The Leipzig attack

The Wall Street Journal reports that a drone attack on Leipzig-Halle airport, which failed on 4 August, was one of the first operations in a wider sabotage campaign that Vladimir Putin personally ordered against NATO states. The report, published on the evening of Tuesday 20 October, cites European officials who drew on conclusions from US intelligence services. According to the report, three drones loaded with Semtex explosive were launched from ground outside the airport perimeter. One struck an Antonov cargo aircraft used to carry military aid to Ukraine, but its charge did not detonate. Accounts of the other two drones differ, with one version describing a second drone crashing onto another aircraft and a third exploding near the airport fence.

Investigators' findings

Investigators say the drones were flown remotely over the German mobile network, and German cybersecurity specialists traced the communications to servers assigned to the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service. The drones were equipped with 5G SIM cards. Earlier reconstructions had already described the operation as unusually professional. Serbia served as a logistics hub for moving drones and explosive devices into Germany, and Belarusian operatives coordinated by Oleg Levochkin, a former Russian officer who also holds a Latvian passport, smuggled the material across borders. Levochkin is described as the main field agent, and German investigators say the GRU recruited him. Different accounts name different GRU units behind the plot: the Special Tasks Service (SSD), led by general-colonel Andrei Averianov, in one Western assessment, and a unit called the Special Task Force, led by colonel Denis Smolyaninov, in another. Smolyaninov's name is linked to several suspicious fires in the United Kingdom and Germany.

Germany's response

Advisers to Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the German government had taken the situation extremely seriously. Had the drone exploded and caused casualties, Berlin would likely have considered invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which treats an attack on one ally as an attack on all members. That clause has been invoked only once, by the United States after the attacks of 11 September 2001. In early September, interior minister Alexander Dobrindt had already named Russia as responsible, pointing to the police investigation, intercepted intelligence, and explosives that bore the signature of earlier Russian operations.

The Kremlin's position and the wider campaign

Russia denies any involvement in these incidents, while Putin reportedly indicated privately that such actions could be repeated. The Wall Street Journal says a Kremlin contact approached a German government intermediary after Leipzig to warn that it would not be the last attack. Sources cited by the newspaper say Moscow grew frustrated over the summer because neither fighting in Ukraine nor talks with Washington had forced concessions from Kyiv. Thomas Graham, a former senior director on the US National Security Council under George W. Bush who takes part in unofficial contacts with the Kremlin, said the Kremlin was disappointed that talks with the US had not quickly restored relations. The operation was reportedly part of a broader plan to move agents, weapons and explosives across Europe, targeting sites that support Ukraine and provoking unrest. Since Leipzig, similar incidents have been recorded: arson at drone factories in Estonia and Poland, sabotage attempts foiled in Slovakia, attacks on Starlink stations in Poland, Lithuania and Bulgaria, and drone strikes on commercial ships in the Black Sea near Romanian and Bulgarian territorial waters.