There is still no electricity in parts of Berlin.Image: keystone
Jan 6, 2026, 3:58 p.mJan 6, 2026, 3:58 p.m
The attack on power cables and the beginning of the day-long power outage in a part of Berlin were still fresh when speculation about who was responsible began.
Could Russia and one of its secret services be the actual perpetrators – instead of a left-wing extremist group, wondered on the Internet, including well-known politicians from the Christian Democrats who govern Germany. However, the police clearly speak of left-wing extremists. There is no mention of any indications towards Russia.
The arson attack on a cable bridge caused a power outage in the southwest of the German capital on Saturday morning, which initially affected 45,000 households and 2,200 companies – three days later, today, Tuesday, around 25,500 households and around 1,200 companies are still without power. The left-wing extremist group “Vulkangruppe” claimed responsibility for the attack.
The letter of confession could have been translated from Russian, according to social media portals. Strange language and unusual formulations in the text, which is almost eleven pages long, are cited as evidence.
CDU foreign politician Kiesewetter: Don’t rule anything out
A foreign policy expert from the Christian Democratic CDU, Roderich Kiesewetter, told “Welt” that a language analysis shows that the back translation into Russian results in a much better language than this “bumpy” German. “So left-wing extremism either doesn’t know German properly or they allow themselves to be told what they should say.” Now you have to evaluate everything and not exclude anything.
CDU foreign politician Roderich Kiesewetter.Image: www.imago-images.de
Former CDU general secretary Ruprecht Polenz posted on He could get help from such groups in such acts of sabotage.”
Police Vice President: Comes from the left-wing extremist area
Berlin’s police vice-president Marco Langner, however, emphasized: “The checks that we carried out in cooperation with the BKA (Federal Criminal Police Office) point to this group of volcanoes – very clearly. We see this letter of confession as authentic and can therefore say that it comes from the left-wing extremist area. But: “We always investigate in all directions.”
Langner said police thoroughly examined the crime scene and the accelerant. Sniffer dogs were used and videos from train stations were evaluated. “We will use all technical possibilities to advance the investigation.” Police circles point to the scene-typical language in the confession letter, which has long been used by left-wing extremists. And the attack targets would also fit.
Interior Senator warns against false information
Berlin’s Interior Senator Iris Spranger warns against false speculation. “There is false information circulating,” said the politician from the SPD – the Social Democratic coalition partner of the Christian Democrats in the federal government. “Here we consciously accept that uncertainty will arise.” She did not give any specific examples. She called for information from official sources.
AI expert: Wordings not written in German
The AI expert Andrea Schlüter, who deals with language and gives seminars, writes at Bluesky that she is “pretty sure about some formulations that they were NOT originally written in German”. She then quotes several formulations from the confessional text: “With every post we feed the fire that surrounds us,” “Only the shock of where we have ended up as humanity,” “The concerns are almost zero if….”
Someone else explains: “Whoever writes “Vans” for Vance knows the name (only or mainly) from the usual Cyrillic spelling. (…) And anyone who writes Giffey and Giffay in the very next line probably only knows this name from the Cyrillic transcription.” Berlin’s Senator for Economic Affairs is Franziska Giffey.
A user relies on a computer-aided analysis and comes to the conclusion: “The text has grammatical patterns that appear unnatural in German and indicate specific transfer errors.”
Journalist: RAF confession letters were already pompous
The well-known “Stern” journalist Miriam Hollstein points to the rather garbled language in left-wing radical confession letters:
«I think both are conceivable. Left-wing extremist lunatics (the RAF confession letters also had this pompous attitude). Or a Russian false flag operation. Both groups share one goal: to destabilize society.”
The “Tagesspiegel” refers to security circles that stated that Russian secret services would make operations in future conflicts more difficult with such an action. A test run with middlemen is possible. However, this warns the enemy of the power supply as a target. Germany can now really prepare for this. (hkl/sda/dpa)