Ten thousand residents living near a military base in western Germany were told to stop using tap water on Thursday night as authorities investigated a possible sabotage of a water point.
The warning was issued after a fence was found cut off at a water storage site in the Mechenich area near Bonn. The alert was eventually lifted on Friday morning, although residents were urged to boil water before drinking.
A day earlier, an air force base near Cologne-Bonn Airport was cordoned off for several hours after “abnormal water values” were detected in the water supply.
Separately, NATO reported attempts to invade its Geilenkirchen base near the Dutch border.
Although Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr, are on high alert due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the extent of the damage in any of the three incidents remains unclear.
NATO’s AWACS aircraft are based in Geilenkirchen, and the Cologne-Wahn base, close to the main regional airport, is home to aircraft used by top brass in the Luftwaffe and government ministers traveling abroad.
More than 5,000 soldiers and civilians are said to be working at the Cologne-Wan base, and while the outer fence was not damaged, a hole was found in the fence close to the camp’s water supply.
No one has been detained in connection with any of the three alleged vandalism incidents.
Residents of Mechenich and surrounding towns and villages quickly stocked up on bottled water on Thursday night, and fire brigades drove around the area warning people not to use tap water for drinking, showering or preparing food, regional public broadcaster WDR reported.
Military officials are taking recent events very seriously. Interior Minister Nancy Feather said this week that even before the series of scares, Germany faced a greater danger of Russian sabotage.
“We must protect ourselves from threats such as espionage, sabotage, cyber attacks and state terrorism,” she told Handelsblatt on Monday, explaining that Ukraine’s advance into Russian territory could exacerbate the threat.
German-supplied MADR armored vehicles are apparently being used by the Ukrainians in the Kursk region.
Germany is the second largest military aid donor to Ukraine after the United States Approximately €28bn (£24bn) allocated According to the latest data, Russia has launched a full-scale invasion since February 2022.
Just last month, the domestic intelligence service (Verfassungschutz) warned of an increased risk of sabotage and there were reports of a suspected Russian plot to assassinate the head of Germany’s largest arms company, Rheinmetall.
Last April, two German-Russian dual nationals were arrested in the southwestern state of Bavaria on suspicion of planning to sabotage military or industrial targets.
