Bild reports third German grid sabotage attempt as state election looms
By Ludwig Burger
FRANKFURT, Sept 4 (Reuters) - An attempt has been made to short-circuit an electricity grid transformer south of Duesseldorf in western Germany, according to police, the newspaper Bild reported on Friday, heightening a state of alert after two suspected sabotage attempts this week.
Cologne police, in the same region, told Reuters they had knowledge of a letter claiming responsibility for the incident in Dormagen as well as vandalism at a substation in nearby Bergheim that took 4,200 megawatts in generating capacity offline on Tuesday. They declined to give further details while the investigation was under way.
Bild reported that a man had claimed responsibility for both incidents in a handwritten letter, in which he also revealed his identity, but it was unclear whether he was the perpetrator.
Germany has been the focus of European fears about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure this week.
Allies rallied round after Germany blamed a drone attack in August at Leipzig/Halle airport on Moscow as part of hybrid warfare meant to intimidate and divide countries that have supported Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia has dismissed the allegations as baseless.
On Sunday, a closely watched election takes place in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the far-right, Russia-friendly Alternative for Germany (AfD) holds a commanding lead in surveys.
Germany's Interior Ministry said it was "no coincidence" that such "hybrid attacks" were happening on the eve of the election.
A spokesperson for Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the number of attacks that had been foiled or been unsuccessful were "a sign of how our security measures work – and that they do work".
In the other sabotage incident this week, devices carrying conductive material damaged power lines at one of the most critical high-voltage nodes in the eastern state of Brandenburg.
Separately on Friday, police in the town of Ganderkesee near Bremen found the door to a control enclosure at a transformer station open at 3 a.m., and searched the area with a helicopter and dogs.
The facility was undamaged and nobody was found but an investigation was continuing, police said.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; editing by Kirsti Knolle and Editing by Kevin Liffey)
