2024-03-03 16:00:21
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised a quick clarification of the case of the audio recording broadcast by Russian media of German Air Force officers discussing support for Ukraine, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
It is a “very serious matter,” Scholz said during a visit to the Vatican on Saturday.
The conversation between German officers was published on Friday by Russian journalist and editor-in-chief of state-run RT television Margarita Simonyan. In it, high-ranking representatives of the Air Force discuss the theoretical possibilities of deploying German Taurus cruise missiles in Ukraine, DPA recalls.
Scholz has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of his country providing the missiles in question to Ukraine, arguing that he fears Germany will be drawn deeper into the war.
Germany’s defense ministry said on Saturday that an internal conversation between senior air force officers may have been intercepted. “At the moment, we cannot say for sure whether changes have been made to the recorded or transcribed version that is being distributed on social networks,” a spokeswoman for the department told DPA.
The memo also mentions that the British have “several people on the ground” in Ukraine in connection with the deployment of their Storm Shadow cruise missiles in the country.
Some see this as an indication that French and British forces are helping control the targets of cruise missiles sent to Ukraine. London immediately denied these claims.
Earlier this week, Scholz argued to reporters his refusal to provide Kiev with Taurus missiles, saying it might require German servicemen to be sent to Ukraine to program the missiles. “This is a weapon with a very long range,” Scholz said in Berlin, quoted by the publication “Poltiiko”. “And what the British and the French are doing in terms of target control and target control support cannot be done in Germany,” added Scholz.
The German chancellor’s conclusion that British and French personnel operate cruise missiles provided to Ukraine is “wrong, irresponsible and a slap in the face to allies,” said Alicia Cairns, chairwoman of the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, on Thursday, Politico added.
Asked by a DPA reporter on Saturday about the possible diplomatic implications of the intercepted exchange of information between the Bundeswehr, Scholz said: “At the moment this matter is being clarified very carefully, very intensively and very quickly.”
Air Force Inspector General Ingo Gerharts was among those present at the meeting, which is said to have been in preparation for a briefing for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.
The exchange, which can be heard on the tape, concerns whether Taurus cruise missiles would theoretically have the capacity to destroy the Russian-built bridge to the Crimean peninsula. German officers are also discussing the issue of whether Ukraine could carry out such a strike without the participation of the Bundeswehr. The memo also makes clear that German lawmakers are reluctant to provide Kiev with cruise missiles.
Earlier on Saturday, sources told DPA that the recording was genuine and that the discussion was conducted via the US-based online conferencing platform Webex.
The German Ministry of Defense is investigating whether the communication was intercepted. “The Federal Service for Military Counterintelligence has taken all necessary measures,” a department spokeswoman said on Friday.
“The question is whether this is a one-off incident or a structural security problem,” said Constantin von Notz, chairman of the parliamentary committee overseeing Germany’s intelligence services.
“We urgently need to increase our security and counter-intelligence, because we are clearly vulnerable in this area,” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, chairwoman of the Bundestag’s defense committee, told German media R&D. She pointed out that espionage is “part of Russia’s hybrid warfare toolkit” and that it was not surprising that the conversations were intercepted. “It was only a matter of time before it became public,” Strack-Zimmerman added.