SIRIUS /Federal Territory/, March 5. /TASS/. The Russian foreign ministry summoned German Ambassador to Moscow Alexander Lambsdorff to delver a demarche but not for a routine conversation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS.
"It was a demarche. A demarche was delivered to him," she said, commenting on reports in the German media that it was a routine meeting. "As part of the demarche, a protest was presented to him and we demanded explanations about what Germany is indulging in."
On March 4, the Russian Foreign Ministry delivered a demarche to German Ambassador to Moscow Alexander Lambsdorff and demanded explanations of the circumstances of the leaked conversation among senior Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) officers, who were discussing a potential Ukrainian strike on Russia’s Crimean Bridge using German-supplied Taurus missiles.
According to Zakharova, the audio’s authenticity was acknowledged "by all even in Germany." "However, they did not apologize and did not explain anything. They only said that they would probe into how it could happen. Not into the fact that Germany’s top brass discussed how they would bomb civilian facilities in our country but into why it was leaked. This seems to be the only thing they are worried about," she noted, adding that she is thinking about another aspect of the situation.
"What I am thinking about is the fact that no one in Germany really understands what the Crimean Bridge is. It is not merely a civilian facility, not only a structure that logistically links people and families, makes it possible to run businesses, it is not just a matter of politics. It is also a matter of history," she added.
RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said on March 1 that on the very day that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was giving public 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. She later released a transcript of it, which makes it clear that the military officers discussed the Taurus missiles’ capability to hit and destroy the Crimean Bridge and the tactical details involved in preparing such an attack.