The German Defense Ministry announced on Saturday March 2 that it was investigating possible wiretapping of confidential discussions between high-ranking officers of its air force, the Luftwaffe, on the war in Ukraine.
The case emerged after the broadcast on social networks, according to German media, by Russian accounts close to the Kremlin, of what strongly resembles the recording of a conversation between German officers. The latter talk about the hypothesis of the use by the Ukrainian forces of long-range Taurus missiles, of German manufacture, and their possible impact, in particular if they were to target targets like the Crimean bridge, which connects the Kerch Peninsula, Crimea, to the west, and Russian territory.
Experts interviewed by the weekly Der Spiegel considered the recording to be authentic. “We are examining whether communications linked to the air force were tapped, military counter-espionage has taken all necessary measures,” a statement told Agence France-Presse (AFP). spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense.
Structural safety issue?
Ukraine has long been asking Germany for these missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometers, but Berlin has so far refused, citing the risk of escalation of the conflict.
“If this story turns out to be true, it would be highly problematic,” the chairman of the parliamentary committee monitoring the secret services, Konstantin von Notz, told RND group newspapers. “The question arises whether this is an exceptional matter or a structural security problem” within the German army, he added.
Roderich Kiesewetter, a defense expert and member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the main opposition party, said that “the conversation [had] been purposefully leaked by Russia at that very moment with a very particular objective”, that of nipping in the bud the debate in Germany around the delivery of Taurus missiles to kyiv. “Other conversations were certainly listened to and will be broadcast later to serve Russia’s interests,” he told the ZDF television channel.
According to Spiegel, the discussion between officers lasts half an hour and emanates from a video conference on the public platform WebEx and not from a secret internal army network, which raises questions about internal security standards to the Bundeswehr.
