LONDON — The call came from inside the Western alliance.
Deepening fears that the Kremlin may be succeeding in its effort to sow discord between the United States and its allies, Russia has published the audio of a private discussion between high-ranking German military officers. The leak has caused uproar in Berlin, possible harm to its support for Ukraine and accusations that this is all part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s yearslong “information war” against the West.
Germany on Monday dismissed the Kremlin’s claims that the recording — which included discussions of how Ukraine might use German weapons against Russian forces and potential strikes by Kyiv on a key bridge in occupied Crimea — betrayed plans to go to war directly with Russia.
Berlin has not denied the authenticity of the leaked call, instead promising a quick investigation into how such a high-level conversation was apparently intercepted by Moscow.
It’s the latest sign that Putin is exploiting divisions within NATO as the transatlantic alliance grapples with the prospect of a second Trump presidency and waning support for Ukraine.
“Another word for information war is propaganda,” said Frank Ledwidge, a former British military intelligence officer and senior lecturer in war studies at England’s University of Portsmouth. “This was a major foul-up, and the Russians are taking advantage of it.”
‘Undermining our unity’
The 38-minute audio recording was leaked Friday by a leading Russian propagandist, just as the eyes of the West were on the funeral of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow.
Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia’s state-run RT network, published the audio of the call, which she said features officers including the head of Germany’s air force talking about the use of Taurus long-range cruise missiles, and potential strikes against the Kerch Bridge, Putin’s pet project connecting the annexed Crimean Peninsula to Russia.
The use of the German-made missiles could require the presence of German troops on the ground to help deploy them, the officers reportedly said, a red line that Berlin has been wary of crossing.
Germany is now the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the U.S., but has drawn growing criticism for its reluctance to grant Kyiv’s wish for supplies of longer-range weapons like the Taurus, which would help Ukraine strike deeper inside Russian territory. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated his opposition to supplying the weapons last week, citing a desire to avoid being drawn directly into the conflict.
But the Kremlin quickly accused Germany of planning just that as it seized on the revelations with glee.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the leak was proof that “plans to launch strikes on Russian territory are being substantively and specifically discussed” within the German army. It shows, he said, the “direct involvement” of the West in the war in Ukraine — part of the Kremlin’s long-standing narrative framing the invasion of its neighbor as an existential fight for Russia’s survival.
Russian state media reported that Germany’s ambassador had been summoned by the Russian Foreign Ministry, although Berlin said it was a preplanned meeting.
A spokesperson for the German government, Wolfgang Buechner, said that any suggestions that the country was preparing to enter a war with Russia were “absurd, malicious Russian propaganda.”
The leak was “part of an information war that Putin is waging,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Sunday. “It is a hybrid attack aimed at disinformation. It’s about division, it’s about undermining our unity.”