Skip to main content

Russia’s ambassador to Germany says a Leipzig airport attack would have looked ‘completely different’ if Moscow had wanted to carry one out

Source: Ungeskriptet

An attack on Leipzig airport could have looked “completely different” if Moscow had actually wanted to carry one out, Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechayev said on German blogger Ben Berndt’s podcast Ungeskriptet:

We have already said at every level that we do not want war with NATO, and we do not want war with Germany. If we had really wanted to do something in Leipzig, it could have looked completely different, as you know very well. But we have no intention whatsoever of provoking the public or the government.

Nechayev said that Russia considers the sabotage at Leipzig airport a “deliberate provocation” and rejects accusations of involvement.

In early August, a drone with explosives attached to it was found near a Ukrainian Antonov transport plane at Leipzig airport. Germany blamed Russia for the sabotage. On September 1, Germany said it would close Russia’s consulate general in Bonn and the “Russian House” in Berlin and tighten entry controls for Russian citizens in retaliation.

German investigators have identified two people suspected of involvement in the sabotage: a Russian-born man with a Latvian passport and a Belarusian man with a Russian passport. Neither has been detained yet.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].

To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.