Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on October 5, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Germany's Defence Minister stresses caution against Russian provocations, advocating for improved defences and strategic state involvement.
By Thomas Escritt
BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany must improve its anti-drone defences, its defence minister said, but warned against a hasty response to airspace incursions by Russia which would risk falling into "Putin's escalation trap".
Boris Pistorius' remarks in an interview with Handelsblatt newspaper followed drone sightings at Munich Airport that cancelled dozens of flights and stranded over 10,000 passengers this weekend.
Authorities have yet to attribute blame, but officials have said Russia was responsible for dozens of recent aircraft incursions and sightings in the airspace of Ukraine's European allies.
"Putin knows Germany very, very well," Pistorius said of the Russian President, who was a KGB agent in East Germany in the 1980s.
"We mustn't fall into Putin's escalation trap," he added. "If we shot an aeroplane down, he would claim the airspace violation was just pilot error and we had shot down an innocent young man," he told Handelsblatt.
STATE ROLE IN DEFENCE COMPANIES
Germany needed to take an overview of all relevant threats, not just drone incursions, in order to draw links between seemingly unrelated events, he said.
"Say there are lots of forest fires or power cuts in several regions at the same time," he said. "All relevant data for assessing Germany's security situation must flow to a single point."
Germany should follow France in taking active state stewardship of important defence companies.
"Firms with key technologies need to be preserved," he said. "We need the state shares, I'm convinced of it: also to ensure that know-how and jobs are kept in Germany."
DECISION ON FCAS NEEDS TO COME SOON
Pistorius also warned that without a clear commitment by all three governments to the joint Franco-German-Spanish warplane project FCAS, Germany would withdraw.
"I'll talk with my counterparts as soon as there is a French government," he said. "The Chancellor and I are in full agreement that there needs to be a decision by the end of the year... Otherwise we will pull the plug."
He issued a pointed warning to Washington with respect to rumours of a "kill switch" in its F-35 warplane that would control how customers used it.
"If there were such limitations - of which there is no sign - U.S. industry would immediately look unreliable, and nobody would buy from them," he said.
(Reporting by Thomas EscrittEditing by Ros Russell)
Anti-drone defense refers to systems and technologies designed to detect, track, and neutralize unauthorized drones that may pose a threat to security, particularly in sensitive areas like airports or military installations.
Escalation in military terms refers to the process of increasing the intensity or scale of a conflict, often leading to greater military engagement or the use of more advanced weaponry.
The Franco-German-Spanish warplane project, known as FCAS (Future Combat Air System), aims to develop a next-generation combat aircraft to enhance European defense capabilities and replace older aircraft models.
Pilot error refers to mistakes made by a pilot during the operation of an aircraft, which can lead to accidents or incidents. It is often a factor in aviation safety assessments.
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