EU Readies 1,600 New Russia Sanctions Targets Over Leipzig 'Escalation'
Ursula von der Leyen called the Leipzig drone plot “a new escalation on European Union soil directly attributed to Russia”, as the EU prepared sanctions on 1,600 additional individuals and entities and Kaja Kallas branded the attack “state-sponsored terrorism”. NATO’s Mark Rutte declared “full solidarity with Germany”. France, Belgium and the Netherlands summoned Russian ambassadors, while German investigators probed fresh sabotage at two electricity substations that knocked five power-station units offline. Moscow’s deputy foreign minister, asked if relations with Berlin might be severed: “maybe”.
Germany’s attribution has done what attributions are for — unlocked a collective response: within a day the Commission president adopted the finding as the EU’s own, sixteen hundred names entered the sanctions pipeline, and three more capitals summoned ambassadors. The substation attacks, if state-directed, suggest Moscow’s answer to exposure is tempo — six launching devices in a field near Cologne while the Leipzig evidence is still being catalogued. The unresolved question sits in Brussels’ vault: £165bn of frozen Russian assets, with Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain pushing to spend them on Ukraine and Belgium still blocking. Escalation on EU soil is the argument the holdouts have not yet answered. Watch the substation forensics — a second attributed attack in a week would move the assets question from taboo to timetable.