Comment by hagbard_c
20 hours ago
Here's Deutsche Welle - what used to be the German international radio service - on the subject:
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-news-police-raid-vehicle-of-su...
German authorities believe a militant climate activist was behind a series of recent sabotage attacks on the country's power grid and are hunting for a 48-year-old suspect.
This suspect is now under arrest as also can be read in the following report by The Local (DE):
https://www.thelocal.de/20260908/german-police-arrest-suspec...
* German police on Tuesday arrested a suspected militant climate activist over a spate of sabotage attacks on the power grid that had apparently aimed to disrupt power from coal-fired plants.
The man, partially named in German media as Daniel V., 48, had spent days on the run since the first attacks last Tuesday in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) states.
Police in the city of Cologne said Tuesday that officers had "apprehended the wanted 48-year-old suspect near the Weisweiler power plant" in NRW state.
"The man was carrying additional explosive devices at the time of his arrest but offered no resistance," they said in a statement.*
Now that I showed these sources - none of them exactly 'Russian-friendly' as you might know, otherwise read a bit more of their reporting on similar subjects - will you agree that this specific case was not directly related to Russia? That these 'climate extremists' do not need to be directed by the FSB or GRU to attack their own country's infrastructure because they have somehow convinced themselves that their 'climate activism' is a good cause?
After you agreed to this can you also agree to the fact that blindly claiming 'Russia Russia Russia' does nobody a favour, least of all those who want to be able to show where Russia is actually responsible for similar attacks? This is quite important because in the end it is not infeasible that Russia and its Soviet Union predecessor are actually responsible for these anti-Western activities through the decades of support - financial, ideological and sometimes practical - they lent to all manners of activism in the west with the goal of undermining western society.
Why is it unlikely that Russia would seek to obscure its involvement by recruiting (possibly without their knowledge that Russian was involved ) locals to carry out these acts?
If Russia was behind it, this seems like the most likely way they would proceed.
You're reasoning from the standpoint that Russia was behind it while I'm reasoning from the standpoint that this is not a given and as such does not need to be front and center. Once the culprit has been caught there is enough time to finagle out where he got his motive, mode and means. If this turns out to be something related to some foreign state it can and should become the issue, now with actual proof of their involvement. Starting out with 'Russia was behind it, we just need to find proof' is counterproductive because it ends up like the boy who cried 'Wolf!' or its modern urban equivalent: howling car alarms. Nobody blinks an eye because they've heard it so often it blends into the background and is most likely false alarm anyway.