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An explosives-laden drone discovered at Leipzig Halle airport this week was intended to blow up an aeroplane, according to German investigators, who are racing to establish whether Russian intelligence agencies or their proxies might be behind the attack.
The drone was equipped with military-grade explosives, including Semtex and PETN, police have concluded, as an investigation into the incident was declared a matter of national security on Friday. Chancellor Friedrich Merz convened a meeting of the national security council to discuss it.
“All of this does not point to amateurish tactics. We are talking about a professional, hybrid threat situation that we must continue to address,” interior minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Wednesday.
A huge police forensic investigation is now under way at the airport and surrounding area. Investigators have two “concrete leads”, according to local officials, but so far no suspects have been arrested.
German police and intelligence officials are examining Russia’s possible role, though the government has avoided making any public attribution while evidence is still being gathered.
The Kremlin has waged an increasingly violent sabotage campaign against European targets over the past two years, including disruptive drone incursions against airports and military sites and attacks on infrastructure linked to military support for Ukraine, according to European intelligence officials.
Security analysts say Moscow may now seek to increase pressure on Europe with more aggressive “hybrid” attacks, as it faces a military impasse in Ukraine, a worsening economy at home and increasingly damaging Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities and warehouses.
On Thursday, Lithuania’s defence minister Robertas Kaunas said his government had intelligence that Russian spymasters had considered mounting a “false flag” attack on energy infrastructure in the Baltic states or Poland. The Russians had discussed staging a drone attack on a sensitive site that could be made to look like it had come from Ukraine, he said.
Leipzig Halle is Europe’s fourth-largest air freight hub and a major centre for Ukrainian and Nato logistics. It also handles more than 2mn passengers a year.
The explosive drone was discovered on the cargo side of the airport by ground crew shortly before midnight on Tuesday, close to a Ukrainian Antonov 124 transport plane.
Investigators believe a second drone was also involved in the incident. It is suspected that it collided with another cargo plane as it attempted to land at the airport.
The plane sustained light damage to its fuselage and was diverted to Hanover. It is unclear if the second drone was also carrying an explosive device that failed to detonate.
Police and an explosives squad were called to the airport shortly after the drone’s discovery and all flights in and out of the airport were suspended. Investigators believe that a malfunction with the detonator in the drone averted a potential disaster, which could have involved a huge loss of life: the freight terminal operates through the night and passenger planes were scheduled to continue flying into the airport until the early hours of the morning.
Germany’s federal prosecutor said on Thursday evening that it would take charge of the investigation, alongside federal police, “given the particular significance of the case”.
“There is sufficient factual evidence to suggest that, on the evening of 4 August 2026, an explosion was to be caused on the grounds of Leipzig/Halle Airport by means of a drone. To this end, professional explosives and a detonator had been attached to the drone. A cargo aircraft, which was forced to abort its take-off due to the incident, collided in mid-air within the wider airport area with an object, presumed to be another drone,” the prosecutor said.
“This constitutes a serious attack on the transport and logistics infrastructure in Germany.”
