A Ukrainian cargo aircraft parked near an explosive-laden drone found at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle airport on Tuesday night was carrying a payload of military ammunition, a group of news outlets including Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Thursday.
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.
RelatedTRT World – Security scare as explosives-laden drone found near Ukrainian cargo plane in Germany
Incidents disrupt German logistics hub
