An airport employee found a drone near a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport on August 4. A US intelligence official told ABC News its build and explosive charge were “typical” of devices Russia’s GRU military intelligence service uses, an assessment US officials made jointly with German security agencies.
Investigators have floated a dual motive for the attack — grounding aircraft to slow Ukraine’s supply chain, while putting Berlin on notice over its continued backing of Kyiv. The nearby Ukrainian aircraft, an Antonov An-124, carried military supplies at the time. That same night, a second drone apparently clipped a DHL cargo plane that had to pull up mid-landing when the airport shut down.
German investigators disclosed this week that the case has a third scene. In a field west of the airport, they recovered a drone on August 14 along with roughly 50 grams of a suspected military explosive and a set of drone controls someone had fixed to a tree, plus scorched ground investigators are treating as a possible detonation point.
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that those responsible “will pay for them,” without naming a suspect, and that Germany has become an increasingly frequent target of hybrid attacks.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service pushed back Monday, accusing German officials and European outlets of rushing to judgment and reaching “an equivocal conclusion” without waiting for the investigation to finish.
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Leipzig/Halle Airport has operated as a key logistics point for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines since Russia’s 2022 invasion began, and separately handles military cargo for Germany and other NATO members, making it a recurring target in Europe’s broader pattern of suspected Russian hybrid activity.
