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T24 News Center
Journalistic writer Murat Yetkin, „Russia is playing with NATO, not just with Germany: just a spying crisis?“ In his article titled, he wrote about the crisis between Berlin and the Kremlin and the disclosure of the meeting of senior German military officials in Kiev.
In the 38-minute audio recording of the revelations by the editor-in-chief of the Russian public broadcaster Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, German officers were heard plotting to blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia to the annexed Crimea. They would send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
CLICK | Russian media leaked an audio recording of the meeting where German military discussed Ukraine’s plans
The expert wrote that initially it was assumed that the recording might have been generated by artificial intelligence, but the situation was understood after Roderich Kiesewetter, deputy chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Committee of the German Bundestag, announced that the incident was real, and he wrote the following in the relevant part of his article titled „Germany is in trouble“:
„German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz announced an investigation to uncover the incident as soon as possible.
Scholz’s name was already mentioned in the transcript of the meeting, which apparently took place on February 19 between the Air Force Commander, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, the Air Force Operations and Training Director, Brigadier General Frank Graeffe, and an Air Force official. A meeting with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was planned for Gerhartz to examine the possibility of deploying Taurus missiles in Ukraine. This was a preparatory meeting. Scholz remained absent but was persuaded to join.
From that point on, it got even stranger. The Air Force Operations Director was in Singapore at the time and was using the WebEx conference system (like Zoom) of the US digital communication giant Cisco to communicate with his commander. An intelligence source told me years ago, „You can imagine everything you write in social media or emails as if it were projected on the giant screen in Taksim.“ Could it be that the Air Force commander of Germany, one of the most valuable powers in NATO, did not think that he should not hold his highly confidential meeting over Zoom?
What does the term hybrid attack mean?
The expert wrote that Germany does not consider the issue only as a spying incident, and explained that Defense Minister Pistorius’s words have two dimensions:
„Instead of explaining what incident it is, it seems to be generic, emphasizing with the shield the unity and integrity of the country. It doesn’t matter if it is Turkey or Germany, and it really suggests that there are other things at play.“
Secondly, Pistorius uses the term „hybrid attack“. This refers to the concept of „hybrid warfare“, known as the „Gerasimov Doctrine“, named after Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov. „In an article from 2013, Gerasimov claimed that the boundaries between war and peace are blurring, that future wars will take place without a declaration of war and will be waged using means ranging from cyber opportunities to economic pressure.“
Three questions about the leak
Yetkin posed the following three questions about the leak:
„1- Could it be that the soldiers and bureaucrats who did not want Germany to further confront Russia under the influence of the USA intentionally leaked this information or acted in a way that could fall into the hands of the Russians?
2- Can Russia have spies capable of deeply infiltrating the German system? CIA Director William Burns said in his recent article that contrary to all assumptions, the costs of the human factor are rising in the digital age. Wasn’t it recently revealed that a US ambassador spied on Cuba’s accounts?
3- If Russia can enter the NATO military system in this way, does this pose a threat to the military secrets of all NATO members, including Turkey?
To read the full article.
T24