EU and Nato vow to step up pressure on Russia after 'new escalation' in Germany

The heads of Nato and the European Commission have warned that Russia is growing increasingly reckless and vowed to respond to a "new normal".

"Leipzig marks a new escalation on European Union soil directly attributed to Russia," said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a day after Germany blamed Russia for a failed drone attack last month on Leipzig airport.

"We have to step up and that means being ready to respond to Russia's recklessness faster and better," von der Leyen said. Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said the whole alliance, which includes the US, stood "in full solidarity with Germany".

Russia has rejected German accusations that a drone carrying explosives deliberately targeted a Ukrainian cargo plane on 4 August.

The drone was defused by a robot at Leipzig/Halle airport and a second drone is thought to have collided with another cargo plane.

A third drone was reportedly found 10 days later at the airport, which is an important Nato hub and is regularly used by Ukrainian Antonov transport aircraft.

It was not until Tuesday that the German government said police investigations and intelligence finding had proved that Russia was behind the incidents.

The interior minister said that the drone's configuration, components, explosives and detonator were all known from other Russian hybrid operations.

Two suspects have reportedly been identified in the Leipzig attack, including a Belarusian with a Russian passport who entered on a tourist visa, and another with Latvian and Russian passports who arrived by plane in Berlin and flew out two days before the failed attack.

Berlin has said it will close the Russian consulate in Bonn as well as the Russian House cultural institution, widely suspected in Berlin of acting as a propaganda outlet for the Kremlin.

The Russian foreign ministry promised to respond in "mirror-image" fashion and said Berlin had offered no evidence to back its claims.

Vladimir Putin has condemned Germany's measures as a serious mistake that "clearly runs counter to the interests of the German people".

Asked whether Moscow would be prepared to sever relations with Berlin, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said "maybe", but for now it was giving diplomacy a chance.

Critics in Germany suggested the German response was relatively weak, but Berlin has its eye on a more co-ordinated response with its allies, including extended EU sanctions and entry restrictions on Russian visitors across the bloc.

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Von der Leyen was clear in her statement that the Leipzig attack had involved "military-grade material carried out by Russian operatives on European Union soil".

"We will not tolerate it," she said.

While she was meeting Rutte in Brussels, EU foreign ministers had gathered at Wicklow in Ireland, where France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said action could be taken on a European level against Russia's so-called "shadow fleet" of ships carrying oil and other cargo aimed at avoiding EU sanctions.

Barrot and fellow ministers from Belgium and the Netherlands said they had summoned Russian ambassadors in protest at the attack.

Lithuania's Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said it was obvious that Russia saw no political cost in its hybrid operations against European allies.

The Leipzig attack was part of a broader pattern of increasingly dangerous incidents, including drones and interference with critical infrastructure, von der Leyen said.

Mark Rutte added there had been increased risk to Europeans from drones and missiles crossing into countries on the Alliance's eastern flank, and there had been more "malign activities targeting our territory directly, whether it is fires set in factories producing defence equipment for Ukraine or indeed the Russian hybrid attack in Leipzig".

Several acts of suspected sabotage have been reported in Germany in the past 24 hours alone, including two attacks on electricity substations, one in the east and one in the west near Cologne.

Although authorities do not yet know who was behind the incidents, North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul said an attack that targeted power lines at Bergheim in western Germany was deliberate and whoever had carried out was attacking the country as a whole.

"We are investigating two possibilities: sabotage directed by a foreign state and left-wing extremism," he said.