©Sputnik/Yekaterina Shtukina
A recently leaked recording of senior German officers discussing a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge leaves no doubt that Berlin is preparing for a military conflict with Moscow, the former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, warned on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
Medvedev, who is currently deputy head of the Russian Security Council, was commenting on audio that surfaced earlier this week. The story was broken on Friday by RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, who said she had received the recording from Russian security officials.
The 38-minute-long recording, reportedly from February 19, contained a conversation between four officers of the German Air Force, including its commander, Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz. They were discussing operational and targeting details of Taurus long-range missiles which Berlin was considering supplying to Kiev. The officers particularly explored the option of the missiles being used against the Crimean Bridge and spoke about maintaining plausible deniability in the event of such an attack.
The leak sparked a major scandal in Germany, with many senior MPs calling for the nation’s counterintelligence efforts to be enhanced. The German Defense Ministry confirmed the authenticity of the recording but neither the military nor Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government have commented on the plans discussed by the senior officers.
On Sunday, Medvedev assumed that Berlin would now try to claim it had known nothing of the military discussions taking place. He also stated that the German authorities could call the leaked conversation a purely hypothetical one and say that the military was “obsessed with playing mock battles.”
“Any attempts to present the Bundeswehr officers’ conversation as just a ‘game’ with missiles and tanks would be a malicious lie,” the former president warned. “Germany is preparing for a war with Russia.”
Medvedev also said that the position of Scholz’s cabinet might eventually be irrelevant when it comes to the standoff between Moscow and Berlin. “History knows many examples when the military were capable of taking decisions for their civilian superiors about starting a war or just instigating [conflict],” he added. He particularly pointed to a hypothetical provocation scenario, in which the German military might convince Scholz that Russian forces had launched a missile “at Berlin,” which had been intercepted.
Various German officials have recently raised the issue of a potential war with Russia. Earlier on Sunday, the nation’s health minister, Karl Lauterbach, said that Germany should improve its healthcare system for it to be able to swiftly respond to “major disasters” like a military conflict.
Last month, German general Carsten Breuer called for a “change in mentality” in society, insisting the nation needed to prepare for a potential war with Russia in five years. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said last November that the country must become “war-capable,” and stated again in January that Berlin and all its NATO allies should arm themselves more actively to be able to “wage a war that is forced upon us.”
German Defense Minister on Leak: Discussing Scenarios Does Not Mean Giving Taurus Missiles to Kiev
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday that an audio recording published by Russian media showed German senior officers discussing "different scenarios" of events, not plans, and their conversation does not mean a "green light" to transferring Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
"The officers were doing what they were here to do: they were thinking about different scenarios, without making plans in any way. There should be no doubt: this did not and does not mean a green light for the use of Taurus missiles — neither from (German) Chancellor (Olaf Scholz) nor from me," Pistorius said during a special address on the published audio recording.
He also expressed hope that the first results of an investigation into the audio recording will be ready early next week.
"There are no final results (of the probe) yet. I expect them to appear within the first few days of next week," Pistorius said during a special address on the leaked audio recording.
He added that the publication was "part of an information war" that Russia was allegedly conducting and was aimed at undermining the country's unity.
"This is meant to reinforce the legend, the fairy tale that we are working on a war against Russia, which is completely absurd," Pistorius said, adding that Germany was working exclusively on providing aid to Ukraine.
At the same time, Pistorius said he was unaware of any other leaks other than the recent one.
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