The German Defense Ministry said on Saturday it was investigating possible wiretapping of confidential discussions between high-ranking officers of its air force on the war in Ukraine.
“We are examining whether communications linked to the air force have been tapped, military counter-espionage (BAMAD) has taken all necessary measures,” a spokesperson told AFP. of the ministry.
The case emerged after the broadcast, according to German media, on Russian social media accounts close to the Kremlin, of what strongly resembles the recording of a conversation between German officers.
The latter speak in particular of the hypothesis of the use by the Ukrainian forces of long-range Taurus missiles, of German manufacture, of their possible impact, in particular if they were to target targets such as the Crimean bridge connecting the peninsula of Kerch, Crimea, to the west, and Russian territory.
Experts interviewed by the weekly Der Spiegel considered the recording to be authentic.
Ukraine has long been asking Germany for these missiles with a range of more than 500 km, 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 German parliamentary committee monitoring the secret services, Konstantin von Notz, told the RND group newspapers.
“The question arises whether this is an exceptional matter or a structural security problem” within the German army, he added.
An expert on defense issues from the main opposition party CDU (conservatives), Roderich Kiesewetter, estimated that “the conversion was deliberately spread by Russia at this precise moment with a very specific objective”, that of killing 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 channel.
According to Spiegel, the discussion between officers lasted half an hour and emanated from a video conference on the public platform WebEx and not from a secret internal army network, which raises questions about internal security standards at the Bundeswehr.