Merz says hybrid attackers will pay as third drone found at airport

Third Drone Discovery Deepens Airport Investigation

Investigators discovered a third drone and roughly 50 grams of what they suspect to be the military explosive hexogen west of Leipzig/Halle airport on August 14, exactly 10 days after an initial attempted attack, according to public broadcasters NDR and WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily. The office of the prosecutor general did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Security sources cited in the reports suspect Russian intelligence involvement in the attempted attack, an accusation Moscow has denied. The airport is a cargo and military logistics hub used by NATO and Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines for military supplies.

The initial security breach unfolded late on August 4, when the Leipzig Police Directorate said in a statement that an unidentified flying object was sighted near the airport, prompting the diversion of several aircraft, including a passenger plane, to other airports. A drone carrying a suspicious object was also discovered in the vicinity of one of the two main runways. Police specialists seized the drone and defused the device after examining it with an X-ray machine. Investigators believe a second drone may have collided with an object, while public broadcasters NDR and WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Tuesday that investigators found a third drone and what they suspected were explosives believed to be linked to an attempted attack on Leipzig/Halle airport earlier this month. The drone was found on August 14, 10 days after the incident, to the west of the airport, where investigators also discovered about 50 grams of a substance they suspected to be the military explosive hexogen.

Chancellor Merz Vows Accountability for Hybrid Threats

Speaking on Tuesday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that Germany had increasingly found itself in the crosshairs of hybrid attackers, referring to an incident at Leipzig airport where police defused a drone found near a Ukrainian cargo plane. Merz said that the government would soon announce who is responsible for the attempted drone attack. Speaking at a coalition summit, Merz said his government was working closely with the security authorities on this, and that they would set this out and comment on it shortly. Merz did not attribute the attack in his remarks Tuesday, stating that they are working intensively on that together with the security agencies. According to German outlet Bild, Merz told members of his Christian Democratic Union party in a private meeting Monday that the government had circumstantial evidence pointing to the perpetrators of the crime. Merz’s government is seeking to give more leeway to Germany’s intelligence services to stymie threats.

The Russian embassy in Berlin called the discovery a deliberate provokation set up to blame Moscow. Meanwhile, the International Institute for Strategic Studies report reveals 144 suspected drones near sensitive sites in Germany, France and the UK, as part of what Jennifer Griffin reports as Russia’s shadow fleet launching a drone campaign across Europe to surveil military sites and test NATO’s air defenses. A spokesman for the Operational Command of the Bundeswehr told networks of the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland that since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the reporting volume for drone sightings related to the Bundeswehr has increased significantly and became steady, with several hundred suspected drone overflights reported in the area of the Bundeswehr in recent years.

Midair Collision and Growing Infrastructure Vulnerabilities

The security incident at the freight hub temporarily suspended and diverted flights, raising suspicions of Russian involvement following similar incidents in recent years. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has described the drone incident at Leipzig airport as a hybrid attack scenario. Dobrindt said on Wednesday evening at a press conference at the airport in the eastern German city that they must assume that this is a very serious security incident. Flights were temporarily suspended at Leipzig/Halle Airport overnight following the discovery of a drone carrying an explosive device near a Ukrainian Antonov AN-124 Condor transport aircraft. Earlier this month, Alexander Dobrindt suggested a state actor was behind the threat, stating on August 6 shortly after the initial discovery that there were many indications pointing in that direction, and later calling the discovery a hybrid attack that spelled a new level of danger from a foreign power. Chancellor Friedrich Merz had previously convened Germany’s national security council on August 7 to discuss the explosive-laden drone found near a Ukrainian cargo plane and the mid-air collision of another aircraft with an unidentified object that week.