Italian Eurofighters shoot down drone over Latvia, Chancellor Merz authorizes new powers for spy agency and US intel links Russia to explosive drone at Halle/Leipzig Airport

NATO – and all of Europe for that matter – has a problem of "grave concern". The next war is nearly here and Europe is not quite ready. Or rather, it is ready, perhaps, but not for the war it will be fighting.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "US and Ukrainian Forces Went Head-to-Head in an Excerise. Ukraine's Drones Won." At the same time the head of the German Bundeswehr, Gen. Carsten Breuer, told the same paper earlier in the week that Russia has been probing air defense in search of weaknesses for some time. "Hybrid attacks are taking place every day in NATO countries," as "Russia is testing us and looking at how we respond". 

The Baltic states and likely all of civilized Europe's eastern front needs a three-to-five kilometer kill zone on the border along with appropriate infrastructure, which consists of "special infrastructure… to support modern technologies" such as "fiber-optic network running along the entire border" which "should be interconnected so that sensors, cameras, drone positions, communications nodes, and other systems can be plugged into it at different points". This is according to Maj. Robert Brovdi, known by his call sign "Magyar" (meaning Hungarian in Hungarian) in the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces in The Baltic Sentinel.

So far, NATO's response has been Article Four, or consultations. There is a delta between Article Four or more talk and Article Five, an attack on one is considered an attack on all. Most, if not all, eastern front states have been struck now by Russia and many not-so-frontline states too. Russia is engaged in hostile activities against nearly every country, if not every country, in Europe. It is no secret. But Europe badly does not want war but the truth is, the enemy gets a vote and it's priming the pump since years. 

The result of Article Four is usually another mealy mouthed statement of solidarity, a level of concern previously registered but necessarily short of the highest concern level "gravely," less there be no room for escalation. Once upon a time in 2015, Turkey, when the nation was not yet going by its current official name Türkiye, dared to shoot down a Sukhoi Su-24 that entered its airspace. The consequences of that decision? Russia did not try again.

Ukraine similarly has responded to being pounded by Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles by launching deep strikes into Russia attacking refineries, military installations, fighter jets parked on tarmacs and even the warehouses of Russia's equivalent to Amazon, Wildberries, where military equipment is also sold. We were told the nukes would fly if it did so by the previous Biden administration. Instead, Russia's economy appears to be in a tailspin. A rat once backed into a corner tends to jump, as an illustrative story from Russian President Vladimir Putin's childhood has it. He is the same as this rat little Vova backed into a corner.

It is hard to imagine a decisive victory for Europe without the US, but even the US has gutted its military and committed itself to nonsense like testosterone supplements and a purging of non-white men in pursuit of an illusory "warrior ethos" from comic books. Europe has done a bit but not enough to diminish the caricature of itself as a co-dependent kid brother to its American "daddy," in the words of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. 

Maybe we have more of a window onto the future than we are presently willing and able to admit to ourselves because we do not like what we see. Statements of solidarity and concern do not supplant preparation for the inevitable. The Ukrainians have laid out the cards on the table.

So the question becomes: as Europe spends exorbitantly, is it spending on the right things or making key strategic mistakes, like ignoring the need for ground forces in pursuit of the illusion of the bloodless conflict the technofuture of war? The latter is particularly seductive to the politicians: it costs less and less blood is spoiled. However, remember in the end, land is land and air superiority cannot account for forces on the ground. To forget this basic lesson is to forget the hardest lesson of all from 20 long and lost years in Afghanistan.

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RIGA, LATVIA – Italian fighter jets shoot down drone above eastern Latvia

• Corriere della Sera reports Friday that Italian Eurofighter jets serving in the NATO Baltic Air Policing mission shot down an unmanned drone that had entered Latvian air space overnight Thursday into Friday.
• Latvia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baiba Braže, wrote on X: "We are grateful to our Italian allies for serving in #NATO Baltic Air defence mission and maintaining integrity of NATO airspace. A foreign unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down last night by our Italian allies above Eastern Latvia. #WeAreNATO"
• Le Monde adds that Latvia's Defense Ministry wrote on X Friday that the "foreign unmanned aerial vehicle" which "entered Latvia" was the "result of Russian electromagnetic warfare."

BERLIN, GERMANY – Chancellor authorizes new powers for German spy agency  

• Politico reports Wednesday that "German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government is moving to turn the country’s foreign intelligence agency into a more potent weapon to counter mounting threats from adversaries including Russian President Vladimir Putin".
• The intelligence reforms, adopted by members of Merz's cabinet, mark "a major step forward in long-running plans to strengthen the country’s intelligence agencies by giving its spies vast new powers". If the reforms go through, "spies working for Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, could carry out acts of sabotage, conduct offensive cyber operations and pursue more aggressive espionage operations". At present, "those spies have been limited to information-gathering operations".
• For the reforms to be approved, they must first pass " both chambers of parliament before going into effect by 2027". Germany's complex history of domestic spying on political enemies and the terror of the past vis-à-vis the World War II-era Gestapo and Cold War-era East German Stasi mean the reforms are politically charged, especially in an environment where the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) claims political persecution despite the high probability it could emerge victorious in at least one regional election in Saxony-Anhalt this fall.

