Germany ‘preparing for war’ after British and French military secrets leaked to Russians

NATO allies in uproar as Germany discuss British and French secret missile deliveries to Ukraine in a call hacked by the Russians.

German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Picture: AFP.

Russian former president Dmitry Medvedev claims that “Germany is preparing for war with Russia” after sensitive British and French military secrets were leaked by German Luftwaffe officers discussing missiles in Ukraine on an unsecure video call last month.

Medvedev, one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s closest allies said in an inflammatory social media post on Sunday that the taped conversations which emerged over the weekend would be passed off by the Germans as a “game of rockets and tanks”, which he said, would be “a malicious lie”.

Sensitive British and French military information was leaked to the Russians after German Luftwaffe officers discussed delivering missiles in Ukraine on an unsecure video call last month.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz has so far refused to send the missiles, fearing that it would lead to an escalation of the conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia.

Mr Scholz has ordered an investigation into the damaging leak, which has caused uproar in diplomatic circles, and said the situation was “very serious”.

Mr Sholz told the German publication Bild: “There are indications that an insufficiently secure means of communication was used in view of the content that was obviously discussed. This is, among other things, the subject of further investigations.”

On February 19, the Luftwaffe Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz was discussing how the Storm Shadow missile system was being delivered into Ukraine from Britain and France. His video call was made from a hotel room linking in to the head of the operations and exercises department of the air force Command Graefe, and senior officials at the air operations centre.

Incredibly, Gerhartz said on the call that British soldiers “were on the ground (in Ukraine)”, a particularly delicate issue that has created consternation among the NATO alliance.

Moscow said that any NATO country troops inside Ukraine was a provocative act, and comes just days after French president Emmanuel Macron was derided by allied nations for suggesting that NATO has ruled nothing out when it comes to dispatching troops into Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Germans had specifically discussed how to deliver the Taurus missiles to Ukraine without anybody noticing. “I don’t know how they will explain themselves to their population,” Lavrov said.

Germany has been reluctant to supply its long range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine because of fears by the Chancellor that they could be used to fire on targets well inside the Russian border, resulting in repercussions against Germany.

In Russian transcripts of the contentious call, Gerhartz told the meeting: “if we make a political decision to transfer missiles as aid to Ukraine, what are the consequences? I will be grateful to you if you tell me not only what problems we have, but how we can solve them. For example, if we talk about delivery methods … I know how the British do it. They always transport them in Ridgback armoured vehicles. They have several people on site. The French don’t do that. They supply Q7 with Scalp missiles to Ukraine. Storm Shadow and Scalp have similar technical specifications for their installation. How will we solve this problem?”

Others discussed how there would be a six to eight month time lag from the time Taurus was authorised to when it could be deployed in action.

Another person on the call, named in German media as being Brigadier General Frank Graefe, called for discretion in having Ukrainian troops being trained on German soil, calling for Britain to take the lead when troops were ready to return to Ukraine so that Germany would not be linked to any of the action.

“Just imagine the uproar if the media were to find out,” he said.

Russian broadcaster RT released the lengthy recording which includes references to attacking the Kerch bridge which links Russia and Crimea.

German opposition MP Roderich Kiesewetter told Deutsche Welle that a Russian intelligence agent had probably been able to join the unsecured call, as the Luftwaffe officers had simply connected to it on their mobile phones.

British MP Bob Seely said Germany had been “incredibly complacent” in discussing such matters. Last week the former British defence minister Ben Wallace said Scholz was “the wrong man, in the wrong job at the wrong time.”