Portugal, Netherlands And Belgium Summon Russian Diplomats Following Leipzig Incident

Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium have summoned Russian ambassadors following a series of hybrid attacks linked to an incident at Leipzig Airport.

Portugal is summoning the Russian ambassador today, Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel announced.

"This morning we will make this summons. We will summon the Russian ambassador to give explanations about this incident. We will do so this morning. Therefore, it is natural that he will come to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the coming days," Rangel told Lusa news agency as he arrived for an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in County Wicklow, Ireland.

Meanwhile, Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen said the Netherlands had summoned Russian Ambassador to the Netherlands Vladimir Tarabrin over the Leipzig drone incident, De Telegraaf reported.

He also reiterated the Netherlands' support for the seizure of frozen Russian assets held in Belgium.

Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot also announced that Russia's ambassador had been summoned following Germany's allegations regarding the Leipzig incident.

"As a member of the EU and an ally within NATO, Belgium expresses full solidarity with Germany. I demanded that the Russian ambassador be summoned," Prévot said in a post on social media X.

He described the operation involving explosives on European territory as an extremely serious hostile act and said he would discuss the issue with his European counterparts during the meeting in Ireland.

The incident occurred on the evening of August 4, when an airport employee discovered a drone near a cargo aircraft. The drone was reportedly carrying around 800 grams of Semtex explosives. Another unidentified object was spotted in the vicinity of the airport later that night.

Image: Toms Kalnins/EPA

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