According to a joint investigation by “The Telegraph” and “Welt am Sonntag”, published on October 2, the mastermind behind the attempted sabotage at Leipzig Airport in early August was identified as Oleg Levushkin, a citizen of the aggressor state who resided in occupied Sevastopol, while the actual perpetrator was identified as Belarusian national Andrei Karshakov.
It is worth recalling that on the night of August 5, a quadcopter packed with PETN explosives struck the wing of a Ukrainian An-124 cargo plane but ricocheted off without detonating. A second drone collided in mid-air with a DHL cargo plane, damaging its nose section.
Investigators estimate that an explosion would have caused catastrophic damage. They were able to identify the perpetrator thanks to DNA traces left on one of the drones and on an antenna attached to a tree near the airport.
According to journalists, the suspected organizer is Oleg Levushkin, an “enthusiast of motorcycle rallies”, including trips across Europe. Levushkin lived in Riga until at least 2018, but moved to the Pskov region in 2019 and later to occupied Sevastopol. In Pskov, “entrepreneur” Levushkin previously listed “market research and public opinion polling” as his primary business activity; registered under his name were entities with the “unassuming” name “SVR,” as well as “Trading House ‘Iva'” and “L.Nedvizhimost” (“L.Real Estate”).
It was the latter that Levushkin “relocated” to occupied Sevastopol in 2022, retaining the name but adopting a new registration code and a new primary business activity: motor vehicle sales. Apart from appearing in the occupation authorities’ registries, where it reports steady revenue of several million rubles, this entity has not surfaced in the public domain.
According to media reports, Levushkin has long known Denis Smolyaninov, a colonel heading a department within the intelligence directorate’s special operations service. This Russian intelligence unit specializes in sabotage and subversive activities abroad. Journalists suggest that Levushkin and Smolyaninov likely met in 2007, when the latter acted as an intermediary in a financial dispute involving Levushkin’s business.
Journalists report that the act of sabotage in Leipzig, allegedly orchestrated by Levushkin, is linked to the aggressor state’s military unit 29155. This unit is known for housing the Russian intelligence officers accused of poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal and carrying out sabotage in the Czech Republic: Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, who operated under the aliases Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, respectively. Since 2023, this unit has been part of the aforementioned special operations service.
