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https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/drohnen-ueberfluege-100.html
Critical infrastructure New drone overflights alert authorities
Since the end of November, suspicious drone flights from industrial plants and over the US base of Ramstein have been found. The authorities investigate, however, have so far been largely powerless.
In August, the drones first appeared in northern Germany. Above the ChemCoast Park Brunsbüttel industrial park, for example, they flew over an switch-off nuclear power plant, an LNG terminal, also locks and the Northeast Sea Canal. The aircraft were fast, sometimes more than 100 kilometres per hour. Obviously, it was not the usual aircraft of hobby pilots. Rather, according to security experts, it is said to have been military drones, including fixed-wing wing rigid wing, which are good for faster speeds and larger areas.
Since the end of November, after research by WDR and NDR, there have once again been extraordinary drone sightings, this time also via plants in the petrochemical industry in southern Germany and over the military airfield Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate, the headquarters of the US Air Force in Europe.
Drones in Ludwigshafen have been sighted several times over the site of BASF in Ludwigshafen in recent weeks. According to the overflights of the research, as in Brunsbüttel in the summer, the overflights take place here in the dark. The drones are also to be significantly larger than commercially available aircraft from hobby pilots, who otherwise are repeatedly identified. The Group did not reply to a short-term request.
Open questions
According to information, the state criminal office of Rhineland-Palatinate established a special structure organisation (BAO) last week to explain the background to the drone overflights. However, as in northern Germany, the authorities are not yet said to have succeeded in determining who controls these suspect drones and from where they are being launched.
"Initially, the BASF plant site in Ludwigshafen was affected by the overflights. This past week, drone overflights about the American airbase in Ramstein followed," confirmed a spokesman for the LKA Rhineland-Palatinate. "The drones are larger than the usual commercial hobby drones and could be determined at the beginning of dusk."
In the case of the sightings in Brunsbüttel, the Schleswig-Holstein police were supported by the federal authorities. Federal police and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) auctioned off with drone prevention technology, and equipment was also procured from other federal states - but without success. No drone could be crashed. Some sightings also turned out to be confusions, for example with aircraft or satellites.
Ongoing investigation
"In two cases, the suspicion of an unauthorized flight could be verified. It was each private users of drone technology. The suspicion of espionage was excluded," said a spokeswoman for the Itzehoe police police on request.
In both cases, regulatory notices were filed. "However, cases in the single-digit range were also determined where it cannot be ruled out with certainty that drones of unknown design and origin in the industrial park were flown. The investigation is not yet complete." The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution Baden-Württemberg also confirmed, on request, that there had been references to corresponding drone overflights at the end.
Military reconnaissance drones from Russia?
According to the research, the investigators suspect that some drones that have been repeatedly sighted in Brunsbüttel for weeks could be military reconnaissance drones from Russia. One of the these of the authorities is that the drones may have been launched by Russian ships in the North Sea or Baltic Sea, possibly by ships assigned to the GUGI group, a special unit of the Russian Navy responsible for espionage.
The sightings in Germany do not seem to be isolated cases. According to research, investigators are linking the current incidents at industrial plants in the southwest, at the US Ramstein base, and Brunsbüttel with reports that are cause a stir in the USA. One reason for the possible connection: The objects observed should be similar.
FBI investigates drones in the USA
Since this week, the FBI has been investigating in the USA because drones have been observed on the American east coast, especially in the state of New Jersey, for several weeks - also there, among other things, in military facilities. In reports of eyewitnesses, there is also talk of models that are larger than those used by hobby pilots. Several videos have already been published on social networks.
The US government ultimately said that there was no evidence that foreign ships were linked to the coast with the drones. It has also been no evidence that the reported drone sightings posed a threat to national or public security. An examination of images had shown that many sightings were probably normal aircraft. The FBI is investigating the cases with the US Department of Homeland Security and local authorities.
At the end of November, similar incidents were also noticed in Great Britain through bases of the US Air Force. This was announced by the US air force in Europe. Britain is involved in clarifying the sightings with its own soldiers. The UK Department of Defense said they are taking threats seriously and continue to support the response of the US Air Force.
Suitable defence technology is often missing
The incidents once again focus on the topic of critical infrastructure protection (KRITIS). They look at the glaring weaknesses in drone defence, which appear to continue to exist from the authorities. The security authorities often do not seem to be available to efficient technology in order to be able to defend against or even detect certain drones.
In addition, there is the question of responsibilities: The Bundeswehr, for example, whose air force could in principle be deployed against drones, may only become active in the countryside to protect its own military facilities. But not to protect civilian plants such as chemical companies. The drone defense is still a police case there.
Since the launch of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, there have also been increasing sightings of drones through troop exercise areas and facilities of the Bundeswehr. A research by WDR and NDR had provided figures for this for the first time: according to the number of drone sightings in the Bundeswehr, from 172 in 2022, to 446 in 2023. The security authorities suspect that Russia is using the equipment, for example, to publish the training of Ukrainian soldiers in Germany.
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