The German government’s conclusion this week that Russia was behind last month’s drone attack at Leipzig airport confirms what some European leaders have been reluctant to state plainly. The European Union is the target of a sustained campaign of sabotage, and the incidents are growing more frequent and more brazen.
The Leipzig attack, in which an explosives-laden drone was found beside a Ukrainian cargo aircraft, is not an isolated case. In recent weeks Poland has said it foiled a Russian-ordered plot to assassinate a Ukrainian-born US citizen, Estonia has detained suspects over an arson attack on a firm that supplies unmanned vehicles to Kyiv, and a Latvian charity warehouse holding aid for Ukraine was set alight. Drones have breached airspace and disrupted airports from Romania to Germany. Attribution is often slow, because Moscow tends to recruit disposable local proxies rather than use its own agents, and it denies everything. The pattern, however, is unmistakable. One recent tally counted more than 150 such operations across Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the tempo has plainly quickened.
The Irish Government has summoned Russian ambassador Yury Filatov for a diplomatic rebuke, reflecting concerns heightened by its current presidency of the Council of the EU. This week Helen McEntee hosted fellow foreign
ministers from the EU, together with the United Kingdom, in Wicklow, where the threat from Russia dominated. The Government points to a claimed 43 per cent rise in defence spending over two years, from a level it concedes was far too low. However, that increase was from a baseline so meagre by international standards that even a substantial jump leaves Ireland poorly equipped.
The limits of that capacity were on display in recent reports that British and French vessels have provided security cover off the coast during presidency events, illustrating how quickly old assumptions about the acceptability of such cooperation are shifting. For those who value Ireland’s neutrality, the sight of a Royal Navy submarine hunter patrolling nearby, even if beyond territorial waters, is an uncomfortable symbol of dependence.
These developments demand a full and frank public debate rather than decisions arrived at by drift. That debate must take in the Government’s plan to abolish the triple lock, the mechanism requiring United Nations approval before troops can be deployed abroad in any number.
None of this is comfortable for a State long accustomed to regarding its security as somebody else’s problem. Yet the reality is that traditional concepts of Ireland’s security needs and its defence responsibilities are undergoing a fundamental change, and the sooner that is honestly confronted, the better.