Germany Says Russia 'Responsible' For Airport Drone Incident, To Close Russian Consulate

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The German government said Tuesday that Moscow was behind an incident last month involving an explosive-laden drone at a strategic airport in the eastern city of Leipzig.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that after assessing the technology used and other intelligence information, "the government concludes that Russia is responsible for the hybrid attack in Leipzig on August 4".

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The German government also announced it would shut Russia's consulate in Bonn and its cultural centre in Berlin after saying Moscow was responsible for a drone incident at a strategic airport.

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Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that "the Russian general consulate in Bonn will be closed by September 18" and added that "the lease for the Russian House in Berlin will be cancelled".

Nato member Germany, which supports Ukraine in its fight against Russia, has long accused Moscow of targeting it with a campaign of hybrid attacks involving espionage and sabotage - claims denied by Russia.

Germany has for months reported suspicious drone sightings over military and industrial sites, but the Leipzig incident raised the alarm as a drone found there carried explosives.

Police used a robot to defuse the device near a Ukrainian cargo plane. Another drone was reportedly found weeks later near the airport, also with traces of an explosive substance.

The airport in eastern Germany plays a key role in the transport of military goods, including by the German military and Nato allies, and also serves as a base for Ukraine's Antonov Airlines.

Cultural spy hub?

Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier said Germany had "found itself in the crosshairs of hybrid attackers". But Berlin has so far refrained from blaming Russia while speaking only of the possible involvement of "foreign powers".

Merz warned on August 25 that the perpetrators of hybrid attacks against Germany would "pay for them", without naming a target.

There had also been much discussion of whether Germany should shut down a Russian cultural centre in Berlin that security services believe is an intelligence hub.

The Russian House of Science and Culture, a seven-storey building opened in 1984 in what was then East Berlin, is located near the Russian embassy.

Conservative MP and security policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter recently told Welt TV that the facility is assumed to be a hub for espionage.

He said more than 100 people lived there "with no one knowing who they are" and that the building's power consumption is unusually high.

It was "presumably filled with technical surveillance equipment", he said, and used by "people who are not well-disposed toward Germany".

In recent weeks, the German government explained its decision to keep the Russian House open so far by pointing to its bilateral contractual link to the Goethe Institute in Moscow.

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