BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s top diplomat said Wednesday that an attempted attack on a German airport blamed on Russia appears to be “state sponsored terrorism,” as EU countries weighed their response.
The German government on Tuesday blamed Russia for the attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport on Aug. 4 using a drone laden with explosives and announced it would shut down a Russian consulate among other measures.
The drone was found near a Ukrainian plane and the device was defused. German officials said at the time that the incident posed a new level of danger.
“It is clear that it has all the hallmarks of state sponsored terrorism. The question is: what do we do about this,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters before chairing a meeting of the bloc’s defense ministers in Ireland.
Moscow has been widely accused by Western officials of running a campaign of sabotage and disruption with the aim of undermining support for Ukraine and destabilizing European nations.
The EU already is planning to impose sanctions on more people over Russia’s war on Ukraine and has “in the pipeline 1,600 listings for the military complex of Russia, and maybe there are more to be added,” Kallas said.
The nature of the attempted attack and its attribution to Russia appear to warrant a new approach from the EU and perhaps NATO, but the member nations remain cautious about being dragged into open conflict with the nuclear armed country.
The EU has slapped almost two dozen packages of sanctions against Russia over its war on Ukraine, targeting roughly 3,000 people and entities, including President Vladimir Putin, several oligarchs who back him and scores of Russian lawmakers.
Russian banks and financial institutions have been hit, as well as hundreds of ships that make up a shadow fleet illicitly shipping oil to fuel Putin’s war effort, and many companies, notably energy firms and drone manufacturers.
The measures mostly concern asset freezes and travel bans. People and companies in countries considered backers of Russia are also on the EU list, including from Belarus, China, Iran and North Korea.
Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul speak to the media during a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, about the attempted attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport last month with a drone loaded with explosives.(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
For more than a century, the Pilot and the Victory Chimes — two historic schooners with towering sails — have between them served the country in wartime, hosted the likes of Jacques Cousteau and graced the Maine state quarter.
But an inlet just off New York City's famously polluted Gowanus Canal could be their final port of call.
The boats — now owned by a company that turns historic vessels into floating bars and restaurants — sank there in early July while docked on the Brooklyn waterfront.
Now many in the maritime community are calling on the company to do what it can to save them — and to account for how they sank in the first place.
The 121-foot (37-meter) Pilot, which is a little more than a century old, and the 128-foot (39-meter) Victory Chimes, which dates to 1900 and is the ship that graces the 2003 Maine quarter, are owned by New York City-based company Crew. Both schooners sank around the time of strong squalls, though the exact cause of the sinkings has not been fully determined.
Crew is working with insurers, marine salvage experts and marine surveyors to determine what to do about the sunken boats, said Alex Pincus, the company's CEO.
“Raising wooden vessels of this size is a highly complex operation that requires specialized equipment, careful planning and extensive coordination,” Pincus said. “The vessels remain submerged as part of that ongoing process while assessments and planning continue.”
Many in the maritime community are calling on the company to do what it can to save the ships and to account for why they sank. Brad Vogel, a member of a canoe club called the Gowanus Dredgers, whose members paddle near the site, called the potential loss of the ships “a shame” and “in some ways unforgivable.”
“People in Maine, people in New York City, do want answers, and want to know what's going on. And it's not at all certain that there is a commitment to raising the vessels,” he said.
The Victory Chimes is on the National Register of Historic Places and is the last surviving Chesapeake ram, a kind of flat-bottomed schooner designed to navigate narrow and shallow waterways. Crew acquired it at auction about three years ago.
The loss of the ship is “heartbreaking for Maine and the nation's maritime heritage” because it's the last schooner of its type, said Steve Bromage, executive director of the Maine Historical Society.
“While salvaging her requires tremendous effort and expense, it would be very unfortunate to lose such an important part of history,” he said.
The Pilot once ferried maritime pilots to larger ships in Boston Harbor. It also made trips for the Coast Guard during the World War II era. It became an educational and research vessel in the 1970s and 1980s, and Jacques Cousteau spent time aboard it during that period. Crew acquired the vessel in 2015 and turned it into an oyster bar.
Even if the ships can be raised, rebuilding them would be extremely difficult and expensive, in part because the kind of timber they were built with is no longer readily available, said Charlie Weidman, of Charlie's Marine Service in Rockland, Maine, who once shared a dock with the Victory Chimes. He described himself as “unsentimental” about the sinking of the ships and the ill-fated attempts to turn them into floating restaurants.
“They're not the saviors that they paint themselves to be. They're like, we're saving the boat,” Weidman said. “You're trying to monetize that boat. You're just trying to make a buck here.”
The schooners were docked at Brooklyn Bridge Park before being relocated to Henry Street Basin, just off the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood. The canal is a federal Superfund site regarded as one of the most toxic waterways in the country, though a long-term cleanup is underway.
The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, which manages the park, didn't respond to a request for comment. Coast Guard and New York City officials also didn't respond to questions about the sinking of the ships.
The loss of the boats is “sad, but not entirely unexpected,” because maintaining such historic schooners is very difficult, said Amanda Pleau, spokesperson for the Maine Maritime Museum. Most turn-of-the-century schooners lasted less than 20 years, she said.
“That’s also why historic vessels are so special; it’s not uncommon in Maine to come across a home that’s more than 100 years old, but the remaining ships are few and far between,” Pleau said.
Debris of the Victory Chimes and the Pilot floats next to abandoned Red Hook Grain Terminal in the Henry Street Basin, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Debris of the Victory Chimes and the Pilot floats next to abandoned Red Hook Grain Terminal in the Henry Street Basin, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Debris of the Victory Chimes and the Pilot floats in the Henry Street Basin, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
FILE - The Victory Chimes passes the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse during the Maine Windjammer Parade, July 17, 2009, in Rockland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
Debris of the Victory Chimes and the Pilot floats in the Henry Street Basin, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
