00:00Did we narrowly avoid a Russian attack on our soil and not just any kind?
00:05An aerial drone was found at the German airport in Leipzig, and it contained explosives.
00:10So first, why do we think this was a professional job carried out by Russia?
00:16For the first time, we're not dealing with a civilian drone flying over an airport.
00:21There have been hundreds of flyovers with drones you can buy commercially,
00:24some of which are slightly modified.
00:26On some, you can attach small loads underneath,
00:29whether it's to deliver a small package or to carry explosives.
00:33And in this case, for the first time, it's an FPV kamikaze drone.
00:36You can see it in this image.
00:38There's no doubt about the type of drone being used.
00:40So this isn't a drone being used by a tourist who might accidentally fly over the wrong area or over
00:45an airport.
00:46We're dealing with people who know how to use complex drones,
00:49ones without GPS compensation, which are difficult to operate and deploy,
00:53and who had to assemble and operate them themselves.
00:55They can't claim they don't know the regulations.
00:59So there's a professional aspect to the use and deployment of this drone.
01:03The second element is the type of explosive that was used.
01:06It's Semtex.
01:08Semtex is an explosive that was originally designed in Czechoslovakia during the Soviet era,
01:13and it was the signature of all the terrorist groups that were more or less supported,
01:17directly or indirectly, by the Soviets and their allies.
01:20So in the end, Semtex has only been found up to now,
01:24especially in the stockpiles that were sold to Libya and then re-exported,
01:28which were re-exported, for example, to the IRA and other Irish terrorist groups that had carried out attacks.
01:35The Lockerbie bombing, that was Semtex.
01:38So that's something you don't find in any other type of attack.
01:42Usually it's C4 TATP.
01:44There are lots of different things that can be used.
01:46But Semtex, that's really professional.
01:49It's military-grade.
01:50You can't find it on the market and you can't make it in your kitchen.
01:54So two elements, professionals using Semtex,
01:57and then the third element is what happened at Leipzig Airport and what was targeted.
02:02When you zoom out a bit on this image, you can see just behind it a Ukrainian Antonov plane,
02:08the gigantic cargo planes that are used to provide logistics to Ukraine, to the Ukrainian front.
02:13And this airport is a major logistics hub to support the war effort.
02:19And this plane, it represents, it is obviously a symbol, since it is Ukrainian,
02:23operated by Ukrainians who are participating in this war effort.
02:26So we were at an important airport, and involving an aircraft,
02:31a plane that was potentially targeted, which was also important.
02:34So we still don't know whether one or two drones were intercepted and destroyed.
02:39Because there's the one that was found on the ground,
02:42and there's another case that happened in the minutes that followed,
02:45with a cargo plane taking off from Leipzig Airport, which collided with the drone.
02:50So we don't know exactly whether there was one explosive drone or two explosive drones.
02:54In any case, the detonator didn't work, maybe because of the impact.
02:58But what we do know for sure today is that there really was an explosive drone
03:03that was sent to a civilian airport.
03:05So, Leipzig, is this the first time?
03:07If you look a little at what we've seen in the past,
03:10and the many cases where incidents, if we can call them that, have been attributed to Russia,
03:16the International Center for Counterterrorism has identified more than 150 incidents,
03:21including 48 major acts of sabotage,
03:24which have been committed by Russia since the beginning of the high-intensity war in Ukraine in 2022.
03:30Notably, at Leipzig Airport, there were these booby-trapped packages
03:34that were sent to explode on board cargo planes taking off from Leipzig Airport,
03:39with, uh, the planes, especially DHL's planes.
03:42We were lucky because the packages were delayed,
03:44so they didn't explode while they were on the plane.
03:46In the same way, a second explosive device that was supposed to be sent on an aircraft exploded in a
03:52truck.
03:52And then we have two other packages that were supposed to be sent to Great Britain,
03:56where they were supposed to explode, which were intercepted before crossing the border.
04:00Then we also have attacks against shopping centers.
04:03We can talk about four of them, two of which were successful.
04:06The first one is the fire at the Ikea in Vilnius,
04:08and the second is the Manioska shopping center in Warsaw, Poland,
04:12where there were actually attacks that were successful,
04:15at least from the point of view of those who wanted to set it on fire.
04:19Then there are attacks that failed.
04:21Let me remind you what happened in Paris, in the hotel room next to Roissy Airport.
04:26There was a chemist who started assembling materials to make something,
04:30an attack that was intended to explode in a Parisian shopping center just before the Paris Olympic Games,
04:35to be able to say that things were going to go wrong.
04:38And luckily for us, this idiot got caught in his room.
04:41He was intercepted by the DGSI, and there, too, it was the Russians.
04:44These terrorist attacks are identified as being carried out by the GRU.
04:49If you look at other events, explosives that were placed on Polish railway tracks,
04:54these are ultra-strategic railway lines for transporting Western equipment to Poland.
05:00There, too, it was attributed to the Russians.
05:02There was also that attempted railway disaster in Puok,
05:05with a metal piece that had been placed directly on the tracks to cause a derailment,
05:10and that was outright classified as a terrorist act by the Polish authorities.
