The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Germany’s ambassador to Moscow, Alexander Lambsdorff, on Monday, March 4th, to explain the leaked conversation between German air force officials in which they discussed a hypothetical attack on the Russian-held Crimea Kerch bridge in Ukraine, using German long-range cruise missiles.
Ambassador Lambsdorff refused to answer questions when he arrived at the foreign ministry headquarters in Moscow. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the recording indicated that Ukraine and its Western allies “do not want to change their course at all” and instead of looking into ceasefire options, they “want to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield.”
Although the leaked material does not suggest that any actual cruise missile deliveries took place from Germany, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that the recording itself is enough to prove “the direct involvement of the collective West in the conflict in Ukraine.”
The leaked 38-minute discussion, apparently taken from a recorded video call between four German Bundeswehr officers, was published on Friday by the head of Russia’s state-owned RT channel, Margarita Simonyan.
The recording shows the officers, including German Air Force chief Ingo Gerhartz and Brigadier General Frank Gräfe, discussing the possibility of sending Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and using them to attack the Kerch bridge connecting Crimea to Russia proper.
The officials on the call did not seem too comfortable with the idea of attacking the bridge but recognized that it would be among the primary strategic targets of Kyiv once it had access to Taurus missiles, so they discussed how they could minimize their involvement in the hypothetical scenario.
One missile would not be enough to bypass air defenses and take out the bridge, the officers assessed, saying that any hypothetical attack would need at least 10 to 20 Taurus launched simultaneously. Germany reportedly has over 600 Taurus long-range cruise missiles, with about a quarter of them ready to be donated to Ukraine at any given time if Berlin decides to do so.
So far, however, Chancellor Scholz refused to send Tauruses to avoid further escalations. Unless Berlin deploys support staff along with the missiles, who would then be responsible for their reprogramming, there could be no guarantee that Kyiv wouldn’t use the weapons to hit targets deep inside Russian territory—both obvious red lines for Germany.
Nonetheless, the pressure on Germany to donate at least a few dozen of these weapons is steadily growing, especially given that Britain and France have already pledged similar (although not as efficient) long-range weaponry to Ukraine. The Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles have an effective range of 250 km, while the Swedish-German Taurus is capable of hitting targets 500 km away—as far as Moscow, in theory.
Even though the leaked recording contains nothing surprising or unusual, the political red lines around this piece of potential military aid make the discussion particularly sensitive. The scandal, therefore, is not about Germany risking escalation between NATO and Russia—as it has not committed a single missile so far—but about the apparent counterintelligence blunder of letting the call be recorded and leaked to Russia.
Scholz described the situation as a “very serious matter,” while another official familiar with the ongoing investigation of the leak by the German Military Counterintelligence Service said that “heads must roll” for the security mistake that led to the audio slipping into Russian hands.
While confirming its authenticity, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the release of the recording is an obvious ploy by Russia. “It’s a hybrid disinformation attack—it’s about division, it’s about undermining our unity,” Pistorius said, adding, “We mustn’t fall for Putin.”
The big question, however, is whether Moscow has intercepted additional classified communication from German or other European military sources that it can unveil in strategic times.
Based on the timing of the release, the recording could be a response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks from last week when he attempted to pressure Germany into sending cruise missiles to Ukraine. If so, the campaign was successful, as it effectively forced Chancellor Scholz to reiterate his refusal to send Taurus missiles.
However, the recording can also be a response to the leaked “Kremlin files” from a few days before that revealed confidential Russian wargame scenarios, including strategies for the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, intended to be used only on the battlefield. In this case, the Kremlin is simply trying to convey that espionage is going both ways, and any public leak can be answered by another within days.
