Unidentified drones spotted over German military airbase

BERLIN: German authorities said on Friday that unidentified drones had been spotted flying over sensitive military and industrial sites including the US Ramstein airbase.

The reports come after German officials have repeatedly voiced alarm about the threat of Russian spying as the Ukraine war heightens tensions between Moscow and Nato.

However, police did not say who they thought had launched the unmanned aerial vehicles.

“In recent days, several drone flights have been detected over critical infrastructure in Rhineland-Palatinate state,” a regional police spokesman told AFP.

The UAVs were first sighted at German company BASF´s plant in Ludwigshafen, known as the world´s biggest chemicals complex, the spokesman said.

“This was followed in the course of this week by drone overflights over the US airbase in Ramstein,” he added.

The drones were detected at dusk and were “larger than the usual commercial hobby drones”, the spokesman said.

Police in Rhineland-Palatinate have set up a special investigative unit to look into the incidents.

There is “no concrete danger to the facilities concerned”, the spokesman said. The sightings in Ramstein were on December 3 and 4, according to Der Spiegel magazine.