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Berlin must respond regarding audio of officers discussing hit on Crimean Bridge — senator

Konstantin Kosachev noted that members of Germany’s top brass would be unlikely to "prepare something behind the chancellor’s back"

MOSCOW, March 1. /TASS/. Germany’s top leadership must provide an exhaustive response to reports of the publication of a leaked audio recording of high-ranking German Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) officers discussing a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge, Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of the upper house Russian Federation Council, or "senate," said, noting that this recording effectively belies Berlin’s claims that it is not directly involved in the Ukraine conflict.

"Unless a convincing refutation and proof [thereof] follows, we will have to conduct a fundamental review of Germany’s true role in the Ukrainian conflict, which, as it turns out now, completely disproves Scholz’s claims of non-involvement in the conflict. This [leaked discussion indicates Berlin’s] direct involvement; it could not be more direct: 'We are waging a war right now,' one of the recorded Germans says," the senator said on his Telegram channel.

Kosachev expressed his firm conviction that this incident must have consequences at the most serious level, stating that: "The German leadership has to provide an exhaustive answer, not only to us, but to their own citizens as well, regarding the revealed facts and the attempts to pull the country into a direct conflict with a nuclear power."

The senior lawmaker noted that members of Germany’s top brass would be unlikely to "prepare something behind the chancellor’s back," which means that Berlin is "directly involved up to its ears in combat operations and even prepares plans for strikes on Russian infrastructure."

"And we are not talking about military facilities; we are talking about a bridge, which civilian trains and thousands of civilian cars use. We will have every reason to deem the German leadership as direct accomplices in the crimes of the Kiev Nazis, for whom attacks on civilian facilities and the peaceful civilian population are already an everyday occurrence," Kosachev emphasized.

He noted that, just recently, the Bundestag gave the green light to shipments of weapons to Kiev that can "inflict precision strikes on strategically important facilities deep inside Russian territory."

"Judging by the intercepted conversation of the German military officers, we are not just talking about arms shipments any more. What Berlin was seeking to hide from the public has now become a fact: Germany is fighting on the side of Ukraine, while completely ignoring the will of its own people," Kosachev said.

He quoted Bundestag lawmaker Roderich Kiesewetter, who said that it is necessary to "take the war to Russia," to destroy not only military facilities and factories, "but ministries as well," because, if Ukraine’s plans fail, the "German world order and the EU will fade into oblivion."

The Federation Council deputy speaker remarked: "It took a lot of effort for the world, and for our country in particular, to ensure that the last 'German world order' faded into oblivion. I believe the Germans in particular would do well not to tempt fate for the second time," the senior senator warned.

Earlier, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said that on the very day that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave assurances that NATO was not now and would not in the future be directly involved in the Ukraine conflict, Germany’s top brass was in fact mulling how to carry out a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge in a way that would have no repercussions for Berlin by giving it the cover of plausible deniability. Simonyan said she had a corroborating audio recording of the Bundeswehr officers’ conversation in her possession, but did not release it.