EU and Nato vow to step up pressure on Russia after ‘new escalation’ in Leipzig

Several acts of suspected sabotage have been reported in Germany in the past 24 hours alone, including two attacks on electricity substations, one in the east and one in the west near Cologne.

Although authorities do not yet know who was behind the incidents, North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul said an attack that targeted power lines at Bergheim in western Germany was deliberate and whoever had carried out was attacking the country as a whole.

“We are investigating two possibilities: sabotage directed by a foreign state and left-wing extremism,” he said.

Several power lines failed prompting five power plant units to go offline at two separate coal-fired power stations. Police said six launching devices had been found in a field.

High-voltage power lines were damaged near the Jänschwalde coal-fired power plant in Brandenburg early on Tuesday and explosive devices were later found at a substation.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a fire at a factory producing combat drones at Skarżysko-Kamienna, 140km (85 miles) south of Warsaw was a deliberate act of arson and sabotage. Arson has also not been ruled out in a fire at a factory in Lublin on Sunday night.

Von der Leyen said sanctions had already been used to deter Russia, and EU foreign ministers were discussing further ways of “cutting deeper in Russia’s war chest”.

The EU has already agreed to loan Ukraine €90bn (£77bn), and von der Leyen said Kyiv had asked for billions of extra euros in funding to help pay for PAC-3 air defence missiles. Work was already taking place on a joint Europe-Ukraine Freyja anti-ballistic missile defence project, she added.

She promised that Europe and Nato would just maintain pressure on Moscow but “we will increase it and we will not stop, not until Russia stops bombing and killing innocent children, men and children in Ukraine”.