German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius described the Russian media's publication of a conversation between German soldiers regarding the bombing of the Crimean Bridge as "part of the information war waged by Moscow."
Pistorius said, during a press briefing about the published audio recording: “This is part of the media war that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is waging. There is no doubt about that.”
He added: “We are talking about division, we are talking about compromising our unity,” stressing that “this should reinforce the imaginary myth that we are working to wage a war against Russia, which is completely ridiculous,” adding that Germany is working exclusively to provide support to Ukraine.
The German Defense Minister expressed his hope that the initial results of the leak examination would appear at the beginning of the week, indicating that he was not aware of any other leaks other than the officers’ conversation published last Friday.
On Friday, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the RT television channel and the international media group Rossiya Segodnya, revealed a conversation between high-ranking officers in the German army that included discussing the possibility of resorting to Britain to help prepare for strikes on Russia.
According to the conversation published by Simonyan, which took place on February 19, 2024, and in which the head of the Operations and Training Department of the German Air Force, Frank Griffey, Commander of the German Air Force, Ingo Gerharz, and employees of the Air Operations Center of the German Aerospace Command, Fenske and Froestedt, participated, the issue of sending “Taurus” missiles was discussed. To Ukraine and carry out an attack on the Crimean Bridge.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday that Germany is required to provide clarifications about this audio recording and Berlin is obligated to provide them immediately.
The German DPA agency, citing a representative of the German Ministry of Defense, reported that the Federal Military Counterintelligence Agency had begun an investigation into a possible interception of information.