Suspected sabotage of German corvette “Emden” (Hamburg)

Toward the end of 2024, unknown persons introduced several dozen kilograms of metal shavings into the propulsion system of the new German Navy corvette "Emden" (F266), a Braunschweig-class (K130) vessel then being fitted out at the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg. According to Defence Network and German public-broadcaster and newspaper reporting, the contamination was found in the ship's engines during an on-board inspection in mid-January 2025, shortly before the corvette was due to depart for its first sea trials toward Kiel.

The shavings were detected and removed before the ship sailed. Experts cited in the reporting said that, had the material gone undetected, it could have caused serious damage to the propulsion system, potentially rendering the corvette unusable for an extended period and delaying its handover to the Navy. The incident was treated as suspected sabotage and investigated by the Hamburg public prosecutor's office and the regional criminal police. The German Navy and defence ministry largely declined to comment on the specific case.

Navy Inspector Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack acknowledged that "more than one" German naval unit had been targeted by sabotage in recent years, without confirming details of the Emden case or naming a perpetrator. In early February 2026, prosecutors announced the arrests in Hamburg and Greece of two dock workers, a 37-year-old Romanian and a 54-year-old Greek, suspected of sabotaging German warships in the port, including pouring abrasive grit into an engine block, puncturing freshwater lines, removing fuel-tank caps and disabling electrical fuses. Authorities declined to say whether any state actor was behind the acts.

The Emden case fits a wider pattern of suspected hybrid-warfare interference with Western military infrastructure, and German officials have framed such incidents against the backdrop of an elevated Russian threat. However, attribution for this specific act remains unproven: investigators have not publicly established who ordered it, and the Hamburg prosecutor's office declined to name Russia. The later arrests of two port workers point to insider access at the shipyard, but the question of any sponsor or motive was still open, leaving the responsibility for the Emden sabotage formally unresolved.