🔶 Sabotage at Germany’s power facilities; foreign involvement is being investigated

German officials say a short circuit at an electrical substation in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia was probably deliberately caused, and investigations have started into the possibility of “anti-constitutional sabotage.”

The incident bears similarities to an attack that same day targeted power infrastructure in the state of Brandenburg in eastern Germany.

The incident on the evening of Tuesday, August 31 (September 10), occurred at an electrical substation in Bergheim, near the city of Cologne.

Herbert Reul, Germany’s Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, said: “There is initial suspicion of anti-constitutional sabotage.”

He added that the investigations are being pursued “in two tracks: sabotage directed by a foreign state and left-wing extremism.”

The police also said that initial evidence indicates the incident was not caused by a technical malfunction.

A police spokesperson said: “Based on the current state of the investigation, we do not assume a technical defect; rather, we believe we are dealing with an intentional act and a criminal offense.”

Following the Bergheim incident, five units at lignite coal power plants of the energy company “RWE Power” were taken offline at two locations of the power grid.

A spokesperson for the company said that the total nominal capacity of these five units is about 4,200 megawatts and that at the time of the incident they were supplying around 3,000 megawatts of electricity to the grid.

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