UPDATE — this extends our earlier coverage: Germany Closes Russia's Bonn Consulate, Adds Sanctions Over Leipzig Drone Plot

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said on Wednesday that Moscow could strike German military production facilities supplying weapons to Ukraine, and that other sites in Berlin could also be targeted. He described European states as sponsors of terrorism, according to the Washington Times.

The threat lands as EU foreign ministers weigh a new sanctions package against Russia running to roughly 1,600 additional listings, triggered by a drone incursion at a German airport, per TVP World. Reuters reports the bloc intends to hit back at Moscow while German investigators pursue additional, separate sabotage cases.

Hypothesis: Medvedev's threat functions as deterrence rhetoric against further Western arms deliveries rather than a signal of imminent operational planning, given his record of escalatory statements timed to EU and NATO decisions. Supporting this: the warning arrives as EU ministers debate a new sanctions tranche, suggesting a pressure tactic rather than a freestanding military announcement. Against this: it follows unresolved sabotage incidents on German soil — the airport drone incursion and the Leipzig plot — which gives the threat a concrete backdrop it would otherwise lack.

Why it matters: the threat moves the standoff from covert drone and sabotage incidents toward an explicit threat against a NATO member's territory, raising the stakes for how the alliance and Berlin respond.

Watch for the final scope of the EU's sanctions package, the outcome of Germany's new sabotage investigations, and whether Moscow follows Medvedev's statement with further threats or any change in posture toward German or wider European targets.