Germany became the second country to condemn Moscow over the publication of a list of companies Russia claimed are helping produce attack drones for Ukraine, warning that “direct threats” are “unacceptable.”
Last week, the Czech Republic demanded an explanation after Russia’s Defense Ministry published the addresses of what it said were arms makers in several countries and the verbally pugnacious former President Dmitry Medvedev called it “a list of potential targets” for the Russian military.
The German Foreign Ministry did the same on April 20, calling in Russian Ambassador Sergei Nechayev and posting on X: “Direct threats from Russia against targets in Germany are an attempt to weaken our support for Ukraine and test our unity.”
“Our response is clear: we will not be intimidated. Such threats, and all forms of espionage activities in Germany, are completely unacceptable,” the ministry said.
“That is why the Russian ambassador was summoned today.”
The list, which included company addresses in numerous nations, most of them in Europe, was published by the Russian Defense Ministry on April 15 along with a warning that such cooperation is “dragging these countries faster into a war with Russia” and could have “unpredictable consequences.”
The publication came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Berlin, meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Germany said it would “continue supporting Ukraine’s drone industry as well as establishing drone co-production ventures.”
Three of the 21 companies listed by the Russian Defense Ministry were in Germany.
In a statement on its website, the Russian ministry said what it called European efforts to increase supplies of drones to Ukraine would lead to a “sharp escalation of the military-political situation throughout the European continent and the creeping transformation of these countries into Ukraine’s strategic rear.”
The statement echoed numerous warnings from the Kremlin and Russian government ministries accusing the West and particularly Europe of escalating the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022.
Medvedev injected overtly threatening language in a post on X later in the day, writing that the “Defense Ministry statement must be taken literally: the list of European facilities which make drones & other equipment is a list of potential targets for the Russian armed forces.”
“When strikes become a reality depends on what comes next,” he wrote. “Sleep well, European partners!”
President of Russia from 2008-12 and prime minister from 2012-20, Medvedev is now deputy chairman of Putin’s advisory Security Council.
As president, he presented himself as a relative liberal and a supporter of democratic reform, but he has transformed into an often rabidly bellicose critic of Europe and supporter of Russia’s war against Ukraine, using social media to deliver poisonous rhetoric and nuclear threats against the West.
Several European countries have announced plans to increase defense cooperation with Ukraine, including joint drone production and efforts to learn from Kyiv’s battlefield experience with drone warfare, as Russia’s invasion continues relentlessly and US support wanes.