LEIPZIG/HALLE AIRPORT, GERMANY – US intel links Russia to explosive drone

• The Wall Street Journal reports last Friday that US intelligence assesses that "an explosive-laden drone discovered at an airport in Germany this week likely belongs to the Russian government".
• The drone was spotted at Leipzig/Halle airport close to a Ukrainian cargo airplane late Tuesday night. Reuters reports last Friday that "a bus driver knocked an explosive-laden drone out of the air, potentially preventing an ‌attack" on Leipzig/Halle airport after he found the drone "close to several Ukrainian Antonov An-124 cargo airplanes". The Leipzig/Halle Airport "is the main operational base for ​NATO's Strategic Airlift International Solution, which uses Antonovs to deliver equipment to strengthen the defence pact's ​eastern flank among other missions”. 
• The incident in Germany and Russia’s potential involvement "comes as US intelligence found Russian President Vladimir Putin poses an increased threat to NATO’s eastern flank". Dobrindt, however, "didn’t name Russia as a possible culprit" though he pointed "to a sophisticated foreign actor as the potential culprit".

MECHERNICH, GERMANY – Two drones spotted flying over a German military base

• The Associated Press reports Saturday that "two drones were spotted flying over a German military base", Mechernich, "in the western part of the country" last Thursday around 10pm.
• The latest drone sighting occurred just two days "after a drone carrying explosives was found at the key cargo airport" in Leipzig/Halle.
• In the past year drone sightings over European airports have become more frequent, alarming the public and authorities. Western officials  "have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe" since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY – Low Rhine levels disrupt German industry

• Reuters writes Tuesday that "German companies are reporting ​growing disruption from Rhine water levels that have hit record lows, with chemical producers, utilities, steelmakers and ‌agricultural traders warning of higher costs, transport bottlenecks and curbed production".
• Companies have not yet "suffered the widespread production outages experienced during previous Rhine crises", but traders said, "it was no longer possible to book some cargo shipments after weeks of drought and companies ​are increasingly reporting operational issues".
• Tim-Oliver Mueller, head of the German Construction Industry Federation, said, "the current situation shows that we need to pay greater attention to waterways as part of our critical transport infrastructure". He added "that up to 150 trucks needed to replace a single barge," pointing out capacity shortages in road or rail transport. Katharina Stelzer, executive of German agricultural trader RWZ, said, "if Rhine levels do not recover in ​October, things will get really challenging for us".

VIENNA, AUSTRIA – Two Belarusians convicted in sanctions-evasion scheme

• Reuters reports Wednesday that "an Austrian court on Wednesday convicted two Belarusian cousins of violating export controls by supplying equipment to Russian companies ​that Austria's government says was used to make military items like engines for missiles and fighter jets".
• Earlier in the week, Reuters reported that the Austrian Interior Ministry alleged, "the company falsified end-user certificates to supply the equipment under sanctions". The primary defendant, the 28-year-old Belarusian company chief, was arrested in May.
• The company "concealed ​its shipments through a network of shell companies in Turkey, the United ​Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Poland and Lithuania". Austria's junior minister in charge of intelligence said it was "unacceptable for high-precision European technology to be diverted towards the production of cruise ​missiles and air-defence systems".

VIENNA, AUSTRIA – Israeli women missing in Austria were probably not kidnapped

• The Jerusalem Post reports Thursday that Israeli police imposed a "gag order" on Thursday regarding the week-old disappearance in Vienna of an Israeli mother and daughter, Mali and Liel Yahalomi, following "claims of the mother being behind an embezzlement scheme" which caused Bank of Jerusalem shares to plummet, prompting a response from the bank's CEO.
• The gag order was approved Thursday by Israel's National Economic Crimes Unit after the two failed to materialize for "their scheduled return flight from Prague on Tuesday night". According to Israeli news outlet Ynet, family members had filed a missing persons report with the Israel Police on Sunday and "provided the information they had" after the two women had stopped responding to the relatives' messages. Police are investigating an "indication that location data was deleted from the women's cellphones days before they disappeared".
• Austrian authorities, the Israeli Embassy in Vienna and the Jewish sect Chabad are also involved in the search.

