WSJ: Putin personally authorized the strike on Leipzig and the sabotage campaign in NATO countries

U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that the failed sabotage operation at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport this summer marked the beginning of a large-scale and escalating campaign of covert sabotage against North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries, personally authorized by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Source: The Wall Street Journal

The target of the drone attack was the Ukrainian An-124 Ruslan transport aircraft. The Kremlin’s shift to radical measures was driven by Moscow’s growing frustration that neither the fighting in Ukraine nor diplomatic talks with Washington had managed to force Kyiv to capitulate.

Aides to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that if the attack in Leipzig had caused mass casualties among personnel or civilians, Berlin would have immediately considered invoking Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on collective defense.

According to Western intelligence, the covert operations are being carried out by the Special Tasks Service (STS), a secret unit of Russian military intelligence (GRU) established in 2023 under the leadership of Colonel General Andrey Averyanov.

The attack in Leipzig was allegedly organized directly by Denis Smolyaninov, a colonel and head of one of the STS departments, who is under EU and UK sanctions for directing sabotage operations in Europe, including a plot to smuggle incendiary devices into the DHL parcel network to blow up civilian airliners.

Three drones loaded with military-grade Semtex explosives and steel fragmentation plates took part in the Leipzig operation. The drones were hidden in bushes near the airport perimeter, fitted with German 5G SIM cards, and controlled via GRU servers.

Ground logistics were coordinated by Oleg Levushkin, a former military officer recruited by the GRU, who directed Belarusian operatives and used Serbia as a transit hub. The explosives were transported across borders in resealed cans. Serbian authorities have already arrested seven members of the network.

After Leipzig, Europe saw a sharp surge in “gray-zone” sabotage: arson attacks on drone factories in Estonia, Poland, and Slovakia; attacks on Starlink stations in Lithuania and Bulgaria; and strikes on civilian vessels in the Black Sea. CIA Director John Ratcliffe personally warned his European counterparts that the GRU had established a network of explosives caches and safe houses across the EU to target critical infrastructure.

It was previously reported that in the early hours of August 5, Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport — a key logistics hub for Western military aid to Ukraine — had urgently suspended operations due to the threat of a terrorist attack and sabotage. A modified drone with a detonator attached and an “unknown quantity” of material, believed to be explosives, was found near the runway, in close proximity to the Ukrainian An-124 cargo aircraft.