“We must not fall into Putin’s escalation trap. If we shot down a plane, he would claim that the airspace violation was merely a pilot’s mistake and that we had killed an innocent young man,” said Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. In his view, restraint is necessary when deciding whether to shoot down Russian aircraft.
German defence minister against shooting down Russian planes
In a conversation published on Sunday with the business daily, Pistorius said that Vladimir Putin, who in the 1980s served as a KGB agent in the GDR, “knows Germany very well.”
In that context, the minister warned: “We cannot fall into Putin’s escalation trap.” “If we shot down a plane, he would say that the airspace violation was only the pilot’s mistake, and we would have killed an innocent young man,” said the SPD minister.
Pistorius’s remarks are consistent with earlier reports in the German press that the government in Berlin is taking a cautious stance in the discussion about possibly shooting down Russian aircraft. After Russian drones violated Polish airspace in September, Pistorius already stated that European countries should not “allow themselves to be drawn by Putin into an escalation trap.”
On the topic of shooting down drones, Pistorius told Handelsblatt that the Bundeswehr does not have the logistical capacity to protect the airspace of the whole of Germany. He also advocated increasing state capital involvement in the arms industry.
Russian provocations
Pistorius spoke after the drone incidents at Munich airport. From Thursday night to Friday morning, several dozen flights were cancelled in Bavaria’s capital because of this; the disruption affected the travel plans of more than 10,000 people.
Because of a growing number of unregistered drone flights in Germany, including close to critical infrastructure, Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt wants to allow the Bundeswehr to shoot down suspicious unmanned aircraft. This will require major legal changes, probably even at the constitutional level.
Next week, the German government is due to discuss details of the first legislative changes. Initially, new anti-drone measures for the federal police will be considered. Officers are to be equipped with new drone jammers, lasers, and interception drones.