The chairman of the Bundestag’s Parliamentary Control Panel, Marc Henrichmann, has put forward a proposal to enable Germany’s intelligence services to carry out pre-emptive cyberattacks against Russian drone manufacturers and military facilities, European Pravda reports, citing the Die Welt.
Henrichmann believes that the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution should be given “the necessary legal and technical capabilities” to detect threats from Russia in advance as part of an upcoming reform of the intelligence services.
He said that “simply gathering information will no longer be enough” in the future and that “the best drone is the one that never takes off and is never able to threaten Germany.”
He added that the intelligence services should be allowed to “cripple and disable the attack drone in Russia itself, or the factory that produces it, before it targets a German airport.”
The government is due to discuss amendments to the legislation governing the work of intelligence services on 12 August.
The debate over expanding intelligence powers comes as Germany investigates the incident at Leipzig Airport, where a drone carrying explosives was found next to a Ukrainian aircraft; it had hit the plane’s wing and fell to the ground.
US intelligence has linked the incident to Russia, while the Russian embassy in Berlin has described the event as a “fabricated provocation.”
In 2025, Germany accused Russia of a cyber-attack on air traffic control and attempted electoral interference in 2024.