Germany investigates leak of Air Force information about Ukraine

“According to our assessment, a conversation was intercepted within the Air Force division. We are not in a position to say for sure whether changes were made to the recorded or transcribed version circulating on social media,” a spokeswoman told AFP .

Earlier, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had announced the opening of an investigation into the alleged leak of information.

“This is a very serious matter and that is why it is being investigated very carefully, very thoroughly and very quickly,” Scholz said during a visit to Rome.

Scholz’s words came after a spokesman for the German army indicated that the German Armed Forces are investigating an alleged wiretap of a conversation between several high-ranking Air Force officers, made public on Friday by the Russian press, fearing that this may not be the only case.

According to sources from the German weekly “Der Spiegel”, the ministry is alarmed by the possibility that the recorded conversation is real and that there have been other eavesdropping on internal conversations within the armed forces.

Russian state broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today) on Friday published a 30-minute audio recording in which the head of the German air force, Ingo Gerhartz, is allegedly heard speaking to several high-ranking officers about the possibility of supplying missiles. “Taurus”‘ to Ukraine.

The interlocutors discuss, among other things, the technical options for destroying the Kerch bridge, which connects the Crimean peninsula to the mainland, or Russian weapons depots with this weaponry, although they recognize that there is no “green light” to provide it.

The publication of the conversation comes at a particularly sensitive time for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, which this week caused controversy by stating that Berlin cannot hand over the “Taurus” to Ukraine, at the risk of becoming a direct participant in the conflict.

Scholz has argued that Kiev will not be able to operate these systems without the help of German soldiers – a “red line” for Berlin – but audio released by RT appears to contradict this claim.

According to Der Spiegel sources, the German Ministry of Defense assumes that the audio is real and has not been manipulated with artificial intelligence tools.

Apparently, the conversation – which, according to RT, took place on January 19 – was not done over a secure line, but rather via the WebEx video conferencing platform, while one of the participants connected via cell phone.

In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova publicly asked her German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, for an explanation of the audio’s content.