 1 September, the response moved from domestic protection into the sphere of foreign policy. The German government ordered the closure of the Russian consulate general in Bonn, terminated the agreement governing the Russian House in Berlin, summoned the Russian ambassador, and declared that it would pursue further restrictions on individuals connected to hybrid activity, entry restrictions for certain Russian nationals, greater pressure on Russia’s shadow fleet, and new intelligence measures. Wadephul simultaneously stressed that Germany did not seek a further deterioration in relations, but held the Russian leadership’s policies responsible for the current situation and reaffirmed that Berlin’s support for Ukraine would continue (Auswärtiges Amt, 2026).
The official attribution of the Leipzig/Halle drone attack to Russia, however, did not merely intensify tensions between Berlin and Moscow; it rapidly acquired a European dimension. France and Poland’s support for Germany’s position at the Weimar Triangle foreign ministers’ meeting on 3 September 2026 showed that Berlin was seeking to frame the incident not as a bilateral security case, but within the broader context of Russian hybrid operations against Europe and of Europe’s wider debate over how to respond to them (Von Osten, 2026). For this reason, the European response to Halle is likely to develop in three areas. First, intelligence, police, and judicial cooperation. Second, greater resilience of critical infrastructure. Germany is not alone in this regard: the Nordic and Baltic countries have accumulated more extensive experience in recent years in confronting GPS interference, damage to cables, suspicious maritime activity, and sabotage operations (Ålander, 2024). Third, the creation of a mechanism for the graduated escalation of European responses. One of Europe’s problems to date has been that, after each incident, it has had to negotiate almost from the beginning over the scale and type of response. If hybrid activities attributed to Russia are treated as a continuing campaign, the response must likewise be cumulative. The second incident should not be assessed as though it were the first, and the tenth operation should not be answered from zero. Greater intensity or repetition of operations should automatically entail higher costs in sanctions, diplomatic presence, financial access, individual mobility, and counterintelligence measures (Baumann & Pynnöniemi, 2025; Jones, 2025).
The Outlook for German–Russian Relations
The Halle incident did not destroy German–Russian relations. Their foundations had already largely collapsed before the incident. But Halle adds a new layer to that rupture. Until now, it was possible to attribute the bulk of hostility between the two countries to the war in Ukraine and, at least in theory, to imagine that the war’s end or some form of political agreement might create room for a reduction of tensions in German–Russian relations. Halle weakens that assumption. If the view becomes entrenched in Germany’s political and security establishment that Russia directly plans or directs sabotage operations on German territory, Russia will shift from being an external threat to the European order to a threat to Germany’s territorial security. This is a major distinction. The incident’s most important political consequence may therefore lie not in Berlin’s immediate punitive measures, but in the gradual transition of German–Russian relations from a logic of managing differences to one of deterring a threat. The recent measures on both sides point to the erosion of the political, consular, and cultural infrastructure that, even after the outbreak of the Ukraine war, had preserved some limited channels of communication between the two countries.
On this reading, the evolution of Germany’s view of Russia can be summarised in four stages. Until 2014, Russia was a difficult partner but part of the European order. Between 2014 and 2022, it became a revisionist actor that had to be contained and negotiated with at the same time. After 2022, Russia was regarded as the greatest threat to Europe’s security order. Halle marks the beginning of a fourth stage, in which Russia is perceived as a threat capable of operating within Germany’s own security geography. This transformation has particular importance for the Merz government. Merz’s political project rests on the premise that Germany must evolve from a predominantly economic power into an actor able to bear the costs of acquiring power. In this project, Russia is not merely an external threat, but the principal rationale for higher defence budgets, a stronger Bundeswehr, investment in critical infrastructure, the development of security institutions, and an expanded German role in European deterrence. The closer the perceived Russian threat moves from the geography of Ukraine to German territory itself, the greater the legitimacy and urgency that this transformation will acquire.
This policy nevertheless faces important domestic constraints. German society is not uniform in its views on Russia, the war in Ukraine, or the scale of costs that should be borne for deterrence. Higher defence spending, expanded security powers, and the deeper incorporation of civilian infrastructure into a national-security logic may intensify domestic contestation. Alternative for Germany and currents on the left may also use any ambiguity in the Halle case to challenge the government’s policy. The success of the new strategy therefore depends not only on the forcefulness of the external response, but also on the German government’s ability to maintain public trust and explain the threat with evidence.
Conclusion
On the basis of the foregoing, the Halle incident may be understood not as a discrete crisis, but as a new phase in Germany’s historic turning point. It may mark a stage at which the traditional separation between external and internal security is diminished. This is precisely the change that Germany’s National Security Strategy began with its concept of “integrated security,” and an incident such as Halle brings it from the level of a document into tangible political experience.
Ultimately, if subsequent investigations reinforce the German government’s public attribution of responsibility for Halle to Russia, relations between Berlin and Moscow will enter a phase from which it will not be easy to return, even with the end of the Ukraine war. Three decades after the Cold War, Berlin’s central question will be how to build a long-term policy of deterrence against a Russia whose threat has become simultaneously military, cyber, informational, economic, and, in some cases, physical, without allowing Europe to enter a cycle of uncontrolled escalation of tension or crisis. German–Russian relations are therefore moving more than ever toward managed confrontation, in which cooperation is the exception, mistrust the rule, and deterrence the organising principle.
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