BERLIN, March 6. /TASS/. The scandal sparked by a leaked audio recording of a conversation among senior Bundeswehr (German armed forces - TASS) officers discussing the options for attacking the Crimean Bridge with Taurus missiles proves Berlin’s involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechayev said.
"[I consider the situation around the leak as] the latest proof of Berlin’s heavy involvement in the Ukrainian conflict," he said. "Moreover, this theme compounds the extremely aggressive militaristic rhetoric being voiced in Germany at the highest political level," the diplomat pointed out.
"I mean public calls by certain politicians to prepare the Bundeswehr and German society for a war with Russia, to shift military operations onto the territory of our country, to strike Russian ministries and infrastructure facilities," he noted, stressing that what is happening is "an extremely alarming signal."
"We note that not everyone in the German leadership shares such an approach, fully understanding what consequences such an escalation is fraught with," the ambassador emphasized. "Everyone must clearly realize here that any planning related to the possibility of attacking Russian civilian facilities, including the Crimean Bridge, is in fact participation in the preparation of a terrorist attack," Nechayev underscored. "The criminal Kiev regime has proven numerous times that any Western weapon, no matter the restrictions imposed on its delivery, can be turned against peaceful Russian civilians," the ambassador said.
On March 1, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said 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.
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.