German investigators have found a third drone and about 50 grammes of a substance suspected to be the military explosive hexogen near Leipzig/Halle Airport, widening the inquiry into a failed attack on the site this month.
It was recovered on August 14, 10 days after the original incident, in a field at Kabelsketal directly west of the airport, public broadcasters NDR and WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. Investigators had until now assumed two drones were involved.
The first was found on the apron late on August 4 beside a Ukrainian Antonov freighter that a confidential police report said was carrying military ammunition. Federal police removed its detonator and destroyed the charge in a controlled explosion.
The second is believed to have struck a DHL cargo aircraft that had aborted its landing after the closure. That aircraft came down safely at Hanover and the drone was never found.
Officers following separate leads to Kursdorf, north of the airport, found an antenna and electronic components taped to a tree, the same reports said. Scorched earth and metal fragments lay nearby and investigators are examining whether a device was detonated there.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the conclusions of the official investigation into those responsible would be set out shortly. The Leipzig incident showed the country faced a concrete threat, he said in remarks carried by dpa.
Merz said Germany had moved further into the sights of hybrid attackers, who were increasingly willing to accept serious damage to property and even injuries and deaths. The country nonetheless remained safe, he added.
The German Government was strengthening protection, most recently through the drone centre set up at Magdeburg, and would put a price on hybrid attacks, he said. Making them pay was a central aim of the intelligence services legislation agreed by the cabinet in August.
German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt said earlier in August that the episode amounted to a hybrid attack scenario rather than amateur work and pointed to the possible involvement of foreign powers.
Security sources cited in the German reports suspect Russian intelligence was behind the attempt, an accusation Moscow has denied. The federal prosecutor general’s office did not comment on the latest findings when approached by Reuters.
Leipzig/Halle is Germany’s second-largest cargo airport and the main European base of Antonov Airlines, which flies for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s Strategic Airlift International Solution programme. Drone sightings over German military sites and critical infrastructure have risen since Russia invaded Ukraine.
