BERLIN, March 2. /TASS/. The German Defense Ministry has not commented on information about a conversation between high-ranking German military officers on plans to attack the Crimean Bridge with the possible use of Taurus missiles, the recording of which, according to Der Spiegel, is probably authentic.
"Please understand that, as a rule, we do not comment on media reports and their content," a spokeswoman for the German Defense Ministry told a TASS correspondent.
According to RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, on the very day German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave assurances that NATO was not and would not 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. Simonyan said she had a corroborating audio recording of the Bundeswehr (armed forces) officers’ conversation in her possession and later released its transcript. Germany’s DPA news agency reported, citing a Defense Ministry official, that the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) had launched a probe into the possible tapping of military conversations. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the Kremlin was not yet aware of the contents of the leaked conversation. The issue will be reviewed at the next session of the Russian State Duma, or lower house of parliament, Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on Telegram.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly stressed that he opposed the idea of sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine as the move could drag Germany into the conflict.