Plane near drone found at German airport was carrying ammunition, media reports say

A Ukrainian cargo aircraft parked near an explosive-laden drone found at Germany’s Leipzig-Halle airport on the night of Aug 4 was carrying a payload of military ammunition, a group of news outlets including Sueddeutsche Zeitung – one of Germany’s largest newspapers – reported on Aug 6.

Forensic experts found that the explosives attached to the drone were of a high military grade, said the joint report, which was also carried by broadcasters NDR and WDR and cited a confidential police report.

Those findings potentially raise the stakes in a widening counterterrorism investigation of the incident at an airport serving as a major cargo and military logistics hub that the German government has designated as critical infrastructure.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt ​said late on Wednesday that the drone incident constituted a hybrid attack and an elevated level of danger.

Police in the state of Saxony, where Leipzig/Halle is located, did not immediately respond to a request for comment ​on the media reports of the Ukrainian aircraft's military payload.

German authorities, meanwhile, said on Thursday ​they were continuing the search for debris of an unidentified object that damaged another freight jet mid-air near Leipzig ‌airport ⁠on the same night.

While German authorities have said the perpetrators of the incidents at the ⁠airport ​had not yet been identified, Roderich Kiesewetter, a lawmaker and ​a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee, blamed Russia directly.

The Russian Embassy in Berlin did not respond to an emailed ​request for comment from Reuters.

-Reuters