Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, has said that probe into the recent leak of a military call revealed that it was caused by “user error.”
Addressing a press conference, he added that the investigation found that communications systems were not compromised.
“A serious mistake happened here that should not have happened. The reason the phone call could still be recorded… is due to an individual user error,” he said.
“An event like this in this environment is understandably a find for the Russian secret services. And targeted wiretapping operations take place in the hotels used.”
“It must therefore be assumed that access to this conference was a fluke as part of a broad, scattered approach.”
Boris Pistorius
Accusing Russia of “trying to drive a division at home in Germany,” Pistorius asserted that technical and organisational measures will be taken so that such an incident does not happen again.
Russian media on Friday, March 1, 2024, published a 38-minute recording of a call involving Germany’s air force Chief, Lieutenant-General Ingo Gerhartz and three subordinates.
In the call, they discussed whether it might be possible to persuade a reluctant Chancellor to approve giving the long-range Taurus missile to Ukraine.
They also discussed whether the munition could blow up the strategic Kerch Bridge that connects Russia to occupied Crimea.
The Kremlin Spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the leaked conversations “once again highlight the direct involvement of the collective west in the conflict in Ukraine.”
The German Defence Minister disclosed that one participant on the call used a “non-secure line” to dial into the webex call.
Pistorius added that they assume Russians tapped into the call via that participant.
In a bid to downplay the leak, Pistorius emphasized that Germany still has the trust of its allies and received assurances that their confidence in Berlin remains intact.
“Trust in Germany is unbroken. Everyone knows about the danger of such wiretapping attacks and know that no one can offer 100 percent protection,” Pistorius said.
Leak To Cause Improvement In German Security System
Speaking to a news agency, Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s University of Bremen noted, “So far, this will only affect the improvement of the security system during such talks and the identification of methods the Russian intelligence services used to make the recording.”
Also, Andreas Umland, a German political scientist who works for the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, stated that no matter how much “the Kremlin spins the scandal, to Germans, it isn’t changing that much.”
“It’s a big topic in Russia, but in Germany, it’s mainly a topic in terms of how this leak was possible and how the Russians were able to get this recording. The content is a secondary issue, actually,” Umland commented.
Nonetheless, he said that the leak makes German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz look weak.
“The conversation is undermining the Scholz narrative that the Taurus missile can only be used with assistance from Germany, and that’s why Germany cannot give them over to Ukraine,” he noted.
Secret conversations between military chiefs are simply not supposed to emerge at all. As such, the call leak is quite embarrassing for Germany.
A former Russian Diplomat, Boris Bondarev, opined that the leak also makes Germany look careless and untrustworthy to its Western allies.
“This may decrease the coordination of Europe’s efforts, the Germans will be less trusted,” Bondarev remarked.
“[Scholz] most likely will hide his head in the sand even deeper,” he said.
Bondarev quit his job as a member of Russia’s delegation to the United Nations in Geneva to protest the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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