Budeswehr officers are intercepted by the Russians while discussing how to destroy the Kerch bridge
The German Ministry of Defense confirmed on Saturday the authenticity of a recording of a confidential discussion between senior Bundeswehr officers on the war in Ukraine, released by Russian state media, in which the German Taurus missile's ability to destroy the bridge over the Ukraine was discussed. Kerch Strait.
“According to our assessment, a conversation was intercepted in the air force division. At the moment we are unable to say with certainty whether changes have been made to the recorded or transcribed version that is circulating on social media,” a ministry spokeswoman said.
The director of Russian state broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan , on Friday released what she said was an audio recording between German officers, including the head of the Air Force, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz.
“Now it will be investigated very carefully, very intensively and very quickly,” Scholz said on Saturday during a visit to Rome.
As broadcast by Simonyan on Telegram, the audio includes a discussion of the ability of Taurus cruise missiles to destroy a bridge, apparently a reference to the new bridge connecting Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland across the Kerch Strait.
The recording was apparently made from a video conference between four Luftwaffe offices discussing Russia's war in Ukraine.
In the leaked audio, there was talk of how German officers could provide the Ukrainians with target information without appearing to be directly involved in the conflict with Russia, for example by using civilian-clad personnel who spoke Ukrainian with an American accent.
The clip also contains a reference to the fact that the British have “some people on the ground” in relation to the deployment of their Storm Shadow cruise missiles delivered to Ukraine.
German magazine Der Spiegel reported that the virtual meeting did not take place over a secure line, but via the Webex platform.
A mistake or a deliberate move?
“If this story turns out to be true, it would be a very problematic incident,” Konstantin von Notz, chairman of the Bundestag's parliamentary oversight committee, told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland television network.
The Green Party politician said it needed to be established "whether it is an isolated incident or a structural safety problem."
Roderich Kiesewetter, of the center-right Christian Democratic Union and vice-president of the Bundestag's parliamentary oversight committee, said it appeared Russia had leaked the conversation to pressure Germany not to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine.
What could be the cause of this incredible story:
- all this may be the result of an incredible superficiality in the security of the German armed forces, which appear to be little more than a group of easy-going amateurs who reveal state secrets on insecure channels;
- or this was conscious sabotage intended to avoid sending the German long-range missile to Ukraine by revealing its background to the Russians.
For now, German Chancellor Scholz has banned the transfer of the weapon to Kiev.
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The article Budeswehr officers are intercepted by Russians while discussing how to destroy the Kerch bridge comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/gli-ufficiali-della-budeswehr-sono-intercettati-dai-russi-mentre-discutono-su-come-distruggere-il-ponte-di-kerch/ on Sun, 03 Mar 2024 07:00:07 +0000.