Russia dismissed the entire episode as a 'hastily contrived provocation'
Friedrich Merz has convened Germany’s national security council to discuss an explosive-laden drone found near a Ukrainian cargo plane and the mid-air collision of another aircraft with an unidentified object this week.
While Germany has not blamed anyone for the incident at Leipzig-Halle airport in the early hours of Wednesday, the Russian embassy in Berlin called the discovery a deliberate “provocation” set up to blame Moscow.
Leipzig airport is a strategic hub for military and logistics transport, and Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister, has called the discovery “a hybrid attack” that spelt “a new level of danger”.
Dobrindt said a “foreign power” may have been involved in the incident that follows a campaign of sabotage, espionage and disinformation that security services blame on Russia.
