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Germany has rejected a claim by Moscow that it is planning attacks on Russian territory, calling it “absurd propaganda”.
Russia made the claim after Kremlin-controlled media published a recording in which senior German air force personnel appeared to discuss how the country’s long-range Taurus missiles could be used by Kyiv against Russian forces.
Wolfgang Büchner, deputy government spokesman, said: “Claims that the conversation proves Germany is preparing war against Russia [are] absurd, infamous Russian propaganda.”
The intercept has caused a political storm in Germany, raising deep concern about the security of government communications.
It has also reignited a row over whether Berlin should give Tauruses to Kyiv, which has experienced a string of setbacks on the battlefield in recent months amid shortages of western arms and stalled US aid.
Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, told reporters the call made it “more than obvious” that Germany’s military was “discussing substantive and specific plans to strike Russian territory”.
He added that the leak “confirms once again that the countries of the collective west are being drawn into the conflict around Ukraine”.
The leak included a discussion about whether Ukraine could deploy the Tauruses without the involvement of German soldiers and how long Ukrainian servicemen would need to be trained to use them.
The officials — seemingly taking part in a virtual meeting — also appeared to talk about a potential strike by Ukrainian forces on a bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea, Ukraine’s Russian-occupied peninsula.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has ruled out the delivery of Tauruses, fearing it would lead to Germany becoming directly involved in the war.
He said late last month that deploying the missiles in Ukraine would require German “boots on the ground”, with German soldiers needed to programme them.
The UK and France are already supplying Kyiv with their long-range missiles, Storm Shadow and Scalp, respectively.
But Taurus has greater range and sophistication and would be capable of reaching Moscow while evading most Russian anti-aircraft defences.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, used the German recording to suggest that Berlin in fact supported sending troops from Nato countries to Ukraine. The idea was floated by French president Emmanuel Macron last month but was rejected by Scholz and other members of the military alliance.
“German politicians are concerned about the leak online and the security of their conversations,” Lavrov said at a conference in Moscow on Monday. “That is to say, the fact German weapons and supporting personnel are being prepared to attack Russia [ . . . ] doesn’t surprise them.”
Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister, said on Sunday that the Russian intercept was “part of an information war that Putin is waging”. He added: “It is a hybrid disinformation attack. It is about dividing us. It is about undermining our unity.”
Christian Wagner, spokesman for the German foreign ministry, said the intercept would be used “to support this narrative about the aggressive west, and to distract from the fact that it’s Russia that has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine for more than two years”.
In his call with journalists on Monday, Peskov suggested Scholz might not have been aware of the military’s discussions.
“We have yet to learn whether the Bundeswehr is doing this on its own initiative,” he said.
“So the issue is whether the Bundeswehr is under control and the extent to which Mr Scholz is in control of this situation, or whether it’s part of German state policy.”
Russia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Germany’s ambassador, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, to demand an explanation for the military discussions recorded in the intercept. Peskov described the meeting as a “certain démarche”.
However, Wagner, the German foreign ministry spokesman, said Graf Lambsdorff had not been summoned and the meeting in Moscow was long scheduled.