Overview

• An internal memo reported by German media describes coordinated formations, including a “mother drone,” flying parallel tracks to survey sites in Kiel such as a power plant, the university hospital, the state government seat, shipyard facilities and stretches of the Kiel Canal and Kiel Fjord.
• State authorities in Schleswig‑Holstein have opened an espionage investigation into the flights, though officials have not identified the operators or linked them to any state actor.
• Similar suspicious activity was reported in Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern over a Bundeswehr site in Sanitz, the Navy command in Rostock and the city’s port, where large quadcopters above 2.5 kilograms reportedly moved in a coordinated pattern.
• Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt says he will quickly advance legal changes and set up a joint drone‑defence center, with plans to enable the Bundeswehr to support police in countering hostile drones.
• Schleswig‑Holstein’s interior minister told lawmakers there is no “qualitatively increased and concrete” threat assessment at this time, noting some reports were later identified as aircraft, helicopters or legal drones while others remain under review by state criminal police.