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American intelligence experts believe Russia was behind an attack on a German airport last week with a drone laden with explosives, US media have reported, as Berlin remained silent on the likely culprit.
Last week’s security emergency prompted the interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, to break off his summer holiday in Italy and rush to the scene in the eastern city of Leipzig, as he spoke of a “new level of danger” for Germany.
Dobrindt called the incident, in which a quadcopter with semtex plastic explosives attached was found next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at the major shipping and military hub, part of a “professional hybrid threat scenario” by a well-equipped foreign actor.
As the German investigators raced to identify the perpetrators, the tabloid Bild reported that authorities had found DNA traces at the scene that matched a sample from a firebomb, posted via DHL, that exploded at Leipzig airport in July 2024.
Five men suspected in a related series of mailed incendiary devices are on trial in Lithuania, where it emerged in court last week that the plane that was the target of the firebomb only avoided being set on fire in mid-flight because it was delayed. The suspects are alleged by Lithuanian prosecutors to have been employed by Russian intelligence.
Even as MPs and security analysts pointed the finger at the Kremlin over the latest incident in Leipzig, German government officials have not levelled a specific accusation against Moscow.
The Wall Street Journal, however, has quoted US officials familiar with intelligence reports about the incident as saying that the drone probably belongs to the Russian government.
CNN reported that Washington had concluded the drone came from a Russian secret service, citing a US defence official in Europe noting the explosive material found on the drone suggested a military manufacturer.
German officials said the drone managed to fly past Leipzig airport’s defences.
It was only immobilised when an alert airport bus driver ferrying a group of late-night passengers spotted and reported it, an estimated four hours after it breached the facility’s security, averting what authorities have said could have been a multiple casualty event.
The same night, a DHL cargo plane, which had been forced to abort its landing at the airport due to the discovery of the drone, then collided with an unknown object in mid-air as it was climbing away from the airport. It later landed safely elsewhere, with minor damage.
Investigators now believe it hit a second hostile drone being flown that night.
A day later, drones were detected above an army installation in western Germany housing components for US-made Patriot air-defence systems, which Ukraine has often requested to help fend off Russia’s aerial bombardments.
In response to the increased threat, the German interior ministry said on Monday it plans to double its federal team of anti-drone experts to 300, with the number of operational bases for the unit to rise to eight from four.
Germany and other European countries have long reported suspicious unauthorised drone overflights at airports, military facilities, ports and logistics companies, and accused Russian agents of spying as well as a targeted campaign of sabotage, disruption and intimidation.
Moscow has denied this, and late last week its embassy in Berlin called any suggestion it had a hand in the Leipzig case a “rashly contrived provocation” that “serves only the interests of Kyiv and the militarist wing of the European political establishment”.
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Berlin is Ukraine’s biggest national supplier of military aid in its defence against the Russian onslaught.
Next month, Germany will hold three pivotal elections in eastern states, where support for defence assistance for Kyiv is controversial among voters and fears of “provoking” Moscow run high.
The pro-Russian far-right Alternative für Deutschland is poised to perform well in all three races, polls show, amid reports of Russian disinformation targeted at its principal rivals, the mainstream democratic parties.
The opposition Greens have criticised the government for not naming and blaming Russia at this stage of the Leipzig investigation.
Political scientist Wolfgang Schröder of the University of Kassel in western Germany said two factors could be shaping Berlin’s restraint.
Firstly, Russia had been named early on as a prime suspect behind the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which German prosecutors now say was ordered by Ukrainian “state authorities”.
More important, Schröder said, were the incalculable consequences of accusing Moscow of a botched military attack on German soil amid warnings of an escalation in tensions.
“If it were to be defined as an act of aggression – that is, a military attack by Russia against (Germany’s) critical infrastructure – then we would be on the brink of entering a state of war, and that would have implications not only of a diplomatic nature but also with regard to Nato,” he told local news broadcaster n-tv.
“A cautious approach is being taken here, precisely because the aim is to prevent being drawn in, and that would mean turning this into a matter of European security – a matter of Nato security – and that would certainly take Germany’s involvement in the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine to a whole new level.”
