This Monday, March 4, Moscow denounced “ direct involvement » of the West in Ukraine and said he summoned the German ambassador after the broadcast on social networks, from Russia, of exchanges between German officers on possible deliveries of missiles to kyiv.
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Diffusion, Friday March 1st, of the audio recording of a recent videoconference between high-ranking German officers, discussing in particular the possible delivery of Taurus missiles to Ukraine, caused a crisis between the two countries, and a shock in Berlin. These exchanges, the authenticity of which was confirmed by Berlin, show “ once again the direct involvement of the collective West in the conflict in Ukraine “, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the press.
Between ten and twenty missiles to overcome the Crimean bridge
In this conversation, the participants discuss in particular the hypothesis of supplying Kiev with long-range German-made Taurus missiles, what would be necessary for Ukrainian forces to use them and their possible impact. The participants notably raised the possibility of strikes against the Crimean bridge connecting the peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014 and Russian territory, with one of them emphasizing that it would take between ten and twenty missiles to overcome it. The content of the conversation is very embarrassing for Germany, because Berlin officially refuses to deliver Taurus missiles to kyiv, arguing a risk of escalation of the conflict.
“ The recording itself testifies that within the Bundeswehr (the German army, Editor’s note), plans to carry out strikes against Russian territory are discussed in detail and concretely », lamented Dmitri Peskov, this Monday March 4. The Kremlin spokesperson’s statements came as Germany’s ambassador to Moscow, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on the same day. A summons denied by Berlin, late Monday morning. “ Our ambassador had a long-planned meeting this morning at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs “, a spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry, Christian Wagner, told the press.
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As of Saturday March 2, Berlin confirmed that the recording was authentic and that it had been “ intercepted “. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised an investigation “ very thorough ” And “ very fast » on the publication of this information. “ I hope we can learn somehow (…) what did this investigation lead to? “, commented Mr. Peskov. “ It is obviously necessary to establish whether the Bundeswehr does this on its own initiative. And so the question is how controllable the Bundeswehr is and how much Mr. Scholz controls all of this, or whether this is part of German state policy “, he further indicated. “ In both cases, it’s very bad », concluded the Kremlin spokesperson.
“ Destabilize » Germany
For his part, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Sunday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of seeking to “ destabilize » Germany with spying on confidential military exchanges on Ukraine. That “ is part of an information war that Putin is waging “, he affirmed, “ this is clearly about undermining our unity (…), to sow political division domestically and I sincerely hope that Putin will not succeed in this. »
According to the magazine Der Spiegelthe videoconference took place via the public WebEx platform and not an ultra-secure internal network of the Luftwaffe (the German Air Force, Editor’s note). And one of the officers was in a Singapore hotel, whose room may have been booby-trapped with microphones, some media say. German military counter-espionage will have to determine whether “ the right platform has been chosen » for the conversation, admitted Mr. Pistorius.
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