A German ambassador to Russia, Alexander Lambsdorff, was summoned this Monday to the Russian Foreign Ministry after Moscow disclosed a recording in which German Army officers discuss the possible shipment of Taurus missiles to Ukraine and their use against the Crimean bridge.
The audio of the conversation, released on Friday by the state-backed Russian media outlet RT, is described by the German Defense Ministry as a real discussion involving four officers, including the top commander of the German Air Force.
The five-minute discussion among German military officers is said to reveal direct involvement by Western nations in the conflict surrounding Ukraine, according to Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, who spoke during a daily press briefing. He noted that inside the German military there are concrete talks about plans to attack Russian territory.
The Kremlin spokesman added that it remains to be seen whether the German military acted on its own initiative. The question, he said, is how much control the German government has over the armed forces, and whether this is truly a matter of state policy or an unauthorized move by the army.
On Sunday, Germany’s Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, described the Russian media release of a conversation in which officers discuss sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine as an “hybrid attack.” He warned that there would be consequences once the investigation into the incident concludes.
Pistorius stressed that the release constitutes part of Vladimir Putin’s information war, a deliberate attempt to sow division and undermine unity in allied ranks. He called it disinformation and a strategic effort to destabilize Western cohesion.
In the recorded dialogue, the participants weigh the technical and political implications of a potential Taurus missile shipment to Ukraine. They also speculate about the possible targets in Russia that Kyiv might strike with these weapons, a line of discussion that Scholz has publicly rejected in recent days, reiterating his stance against such a transfer.