{"id":82738,"date":"2026-09-01T16:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T16:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/82738\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T16:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T16:37:09","slug":"russia-behind-attempted-drone-attack-at-leipzig-airport-berlin-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/82738\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia behind attempted drone ‘attack’ at Leipzig airport, Berlin says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Berlin has blamed Russia for an attempted drone “attack” at Leipzig airport last month.<\/p>\n

In a press conference on Tuesday, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said an assessment of the incident “fits the known pattern of Russian hybrid operations in Europe.”<\/p>\n

NATO member Germany, which supports Ukraine in its fight against Russia, has long accused Moscow of targeting it with a campaign of hybrid attacks involving espionage and sabotage, claims the Kremlin has rejected.<\/p>\n

Germany has for months reported suspicious drone sightings over military and industrial sites, but an incident at Leipzig\/Halle Airport on the night of 4-5 August raised the alarm as a drone found there carried explosives.<\/p>\n

Police used a robot to defuse the device found near a Ukrainian cargo plane. Another drone was reportedly discovered weeks later near the airport, also with traces of an explosive substance.<\/p>\n

The airport in eastern Germany plays a key role in the transport of military goods, including by the German military and NATO allies, and also serves as a base for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines.<\/p>\n

In response to the incident, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul announced on Tuesday that Russia’s consulate in Bonn and its Berlin cultural centre would be closed.<\/p>\n

“The Russian general consulate in Bonn will be closed by 18 September,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Ukrainian<\/p>\n

Ukrainian Antonov aircrafts are parked behind a fence on the grounds of Leipzig\/Halle Airport, 6 August, 2026 – AP Photo<\/p>\n

Chancellor Friedrich Merz previously said Germany had increasingly “found itself in the crosshairs of hybrid attackers.”<\/p>\n

But Berlin had initially refrained from blaming Russia for the incident while speaking only of the possible involvement of “foreign powers.”<\/p>\n

Merz had warned on 25 August that the perpetrators of hybrid attacks against Germany would “pay for them,” without naming a target.<\/p>\n

\"German<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at a press conference in Berlin, 27 August, 2026 – AP Photo<\/p>\n

The Russian House of Science and Culture in Berlin, a seven-story building opened in 1984 in what was then East Berlin, is located near the Russian embassy.<\/p>\n

Conservative lawmaker and security policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter recently told Welt TV that the facility is assumed to be a hub for espionage.<\/p>\n

He said more than 100 people lived there “with no one knowing who they are” and the building’s power consumption is disproportionately high.<\/p>\n

It was “presumably filled with technical surveillance equipment”, he said, and used by “people who are not well-disposed toward Germany.”<\/p>\n

Speaking after a meeting of European Union defence ministers in Ireland on Tuesday, Kaja Kallas, the bloc’s top diplomat, said Moscow was hitting Europe with increasing “kinetic hybrid attacks.”<\/p>\n

“With this, Russia wants to scare us away from supporting Ukraine. They will not succeed,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We will increase our support to Ukraine and invest in our own defence,” she continued, adding that the EU was “planning the most far-reaching sanctions against Russia yet.”<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Check back here for further details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Berlin has blamed Russia for an attempted drone “attack” at Leipzig airport last month. In a press conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[406,59916,18,52745,76,5,20380,9427,4206,478,1831,2986,960,774],"class_list":["post-82738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-alexander-dobrindt","tag-august","tag-berlin","tag-drone-attack","tag-german","tag-germany","tag-interior","tag-leipzig","tag-merz","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-tuesday","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}