Putin is trying to “destabilize” Germany with a “wiretap leak” of “secret army conversations about the attack on occupied Crimea,” Defense Minister warns

Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to sow disunity by leaking wiretaps of a confidential German military discussion about the Ukraine war, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday.

“It is about using this recording to destabilize and disturb us,” the German minister said, adding that he “hoped Putin would not succeed.”

The German Defense Ministry said on Saturday it was checking whether a confidential video conference on the Ukraine war had been wiretapped after a recording was published on Russian social media.

The head of the Russian state-backed RT channel, Margarita Simonyan, on Friday released a 38-minute audio recording of what she said were German officers discussing the attack on Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014.

“We are investigating whether communications in the aviation sector were intercepted,” a Defense Ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

In the recording you can hear discussions about the possible use by Ukrainian forces of German-made Taurus missiles and their possible impact.

Other issues include aiming the missiles at targets such as a key bridge linking Russian-occupied Crimea with the Russian mainland over the Kerch Strait.

Experts consulted by Der Spiegel magazine said they believed the recording was authentic.

kyiv has long been crying out for Germany to provide it with Taurus missiles, which can hit targets at a distance of about 300 miles.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has so far refused to send the missiles, fearing it would lead to an escalation of the conflict.

“If this story turns out to be true, it would be a very problematic development,” Green Party politician Konstantin von Notz told broadcaster RND.

“The question arises as to whether this is an isolated incident or a structural safety issue,” he added.

Roderich Kiesewetter of the conservative opposition warned that more recordings could also be leaked.

“Other conversations will surely have been intercepted and may be leaked at a later date for Russia’s benefit,” he told broadcaster ZDF.

It can be assumed “that the conversation was deliberately leaked by Russia at the time with a specific intention,” namely “to prevent Germany’s delivery of the Taurus,” he said.

According to Der Spiegel, the video conference was not held on a secret internal army network, but on the WebEx platform.