BERLIN — If the explosive had actually detonated, investigators might not have gotten their clearest look yet at what European officials believe is a wider Russian campaign of attacks. On Aug. 4, a drone struck the wing of a Ukrainian aircraft at Germany’s Leipzig Airport and fell onto the tarmac. Strapped beneath it was a tin can packed with explosives.
The device remained intact. That gave investigators something unusually valuable: the bomb itself. The can was sealed with a metal plate stamped with seven circular indentations, according to an investigative file from German federal police reviewed by the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.
It wasn’t the first time such an improvised explosive had been discovered on European soil. Almost two years earlier, on Aug. 20, 2024, police investigators arrived at a cemetery in Kaunas, Lithuania, with a bomb disposal team. They had received a highly sensitive tip from Poland concerning explosives and a Ukrainian man alleged to have deposited them there for Russian intelligence, according to investigation files from the Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau.
At a weathered grave, beneath artificial flowers and concrete slabs, officers recovered a plastic bag containing two tin cans. According to their labels, they contained corn. Forensic analysis, however, found they contained 968 grams of explosives, around 700 grams of TNT equivalent per can — roughly the lethal force of four hand grenades.
In January and June 2025, investigators unearthed more explosive-filled cans at various locations in Lithuania. Four were fitted with metal plates stamped with circular indentations. Investigators say they were intended to act as projectiles in an explosion.
Forensic examinations found that the plates were highly likely to have been manufactured by the same machine, according to a report by the Forensic Science Service of the Police Department of Lithuania. The device attached to the drone in Leipzig bore striking similarities to those recovered from the Lithuanian caches, including the explosive-filled tin can and the stamped metal plate. The resemblance alone does not establish that the devices belonged to the same operation.
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