Thuringia’s Interior Minister, Georg Maier (SPD), believes that security-relevant incidents, such as the thwarted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport, are connected to the upcoming state elections. Speaking to “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland,” he stated, “Given the increase in security-relevant events, I do not believe these are coincidences.” While he clarified that this applies not to every single incident, but rather overall, and specifically during the lead-up to elections-such as those coming up in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Berlin-a similar concentration of events occurred before the last elections.
Maier also referenced the recent arrest of a “low-level agent” in Thuringia. This Ukrainian citizen allegedly spied on the premises of an arms company in Bavaria on behalf of a foreign intelligence service.
The SPD politician further argued that these hybrid attacks have reached a scale that many in politics and society were unwilling to see or acknowledge. Even more serious, he noted, is the matter of disinformation. He explained that this is having an effect even on people who were previously politically entrenched. Everything being done is aimed at destabilizing democracy. Maier concluded by suggesting that if an AfD-government were to hold power in a German federal state, “the corks in the Kremlin would pop.”
