Germany has announced a new security alert level following a drone incident at an airport — The Guardian
The incident involving a drone at Leipzig/Halle Airport may indicate a new level of threat to Germany. The country’s Interior Minister, Alexander Dobrindt, stated that a foreign state may be behind the attack on the facility. Authorities are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the incident.
According to him, the UAV equipped with a detonator that was found near a Ukrainian Ruslan transport aircraft was not the work of amateurs. Investigators are treating the incident as part of a “professional hybrid threat scenario.”
“We are dealing with a conflict in which foreign states may be involved—this will be the subject of the investigation—which are evidently seeking to create instability in Germany,” Dobrindt said.
The minister and other German officials did not explicitly mention Russia as a potential suspect in their statements. However, the airport’s status as a military and logistical hub for NATO and Germany, as well as a European base for the Ukrainian airline Antonov, has directed suspicion toward the aggressor state, Russia, which has previously been accused of sabotage in Europe, writes The Guardian.
Security experts noted that this incident could lead to a serious escalation of tensions in relations with Russia if it is determined that the Kremlin was involved in the incident.
“We are aware of this incident, which German authorities are continuing to investigate,” a NATO spokesperson commented.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeyev, directly accused Moscow.
“Who else could it have been but Russia?” he said on Welt TV.
On the night of August 5, a drone with a detonator and an unknown substance attached to it was found at Leipzig/Halle Airport, according to the newspaper Bild. German investigators believe it may have been an explosive device. The drone was on the runway—near a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane.
Flights were rerouted due to the incident. One of the DHL cargo planes delayed its landing and was circling when it collided in mid-air with an unknown object—which could have been another drone, as the pilots later confirmed.
Source: The Guardian
At Leipzig/Halle International Airport, a drone carrying an explosive device was discovered near a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane. Due to the incident, airport operations were temporarily suspended for several hours.
Two arson attacks occurred in Germany on one of the key railway sections between Düsseldorf and Cologne.
