Weeks after blaming Russia for the explosive drone found at Leipzig/Halle Airport, Berlin unveils Formular DR-26, which hostile states must file before attacking.
Weeks after blaming Russia for the explosive drone found at Leipzig/Halle Airport, Germany unveils its deterrent: Formular DR-26, a twenty-six-page form hostile states must file before committing sabotage. Moscow responds by denying the drone, the airport and, briefly, eastern Germany. Brussels wants a continent-wide version with a satisfaction survey.
"— and if Moscow cannot produce the stamped copy, then as far as the Federal Republic is concerned, the drone never happened," said Interior Ministry spokesman Dieter Vollstrecker, patting a folder thick enough to stop shrapnel.
Germany has responded to the failed drone attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport the way it responds to everything. It has produced a form. Formular DR-26, unveiled Thursday, requires any foreign power planning sabotage on German soil to register the operation twenty-six working days in advance, in triplicate, with a passport photograph of the drone.
The real grievance is real enough. Investigators found an explosive-laden drone near a Ukrainian cargo plane at the airport, and Berlin has since pointed the finger at Russia, which is diplomatic language for pointing the finger at Russia quite slowly, in case Russia missed it.
As sabotage plots go, this one arrived like a sequel nobody asked for. A pipeline on a seabed, a run of warehouse fires, parcels that smoked in a Leipzig depot. Same studio, same producers, a slightly cheaper aircraft. The critics gave it one star in 2022 and the franchise carried on regardless.
The form itself runs to twenty-six sections. Applicants must state the target, the tonnage of explosive, and whether the operation will require airport parking, which is billed separately. A processing fee of twenty-six euros applies. Late sabotage is refused at the border and returned to sender.
"Chaos we can survive," Vollstrecker said. "Undocumented chaos is another matter entirely."
Moscow's response followed the classic pattern, which is to say it denied the drone, then the airport, then, for one bracing hour on Thursday afternoon, eastern Germany. Two men once flew to Britain purely to admire a cathedral spire, so the register of excuses is not exactly untested.
Brussels, naturally, is thrilled. "This is deterrence Europe can be proud of," said EU security coordinator Margarethe Van Hoof, announcing plans for a continent-wide version with a customer satisfaction survey attached. Poland has reportedly asked whether the form can simply be set on fire and mailed back as a reply.
Peace through processing
Aviation officials at Leipzig/Halle say normal operations have resumed, and that any further explosive devices found on the apron will be treated as incomplete applications. The investigation continues, at the speed investigations continue.
Your correspondent has watched great powers try to restrain other great powers with paperwork before, and the paperwork always survives longer than the peace. One is reminded, inevitably, of a small piece of paper waved at an aerodrome in 1938, and of how sturdily that held.
