BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Chancellor Friedrich Merz convened Germany's national security council Friday to discuss an explosive-laden drone found near a Ukrainian cargo plane and the mid-air collision of another aircraft with an unidentified object this week.

While Germany has not blamed anyone for the incident at Leipzig-Halle airport in the early hours of Wednesday, the Russian embassy in Berlin called the discovery a deliberate "provocation" set up to blame Moscow.

Leipzig airport is a strategic hub for military and logistics transport and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has called the discovery "a hybrid attack" that spelled "a new level of danger."

Dobrindt said a "foreign power" may have been involved in the incident that follows a campaign of sabotage, espionage and disinformation that security services blame on Russia.

Russia's embassy dismissed the entire episode as a "hastily contrived provocation" that "serves only the interests of Kyiv and the militarist wing of the European political establishment."

The airport in eastern Germany plays a key role in the transport of military goods by the German military forces and North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. It also serves as a base for Ukraine's Antonov Airlines.

According to the Bild daily an airport employee saw the drone hovering near the Ukrainian plane and brought it to the ground until police arrived.

Officers then dispatched a bomb disposal robot, while air traffic was halted for several hours. The drone was eventuallt disarmed.

Prosecutors have said that the drone was equipped with "professional explosives and a detonator" and the only reason it did not explode was that the detonator was defective.

While authorities have not named the type of explosive, unconfirmed media reports have said it was Semtex, a plastic explosive with industrial and military uses.