Diplomatic protests won’t stop Putin’s sabotage – only hitting back with real costs and arming Ukraine with missiles will
David Blair
2 September 2026
The Telegraph
How does a country that plays by the rules defend itself against a state with no rules? Germany’s response to the Russian drone attack at Leipzig-Halle airport exemplifies the conundrum faced by the whole of Europe as Vladimir Putin carries out a campaign of sabotage and subversion.
Anyone who happened to be passing through Leipzig-Halle on August 4 – more than two million passengers do every year – should give thanks that the bomb on the drone that slammed into a Ukrainian cargo plane somehow failed to explode. Had it done so, a four-engined Antonov An-124 – with a wingspan bigger than a jumbo jet’s – would have gone up in flames on the tarmac, causing carnage and destruction.
Yet Germany’s reaction to what Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, accurately termed “state-sponsored terrorism” came straight from the diplomatic rulebook.
First, Germany spent almost a month methodically investigating the incident. Then, having gathered the evidence, it declared Russia to be the perpetrator. Finally, Germany conveyed its protest and imposed a cost by reducing Russia’s diplomatic presence in the country.
Johann Wadephul, the German foreign minister, duly summoned the Russian ambassador and announced the closure of the Kremlin’s consulate in Bonn and a Russian cultural centre in Berlin.
This sequence might have sprung from the genteel pages of Sir Ernest Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice, whose weighty volumes are still consulted. “There are occasions,” writes Satow, “when the minister for foreign affairs, wishing to communicate his government’s message with the greatest force, will summon a foreign ambassador to receive it personally.”
But what about when a foreign state has tried to ignite a raging inferno at one of your airports? Does that count as an occasion when summoning an ambassador makes your point “with the greatest force”? And is there any evidence that Putin is deterred by the civilised ritual of diplomatic protest plus expulsions?
One official from a central European country says that Russia is “testing the response to these increasingly risk-prone activities”. If the reaction is too weak, then “we sure as hell can expect these activities to increase in scale and scope – and sooner or later, there will be civilian casualties”.
Some well-informed Germans have been blunt about the reality of their country’s relationship with Russia. “Germany and Russia are at war,” said Stefan Thumann, the chief executive of
Donaustahl, a German defence company engaged in supplying drones to Ukraine. He told the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes The Telegraph, that Russian sabotage in Germany amounted to an “act of war” controlled by the “Russian armed forces”.
If so, Germany’s impeccably restrained and traditional response to the Leipzig-Halle incident would risk looking not just irrelevant, but quaint. True enough, the only way of deterring Russia is by imposing real costs, as Putin cares nothing for protests or gestures.
But, unlikely as it may sound, the closure of Russia’s consulate in Bonn and its cultural centre in Berlin could have an operational impact on Putin’s campaign of sabotage and subversion in Europe. We can safely assume that many – perhaps most – of the Russian officials accredited to these institutions were, in fact, intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover.
If so, they will have benefited not just from legal immunity, but Schengen visas allowing them free movement across 29 European countries. The loss of any such well-positioned personnel would be a practical blow to Russian intelligence.
But a far more effective response would have been for Germany to supply Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles and authorise Volodymyr Zelensky’s government to use these weapons against targets inside Russia. Both Britain and France have given Ukraine a number of Storm Shadow missiles along with permission to fire them at Russian territory.
Friedrich Merz, as opposition leader in Germany, promised to do the same only to retreat as soon as he became chancellor last May, either because of the risk of Russian retaliation or the danger of reducing his country’s stockpile of these munitions.
Now would be the time for Merz to reconsider his position on Taurus. If he could give Ukraine this or another weapon for use against Russia, then he should. That would be a symmetrical response to the attack on Leipzig-Halle.
There are plenty of other steps that European countries could take in response to Russian sabotage and subversion, detailed by the Centre for European Policy Analysis (Cepa), a Washington think tank. They could target “Russian military logistics” with “cyber pressure” campaigns, intercept more shadow-fleet tankers and act together to ensure that every incident encounters a collective response.
Deterrence will be “restored only when Russia learns that shadow warfare reliably produces consequences that outweigh its benefits”, says Cepa.
Many responses will necessarily be covert, but there is one principle that Europe could make public. For every explosion or act of destruction that Russian operatives may cause in a European country, the reaction will be more military support for Ukraine and a greater willingness for these weapons to be used against the invader’s territory. Rather than follow Russia by abandoning the rulebook, Europe must resolutely update it.
David Blair was a foreign correspondent for nearly 20 years, reporting from 60 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He then joined the Foreign Office and later No10, where he wrote speeches and advised three Foreign Secretaries and one Prime Minister. He returned to The Telegraph as Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator in 2025.