Moscow is waging an “information war” against Germany by intercepting and releasing a sensitive discussion by senior Bundeswehr officers about Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said.
Pistorius responded to the leak for the first time on Sunday, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of sowing discord and creating divisions within Germany.
“It's about using this recording to destabilize and unsettle us,” the German minister said, adding that he “hopes that Putin will not succeed.”
Pistorius told reporters in Berlin that the audio leak was part of Russia's attempt to sow division. Image: Matthias Schrader/AP/picture Alliance
The head of Russian state broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, released a 38-minute audio recording late Friday of four officials discussing the possibility of sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine. On Saturday, the Defense Ministry in Berlin said it believed the audio recording was real and that the conversation had been intercepted.
What else did Pistorius say?
“The incident is much more than just the interception and publication of a conversation… It is part of an information war that Putin is waging,” the defense minister said.
He added that he had not yet received information about additional leaks that may have been intercepted by Moscow. He said the results of an internal investigation were expected early next week.
Pistorius pointed out that, among other things, the question was whether the right platform was chosen for the meeting. According to reports, the conversation took place on the communications platform Webex.
The minister said he would not “speculate about personnel consequences” until the investigation into the matter was completed. He did not rule out “disciplinary action” against those who were proven to have “acted wrongly.”
German Defense Minister: Russia is waging “information war”
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Better training for senior military officers?
Meanwhile, Parliament's special representative for the military, Eva Högl from the Social Democrats under Chancellor Olaf Scholz, called for improved training in secure communications for high-ranking military officers.
“Firstly, all those responsible at all levels of the Bundeswehr must immediately receive comprehensive training in secure communication,” Högl told the Funke newspaper group on Sunday. “Secondly, the stable possibility of secure and secret information and communication transmission must be guaranteed.”
If this is not already possible, immediate retrofits will be required, said Högl. The parliamentarian also called for rapid and increased involvement in counterintelligence, particularly the Military Counterintelligence Service, known by the abbreviation MAD.
Germany is checking whether Russia is eavesdropping on conversations with Ukraine
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Opposition debates parliamentary inquiry
Discussion about possibly sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine had been in the news this week, with Scholz saying it was largely not possible because it would require stationing German troops in Ukraine or at least direct cooperation in operations Weapons.
“German soldiers cannot be associated with the targets at any time or place.” [Taurus] system reached. “Not even in Germany,” Scholz said. He claimed it was well known to military insiders that France and Britain, both of which have sent similar weapons to Ukraine, have solutions to targeting problems that “cannot be solved in Germany.” ”
Chancellor: “What is being reported is very serious”
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These statements were immediately met with criticism, including from the chairwoman of the Bundestag's Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who described the Chancellor's claim as “false”.
Opposition politicians in Germany told Sunday newspapers that their understanding of the transcripts suggested that Scholz's claim that German ground troops were necessary to operate the Taurus missiles may have been false.
“The reports are worrying in two respects,” said Alexander Dobrindt, a high-ranking Bavarian CSU politician, in an interview with Der Spiegel. “On the one hand, because the Russians obviously listened in on sensitive security discussions, and on the other hand, because the Chancellor may have justified his refusal to send Taurus missiles with a false claim.”
Dobrindt said these questions need to be examined.
“The Chancellor must explain herself to the Bundestag,” he said. “In view of this situation, a parliamentary inquiry cannot be ruled out.”
The birth of the bull has so far been rejected, but not completely ruled out
Roderich Kiesewetter, a defense policy expert for the Christian Democrats (CDU), said he assumed that Russia intentionally passed on the intercepted communications at that time in order to “undermine a Taurus delivery from Germany.”
He told public broadcaster ZDF that this showed how “in-depth” Russian spy services had already investigated German communications on the issue, and also speculated that it could be an attempt to “steer public discourse away from the Wirecard revelations and the funeral of Alexei Navalny.” .”
What does the alleged recording of German officers say?
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He was referring to the death of the prominent Russian opposition leader and recent Russian espionage allegations against senior members of the online financial services firm that imploded in 2020, whose former sales chief Jan Marsalek is still on the run and accused of coordinating espionage for Russia in Germany and elsewhere.
The Russian revelation also came in a week in which French President Emmanuel Macron said that the stationing of NATO troops in Ukraine at some point in the future should not be completely ruled out, given how many other red lines already exist had been broken in the last two years in the midst of the Russian invasion. Macron's comments prompted other NATO leaders, including Scholz, to quickly say they had no intention of sending troops to Ukraine.
Although Scholz has stated several times that a Taurus delivery is not currently planned and also referred to the missiles' ability to reach Moscow from Ukraine, he did not rule it out entirely. And Germany changed its mind and sent weapons to Kiev that it had not originally intended to send to Kiev several times during the conflict, with Leopard tanks being probably the best-known example of this type.
Military officials also discussed during the unveiling whether and how Taurus missiles could be used to destroy a bridge, apparently referring to the Kerch Bridge that connects occupied Crimea to mainland Russia. Russian officials portrayed this as evidence of an intention to target its territory, while NATO and most of the international community would still consider it Ukrainian territory.
What can the Taurus rocket do?
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German intelligence is investigating how the leak occurred
According to the Defense Ministry, military intelligence agency MAD is trying to find out exactly how Russia intercepted the conversation. According to media reports, the conversation took place on the communications platform Webex and the participants may not have adequately encrypted their participation.
Meanwhile, the former special representative of the Bundeswehr, Hans-Peter Bartels, said that he did not expect any serious personnel consequences, for example for the highest-ranking officer under discussion, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz of the Air Force.
“The federal government will not now do Putin the favor of firing air force generals,” Bartles predicted in an interview with the Tagesspiegel.
msh,rmt/nm (AFP, dpa, Portal)
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