COLLEFERRO, ITALY – Large explosion at Italian munitions factory

• Reuters reports Thursday that "a powerful explosion ripped through a munitions factory near ​the town of Colleferro, southeast of Rome, with the blast heard for kilometres around".
• Firefighters and police were on ​site responding to the fire when the explosion occurred. The Franco-German ⁠defense group KNDS said, "no injuries were reported" at the KNDS Ammo Italy plant, a subsidiary ​of the larger group.
• The plant manufactures "medium- and large-calibre ​ammunition for ​land and ⁠naval defence systems, as well as solid propellants for aerospace launch vehicles". The company is "​among ⁠the contractors on European Defence Agency 155 mm ammunition framework agreements" which were "concluded in 2023".

PARIS, FRANCE – One-fifth of nuclear capacity offline due to extreme weather

• Le Monde reports Wednesday that "France recorded a more than 20% shortfall in nuclear power production capacity, a record deficit caused by environmentally related outages linked to drought, extreme heat and a jellyfish invasion".
• Energy group Électricité de France (EDF) reported that "13 of the 57 reactors" in its "nuclear fleet were affected". Of the 13 reactors, "eight reactors were completely shut down while five were operating at reduced power". Much of the lost capacity "was due to full or partial shutdowns at five of the six reactors at the Gravelines nuclear power plant after a swarm of jellyfish clogged pumps used to cool the units". The jellyfish invasion was due to "overfishing, plastic pollution and warming seas due to climate change".
• France relies "on nuclear power to generate around 70% of its electricity" while other countries such as Germany have abandoned nuclear power domestically but still remain somewhat dependent on France's nuclear power generation.

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Government rejects rigid interpretation of neutrality

• Reuters reports Tuesday that "the Swiss government rejected a rigid interpretation of the country's neutrality which campaigners want to enshrine in the constitution if they win a ​referendum next month".
• Those who support the referundum argue, "Swiss neutrality has been stretched" after the government "imposed economic sanctions on Russia" following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and further object to " closer ties with NATO in areas such as training". Supporters want to enshrine in the Swiss constitution "a pledge that Swiss neutrality will be perpetual and armed, ⁠and that the country would not join any military alliances". The referendum, which will take place on September 27, is backed by the right-wing Swiss People's ​Party.
• Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said, "​the proposed ⁠changes would reduce Switzerland's room to manoeuvre with Swiss cooperation only allowed with foreign powers if the country was either attacked or such an attack was being ⁠prepared" while launching the government's campaign against the referendum. He added that "such cooperation had to be prepared in advance".

ZÜRICH, SWITZERLAND – Former Raiffeisen CEO's appeal hearing starts

• Swissinfo reports Monday that the appellate court hearing of former Raiffeisen chief executive Pierin Vincenz at the Zurich High Court began.
• Vincenz was Raiffeisen's chief executive from 1999 to 2015. The ongoing court case began in 2018 when "the public prosecutor's office had accused the former Raiffeisen boss and his partner in crime," Beat Stocker "of secretly investing in companies and then ensuring that these companies were acquired by Raiffeisen ". Allegedly, "the two raked millions in profit". In 2022, "the Zurich District Court sentenced Vincenz and his business partners to three years and nine months and four years in prison respectively for fraud and multiple embezzlement". The parties appealed to the Zurich High Court.
• The Zurich High Court scheduled ten days to hear Vincenz' appeal, though "it is unclear when the verdict will be delivered".

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Arson attack against the Romanian embassy

• Swissinfo reports Wednesday, "that a burning object was deliberately placed" near the fence of the Romanian embassy.
• The Bern cantonal police said that "the fire spread to the surrounding vegetation". According to the embassy, "the fire was extinguished by the embassy staff themselves". Subsequently, "the fire brigade, which had been called out, set up a fire watch". While property was damaged, "no-one was injured".
• Bern cantonal police "have launched an investigation to clarify the incident".

BASEL, SWITZERLAND – Eleven Kurds sentenced over Turkish children's festival riots

• Swissinfo reports Friday that the Basel City Criminal Court sentenced 11 men for rioting at a Turkish Children's Festival in Basel in May 2022.
• All but one of the men "were convicted of both assault and breach of the peace" while the court "handed down mostly suspended prison sentences of between nine and 23 months". Two men received partially suspended sentences and "were sentenced to 34 and 36 months respectively of which they must serve six and eight months respectively in prison". In court, the judge stated, "not only did they bring the Kurdish-Turkish conflict to Basel, but they also carried it out violently in the open street".
• Most of the defendants stated during questioning at the main hearing in June that "they had fled Turkey for political reasons and had sought asylum in Switzerland". They denied, however, "having been actively involved with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or made no statements on the matter". Switzerland is home to considerable Kurdish as well as Turkish diasporas.

Stay safe and if you want peace, prepare for war!

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