German investigators have found new physical evidence in the failed explosive drone attack on Ukrainian transport aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport, including DNA traces and an antenna fixed to a tree. The findings strengthen suspicions that Russia was behind the August 4 attack.
DR reports that German investigators are moving closer to identifying who sent at least one purpose-built drone carrying high explosive between Ukrainian Antonov transport planes on the runways at Leipzig/Halle Airport. The incident took place on the evening of Tuesday, August 4. German politicians have described it as a direct attack on German soil by a foreign power.
The Antonov aircraft belong to a fleet used by European NATO countries to fly Western weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. According to DR, an airport bus driver spotted a small object on the runway shortly before midnight and stepped on it, then alerted airport security. Police later found a metal can holding 600 grams of Semtex a few meters away.
Surveillance footage reviewed by investigators explains why no explosion occurred. As reported by Die Zeit, the drone struck the wing of one of the Ukrainian planes in the early evening and fell to the ground. The explosive can detached during the fall, but the detonator failed. The drone had been lying there for four hours before the driver found it.
Investigators describe the drone as carefully rebuilt, with extra batteries, a camera, a 5G router and two SIM cards. Experts believe it was steered over the ordinary mobile phone network, which would allow control from a long distance. The design also allowed unusually long flight times.
Antenna in the woods and a second blast
Officers with dogs and technical equipment searched a small wooded area just outside the airport perimeter. According to Süddeutsche Zeitung, they found a small metal antenna attached to a tree trunk near the fence. Investigators believe it may have amplified the control signal.
Residents of the nearby village of Kursdorf heard an explosion at 19:19 that evening. The broadcasters WDR and NDR report that a witness in the airport control tower saw a column of smoke rising from the same woodland. Separately, a DHL cargo plane hit an object shortly after takeoff and landed in Hanover, where technicians confirmed damage to the aircraft’s front.
Sources cited by ARD say DNA traces on the drone overlap with traces from other sabotage cases in Germany that police link to Moscow. Euronews reports that one DNA trail apparently leads to Lithuania, and that no suspect has been publicly identified.
The German government still refers only to a foreign power. Peter Neumann, professor at King’s College London, told DR the findings and the strategic context form a pattern, though not proof. Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that one of the targeted Antonovs had recently carried military ammunition from France as part of Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.
