Leipzig incident may have ended ´very differently´: Russian ambassador

Russia's ambassador to Germany, Sergei Nechayev, in a new interview, has rejected claims that his country was behind last month's botched bomb attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport - an incident that has since resulted in the reciprocal shutdown of cultural institutions in both countries, reported dpa.

No evidence has been produced to support the accusation, Nechayev said during an interview on the popular Ben Berndt podcast Unscripted, which aired on Saturday.

"If we had really wanted to cause trouble in Leipzig, it could, as you certainly know, have looked very different," he said.

"But we have absolutely no intention of provoking the [German] population or the government," Nechayev stressed.

Berlin believes Russian intelligence services are behind the discovery of drones carrying explosives at the eastern airport. There were no consequences on site because an explosive device near a Ukrainian aircraft failed to detonate.

As a punitive measure, Russia must close its consulate general in Bonn and the Russian House cultural institute in Berlin. In response, Moscow has banned the German Goethe Institute representations across Russia.

"We don't want a war with NATO, we don't want a war against Germany," the ambassador said regarding the state of relations.

At the same time, he saw his country in conflict with NATO because its members, including Germany, supported Ukraine. This, he argued, made the NATO countries belligerent.

"We are fighting against NATO in the current situation," Nechayev said.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has been trying unsuccessfully to subjugate its much smaller neighbour ever since.