Explosive drone found hovering near Ukrainian cargo aircraft at German airport

The incident has already spurred Roderich Kiesewetter, a lawmaker and member of the German parliament’s intelligence committee, to more directly describe Russia as being responsible for the “attempted act of terrorism.”

As a major hub for air cargo, Leipzig/Halle airport frequently oversees the transit of shipments for NATO and the German military. It is also the current home base for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines, which operates a charter cargo service fleet that includes the world’s largest operational cargo aircraft, the Antonov An-124 Ruslan.

The incident also evoked a potentially telling reaction from Alexander Sosnowski, a pro-Kremlin propagandist who regularly appears as a guest on Russian state television. In a short video posted on Telegram, Sosnowski clearly assumed the attempted attack was a Russian operation targeting the Ukrainian aircraft and expressed disappointment that it had failed, according to The Bild, a German tabloid newspaper.

Repeated drone incursions and missing defenses

These latest incidents follow dozens of drone sightings over other European airports, along with military bases, ports, energy and industrial facilities, since 2024. In May, Munich airport in Germany closed twice within 24 hours following possible drone sightings.

Drone incursions have become especially more frequent in Northern and Eastern Europe, given their closer proximity to Russia and the ongoing war in Ukraine. Those incursions have forced fighter jets to scramble repeatedly in response, along with leading to a building fire and injuries in Romania following a Russian drone crash.

But the long-promised European Drone Defence Initiative that was supposed to create the equivalent of a “drone wall” to provide counter-drone surveillance and defenses has yet to materialize in any meaningful way, said Ulrike Franke, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, in an article for World Politics Review. Instead, individual European countries such as Poland have been building their own national counter-drone systems.

Germany has already provided about $118 billion to support Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to Deutsche Welle. Beyond supplying weapons and humanitarian aid, Germany has also trained more than 24,000 Ukrainian soldiers and is hosting more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees.

Some of Germany’s latest cooperative ventures with Ukraine have involved joint production of new military drones. Ars recently covered a $100 million deal—reportedly funded by Germany—that is equipping the Ukrainian military with drones capable of performing AI target tracking.