The Prosecutor's Office of Germany announced this Thursday that it has launched an investigation following the discovery, the night before, of a drone with explosives in the vicinity of a Ukrainian plane at Leipzig airport. The incident forced the suspension of air operations for several hours and the activation of a broad security device.
"The investigation and police measures are being carried out with the utmost priority and are ongoing," indicated a spokesperson for the Public Ministry, after the Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt, alerted to a "hybrid attack scenario" during his visit to the airfield.
That same Thursday, the Ministry of the Interior clarified, in a meeting with representatives of parliamentary groups, that none of the Ukrainian Antonov cargo planes stationed near the drone with explosives located at Leipzig airport were transporting ammunition at that time.
The device was spotted by an airport worker as it flew at low altitude over the south runway of takeoff and landing at Leipzig/Halle airport in the early hours of Wednesday. The drone, located very close to a Ukrainian transport plane model Antonov AN-124 Condor, was subsequently neutralized by specialists from the Federal Police dispatched to the area.
At the same time, a second unidentified flying object struck a DHL cargo plane after it had taken off in the final approach phase, a maneuver that was forced by the prior closure of the runway in Leipzig following the discovery of the first drone.
Leipzig airport serves as a strategic point for the transit of weapons, also linked to the conflict in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, there has been an increase in reconnaissance flights and sightings of drones over critical infrastructure and military targets in Germany, which keeps security authorities on alert.