By Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke
BERLIN (Reuters) – Russian media last week published an 38-minute audio recording of an intercepted online call between senior German military officials about how to support Ukraine against the Kremlin’s invasion.
Germany’s government has confirmed the veracity of the call.
This is what the officials discussed and the reactions to the security breach:
WHAT WAS DISCUSSED DURING THE RECORDED CALL?
In the call, German Air Force Chief Ingo Gerhartz discusses with three high-ranking Luftwaffe officials the possible delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Kyiv, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz has publicly so far firmly rejected.
They also talk about the training of Ukrainian soldiers, and possible military targets for the missiles including the bridge linking the Russian mainland to Crimea and Russian ammunition depots.
The discussions included details of allies’ operations, such as the fact British personnel were deployed in Ukraine and how Britain’s Storm Shadow and France’s Scalp missiles were deployed in the country.
One official talks about the fact Britain is already handling for France the satellite data needed for Ukraine to program the missiles.
He suggests it could do the same for Germany – preventing the country from being in any way directly involved in their deployment, which is a political red line for Berlin.
WHY IS THIS A SCANDAL?
Critics have denounced the fact military secrets were discussed via a standard off-the-shelf platform like WebEx, saying this demonstrates a systematic underestimation in Germany of security threats. One call participant joined from his hotel room in Singapore, government officials confirmed.
Germany’s allies have not publicly criticized the leak. A spokesman for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters it was a matter for Germany to investigate and Britain would continue to work together with Germany to support Ukraine.
But former British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was quoted as saying by The Times that the incident demonstrated Germany was “neither secure nor reliable”.
The recording also underscores the extent to which the decision on deploying Taurus missiles is a political one – and Scholz is reticent about Germany getting too directly involved in the Ukraine war or prompting an escalation of hostilities.
The Taurus missiles can reach twice as far as the Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles, and would thus enable Ukraine to even reach as far as Moscow.
HOW DID GERMANY REACT?
Germany has said the leak was a Russian “hybrid disinformation attack” that aimed to sow discord within the country and with allies. It has also called accusations of war preparations “absurd” propaganda.
German authorities say they are investigating the incident but it is unclear so far whether any security protocols were breached and no one has been fired yet.
MOSCOW’S TAKE
The Kremlin says the recording shows Germany’s armed forces were discussing plans to launch strikes on Russian territory, and questioned whether this was government policy or Chancellor Scholz lost control of the situation.
Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it demanded on Monday an explanation from the German ambassador to Moscow Alexander Graf Lambsdorff about the discussion which “clearly demonstrates the involvement of the ‘collective West’, including Berlin, in the conflict around Ukraine”.
RUSSIAN SPYING IN GERMANY
Germany, one of the largest providers of military hardware to Ukraine, is a major target of Russian spying operations, which have grown in scale since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, authorities have warned.
The authorities arrested a German Foreign Intelligence Service (BND) employee they suspected of spying for Russia in late 2022.
Last year, authorities arrested an officer of the military procurement agency on suspicion of passing secret information to Russian intelligence.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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