05:14And alongside that, you have numerous warehouse fires, factories being hit,
05:18Russian drones that coincidentally seem to get lost
05:21and end up crashing into power plants in the Baltic countries.
05:24You have Russian drones crashing into military facilities in the Baltic countries,
05:28and we don't react systematically.
05:30So, indeed, it's going to be very difficult to attribute this attempted attack on Leipzig Airport,
05:37because how can you identify the origin?
05:40Either it's someone who left fingerprints and can be identified.
05:44Most likely, if they're professionals, they used gloves.
05:47Or you instantly intercept the people who are attempting to carry out attacks.
05:52So, that means you have to catch the pilots of this drone.
05:56If we don't catch them instantly, because we have detectors that will identify by radio direction finding,
06:02we'll detect a transmitter, a pilot who is using it.
06:05If we don't do it instantly, we can't find them afterwards.
06:09So, we'll have strong suspicions, we'll have doubts,
06:12we'll be certain when we take a step back and look at everything Russia has done up to now,
06:16but we certainly won't have someone who gets arrested and then a culprit who ends up in prison.
06:21And then, what does it also say about our vulnerability in this situation?
06:25And let's be clear, we don't know how to defend ourselves against an attack on an airport,
06:29whether it's civilian or military,
06:31in the same way that the Russians weren't able to intercept the dozens of drones
06:35that destroyed more than 40 strategic bombers on supposedly ultra-secure military bases in Russia.
06:40In Operation Spiderweb, which was a great success for the Ukrainians on June 1st of last year,
06:47well, we don't know how to protect ourselves.
06:49For starters, we have trouble even detecting these drones.
06:52Unlike the Ukrainians or the Russians,
06:55we haven't been through this kind of high-intensity war
06:57with acoustic radio direction finding and electronic warfare sensors.
07:01Optical systems that allow for constant monitoring, we don't have them.
07:06We're not as effective at detecting these drones as the Ukrainians and Russians are today.
07:11To intercept them, are we going to allow ourselves to install turrets that can fire,
07:16even if they're automated with artificial intelligence,
07:19to shoot like that over a civilian airport?
07:22Obviously not.
07:23So we need interceptors,
07:25and not interceptors that shoot with shotguns like we see in Ukraine.
07:28Certainly interceptors with nets to be able to catch them,
07:31to prevent them from falling onto a civilian environment below.
07:34In Ukraine and Russia, they don't ask questions.
07:37When they can destroy, they destroy.
07:39They have interceptors, they send them, they send them to collide.
07:42We can't afford to do that.
07:44So maybe the laser beam one day will be a solution.
07:48But by the time we equip all sensitive infrastructures with laser systems,
07:52all the airports, thousands of them,
07:54the military, civilian infrastructures,
07:56nuclear power plants, power production centers,
07:59all our sensitive and key factories,
08:02all that, it's going to be very, very complicated to ensure protection of our skies.
08:07So here, the Russians, once again, there's a very high chance,
08:11a very strong probability that it was them, unfortunately,
08:14who caused this new attempted attack on our soil.
08:17We were lucky, once again, it was a failure.
08:21But we have to realize that this is only the beginning.
08:24What the Russians are doing today, other groups will certainly be able to do tomorrow.
08:28So the first thing is to be firm.
08:30It's, once again, about being able to stand up to Russia
08:32and not back down by saying,
08:34well, no, we're not going to attribute it, we won't know who it is.
08:36If we are not able to support the Ukrainians to invest massively
08:39so that they can quickly produce defense systems locally in Ukraine
08:42because they are fast, they are efficient,
08:44and they just need money because they need engineers at home.
08:48So let's provide them with the systems and key technologies they lack
08:53to be able to quickly develop protection systems
08:55to protect themselves immediately on the front to be able to save lives.
08:59And so that these technologies, this industrial cooperation,
09:03can benefit us very quickly in return
09:04so that we, too, can be able to protect our infrastructures.
09:07Once again, it might be joint ventures.
09:09It might be technology transfer.
09:11It might be devices that need to be made together.
09:13But it has to be done and quickly.
09:15That hasn't been officially attributed,
09:17but no one can be fooled about the Russians' intention to harm us
09:21as they have done from the beginning
09:22with the destruction of infrastructures and everything else.
09:25And so our response must be one of great firmness
09:28and to provide Ukraine with the means to be able to create and develop systems
09:32that will be effective in protecting itself.
09:34They will learn on their own with artificial intelligence
09:37and return to protect us much faster
09:39than if we developed it ourselves without being on the front lines.
09:43The more we expose ourselves to real-life situations,
09:46the more our systems are tested,
09:48not just with a drone at an airport every six months,
09:52and the more effective it will be to protect ourselves
09:54and potentially to protect civilian aircraft.
09:57Because this threat is just emerging,
09:59the Russians are doing it first,
10:00but tomorrow any terrorist group could attempt something similar.
10:04So there is an urgent need to act.
10:06Let's push the button.
10:07Let's speed things up.
10:08And let's not turn a blind eye to this rising tension,
10:11which once again is being caused by Russia.
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