Nawar Samad

&nbsp;On 1 March 2024, Russian sources close to the Kremlin leaked a secret conversation on social media. The leaked talks had taken place between high-ranking German air force officers, who discussed the possibility of using long-range German Taurus missiles in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly refused to supply these weapons to Kiev. The leak has sparked debate about the extent of Russian capabilities in hacking Western military and security institutions, and also revealed various weaknesses in German institutions.Key TakeawaysThe recent leaks have various implications, including the following points:1. Damage to the credibility of the Germany army: Initial Germany responses to the leak sought to verify whether or not the audio recording was authentic or had been tampered with in some way. The German news outlet Der Spiegel indicated that the recording was authentic, which the German Ministry of Defense has also since confirmed. Discussion then shifted to finding out how the leak had happened, i.e., whether through wiretapping or hacking the German Military Counterintelligence Service. Efforts were also made to determine whether the hack was an isolated incident or a sign of a structural security problem for the German army. On 5 March 2024, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius described the leak as the result of an "individual’s operational mistake." In a serious error, one of the four individuals heard in the recording from 19 February 2024 had not used an encrypted network. Instead, this person had connected to the WebEx platform from a cell phone from a hotel room in Singapore.2. Leaked German discussions on striking Crimean bridge: According to the German television news service Tagesschau, the conversation took place as part of preparing a recommendation for German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. The 38-minute conversation, which was released by RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, included discussions of how the Ukrainian army could use long-range Taurus missiles, which are difficult for radar to detect, and which Germany could choose to supply to Ukraine. The recording included talk of potentially using these missiles to strike the Kerch Bridge, which is particularly important from a symbolic and strategic standpoint since it connects Russia with the Crimean Peninsula. In the recording, it was stated that it would take around 20 Taurus missiles to destroy the bridge’s supporting columns. The officers indicated that quickly supplying these missiles to Ukraine would require also sending German soldiers, until Ukrainians could be trained on how to use them themselves over several months at Büchel Air Base in West Germany.3. Bad press for German Chancellor Scholz: The recording indicated that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was not doing everything needed to help Ukraine, despite his claims to the contrary. Scholz had previously explained that he had refused to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine because this would require sending German soldiers to Ukraine to operate the systems, and he did not want to make Germany a party to the war. In the leaked conversation, it appeared that in fact Ukrainian officers could receive the necessary training in Germany.4. Efforts to shift focus away from Russian domestic politics: The fact that this recording was leaked on Russia social media has prompted many analysts to point to Vladimir Putin’s efforts to establish greater legitimacy leading up to the Russian presidential elections, which will be held on March 15 and 17, 2024. According to a 3 March article from German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau, this leak was a maneuver by Russian leadership to shift attention away from what is amiss within Russia. The Kremlin is particularly keen to foreground other stories after crowds recently gathered for Alexei Navalny’s funeral, and saw a need to reunite the Russian people behind Putin and to show that Russia is under attack from its enemies.5. Moscow wants to block Kiev’s access to German missiles: A source close to the Christian Democratic Union of Germany said that timing of the Russian leak aimed to completely prevent Taurus missiles from reaching Kiev. Ukraine has been asking Germany for missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometers for a long time. Germany began discussing this question in April 2023, but Berlin’s official position has always previously been no, on the grounds that this move would risk escalating the conflict and would place Germany in direct confrontation with Russia. On 5 March 2024, Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique opined that Moscow wanted to scare Olaf Scholz so that he would not shift his stance on supplying Taurus missiles to Kiev. According to the article, the leaked recording therefore was just a new strategy by which Vladimir Putin hoped to exert pressure on the German government.Challenges for BerlinThere are many potential repercussions of the leak across various spheres, including the following:1. Heightened Russian pressure on Germany: On 2 March 2024, during a visit to Turkey, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented that the "war camp" in Europe remains very strong, and denounced the German Army’s "deceptive" practices. Dmitry Medvedev also wrote on his Telegram account that Russia’s old rival (i.e., Germany) had once again become an "archenemy" that was planning to strike Russian with missiles. The director of the press department for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, asked Germany for prompt clarification on the content of the leaked recording, and stated that any attempt to evade answering questions would be seen as an admission of guilt.Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the recording indicated that there had been detailed and serious discussions within the German army about plans to carry out strikes on Russian territory. It also revealed the growing internal debate within Germany about whether to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine. The German stance on the Crimean Peninsula remains extremely unclear. Although Ukraine’s allies have recognized the legitimacy of the country’s 1991 borders and that Ukrainian sovereignty extends to Donbas and the Crimean Peninsula, some in Germany still feel that destroying Russia’s Crimean bridge would be an unnecessary provocation of Putin.2. Undermining political stability in Germany: German media has been quick to label the leak as a wiretapping scandal as it tries to find explanations for how Russia could have gained access to a conversation between four high-level German air force officers, including Air Force Inspector Ingo Gerhartz. The leak also heightened pressure on Olaf Scholz in the domestic political sphere. Der Spiegel reported on 3 March 2024 that opposition figures such as Alexander Dobrindt, deputy leader of the CDU/CSU (an alliance of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria), have said they would not rule out calling for forming a parliamentary investigative committee and requiring Scholz to explain himself in front of the Bundestag.Even within the ruling majority, the leak has caused significant consternation. Konstantin von Notz, the chair of the Germany Parliamentary Oversight Panel, and a member of the Green Party, asked whether this wiretapping scandal was an isolated incident or if it indicated a structural problem within the intelligence agencies. Ironically, Björn Höcke, leader of the Alternative for Germany party in Thuringia, who is known to be close to Moscow, congratulated Olaf Scholz for resisting the pressure of warmongers.3. Blow dealt to trust between Western allies: The debate over Taurus missiles was reignited after 4 March 2024, when Scholz openly stated for the first time why Germany was refusing to give these missiles to Ukraine. He indicated that Germany could not do what France and the UK are doing, by which he meant being directly involved in Ukrainian territory. This statement angered London. MP Alicia Kearns, chair of UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said that Scholz’s statements were "wrong, irresponsible and a slap in the face to allies."Meanwhile, the leaked recording also revealed that France and the UK had been supplying Ukraine with long-range Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles. This provoked additional ire from Germany’s allies for failing to protect their secrets, even if the leak was unintentional. Some news outlets in countries allied with Germany have reported that Germany had previously supplied South Korea with these missiles without also having German troops on the ground.4. Information war escalates: On 3 March 2024, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that he was sorry to see what he described as Russia waging an "information war." He said that what Russia had done went far beyond intercepting and leaking the recording, and characterized the incident as a "hybrid disinformation attack" that sought to sow division in Germany. Russia might also have leaked the conversation because it wanted to send a message to Germany and to other members of NATO that their communications security was less developed that Russian wiretapping capabilities. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera wrote on 5 March 2024 that the Russian propaganda campaign was directed against Germany was because the latter was the first target in Putin’s hybrid war against the West as a whole. In this context, Germany was seen as the weakest link among Western ties with Moscow.5. Scholz faces domestic political challenges: Some commentators have observed that a key reason why Olaf Scholz has refused to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine are the potential political ramifications of that move on the home front. German public opinion in the states that formerly made up East Germany has been opposed to increasing military aid for Ukraine. These states will be holding regional elections soon, and even the Social Democratic Party has performed poorly in the polls there. Some feels that Scholz is always taking the wrong strategic tack since, despite bending over backwards to avoid offending Moscow, the Kremlin ultimately got the last laugh by demonstrating with the leaked recording that Scholz was not being truthful to Germans.6. Heightened controversy about sending Taurus missiles: Some feel that Germany has only one path forward to get itself out of its current predicament, and that is to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine now and without delay before Russia launches the offensive it has planned for this spring. This is seen as the only way that Olaf Scholz can save himself from a critical blunder, according to a 5 March 2024 article in the Daily Telegraph.Others argue that it is important to avoid going too far in response to the incident. Although it is true Germany needs to maintain its support for the Ukrainian forces, these voices argue that it is not in Germany’s interest to be at Kiev’s beck and call. The Guardian wrote on 5 March 2024 that it was not in Western Europe’s interests to escalate the war in Ukraine to the two sides firing long-range missiles at each other. Meanwhile, French newspaper Le Figaro opined on 7 March that the German Chancellor did not like to act without the protection of the US. It added that Germany would not go down a path that the US not had already blazed, and that the US has not yet supplied this kind of missile to Ukraine.In conclusion, the recent leak of German conversations on sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine indicates that German foreign policy continues to be shaped by the need to maintain a careful equilibrium between domestic interests and regional and international alliances. Concerns about how to effectively navigate these geopolitical challenges remain the deciding factor in determining the current direction of German policy.&nbsp;

What Does the Leaked German Conversation on Taurus Missiles to Ukraine Reveal?