Germany’s Nationaler Sicherheitsrat convened on 14 September in an emergency session following new intelligence linking Russia’s military intelligence service GRU to a foiled drone-bomb attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport earlier this month. According to reporting by WELT, ministers agreed on a package of “immediate protective measures” that includes stepped-up perimeter patrols at all major commercial airports, an expansion of anti-drone jamming zones and accelerated deployment of counter-UAV radar at freight aprons used by integrator airlines DHL and Amazon. Leipzig/Halle is Europe’s fourth-largest cargo hub and a key entry point for time-critical spare parts used in German manufacturing plants. A successful attack would have caused significant supply-chain havoc. Authorities believe the perpetrators planned to detonate an explosives-laden quad-copter near loaded freighters. Two suspects, one allegedly a GRU logistics operative, were arrested in Czechia last week and are awaiting extradition to Germany. The council’s communiqué instructs the Federal Police and airport operators to review employee-screening procedures, with particular focus on subcontracted ground-handling staff who have air-side access. It also asks the transport ministry to draw up contingency routing maps so that freight flights can be diverted to Cologne/Bonn or Frankfurt-Hahn at short notice without breaching night-flight curfews. For corporate travel and mobility programmes, the immediate impact will be stricter ID and vehicle badge checks at airport security gates, potentially lengthening crew-change and maintenance access times. Business travellers should expect random searches of electronic carry-ons and possible gate-hold delays while drone-detection alerts are assessed. Longer term, the incident is likely to accelerate Germany’s adoption of harmonised EU counter-UAV standards, a development that could impose new certification requirements on operators of company-owned drones used for site inspections or air-cargo start-ups based in Germany.
Source: WELT
