German police raised the alarm overnight after finding an explosives-laden drone near a Ukrainian cargo plane at an airport, while another aircraft landed safely following a mid-air collision with an unidentified object.
All flights to Leipzig-Halle airport were diverted for several hours from around midnight as a police bomb disposal robot was deployed to remove the detonator from the unmanned aerial vehicle found on the tarmac.
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.
Video footage from a local news agency showed the bomb disposal robot near an Antonov plane painted with the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag and the words "Be Brave Like Kherson" written on the side, a reference to a Ukrainian region battered by Russian strikes.
Ukraine's ambassador to Germany Oleksii Makeiev voiced suspicion Wednesday that Moscow was behind the incident, telling Welt TV: "Who else could it be but Russia?"
