Moscow, Mar 4 (EFE).\u2013 The Russian foreign ministry summoned German Ambassador Alexander Lambsdorff on Monday after an alleged audio leak revealed conversations of German military officers discussing the potential deployment of Taurus missiles to target the Crimea Bridge.<\/p>
“The German ambassador arrived at the Russian Foreign Ministry, where he was summoned in connection with the publicized conversation of German officers about Crimea,” Russian state-run agency RIA Novosti said.<\/p>
In the leaked audio, purported German officers discussed the capability of Taurus missiles to destroy the Crimean Bridge and the logistics of such an attack.<\/p>
The leak underscores Russia’s concerns about Western involvement in the Ukraine conflict as the Crimean Bridge has been bombed twice since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. <\/p>
The conversation “shows the direct involvement of the so-called collective West in the conflict around Ukraine,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov in his daily telepress briefing on Monday.<\/p>
He said the conversation indicated that within the German Army, “there are concrete discussions about launching attacks on Russian territory.”<\/p>
“It remains to be seen whether the German Army is acting on its own initiative. Then the question is how controllable the German Army is and to what extent [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz controls all this, or if this is part of Germany’s state policy,” Peskov said.<\/p>
On Sunday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius described the publication by Russian media of the conversation as an “information warfare,” promising “consequences” once the investigation into the incident is concluded.<\/p>
“It is part of Putin’s information warfare, without a doubt. It is a hybrid attack, disinformation. It is about creating division, undermining our unity,” Pistorius said.<\/p>
In the audio, the officers could be heard discussing the technical and political implications of a potential deployment of Taurus missiles to Ukraine and speculate on the Russian targets that Kyiv could target with them.<\/p>
The leak came days after Scholz gave assurances that NATO was not and would not be directly involved in the Ukraine conflict. EFE<\/p>
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