Germany contradicts Russian reports, says ambassador not summoned to Moscow

Germany’s Foreign Ministry on Monday denied reports that Berlin’s ambassador has been summoned by Russia over the alleged leak of recordings of a meeting among military officials over the Ukraine war.

“Our ambassador went to a long-planned meeting in the Russian foreign ministry (on Monday) morning,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Earlier today, Russian state media reported that it had summoned the German ambassador to Moscow to discuss the case of leak.

Highlighting the gravity of the situation, Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said, “The incident is much more than just the interception and publication of a conversation … It is part of an information war that Putin is waging.”

On Friday, the head of Russia’s state-backed RT channel, Margarita Simonyan posted a 38-minute-long recording of what she claims was a conversation between German officials discussing potential strikes on Crimea on Feb 19.

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Meanwhile, Russia has demanded “an explanation” from Germany over its accusations of eavesdropping.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday said that the country is “investigating the matter very seriously.”

Kremlin strikes back

Commenting on the purported wiretapped recordings, the Kremlin said Germany’s armed forces are discussing plans to launch strikes on Russian territory.

It also asked whether Sholz was orcherstrating the situation.

“The recording itself says that within the Bundeswehr, plans to launch strikes on Russian territory are being discussed substantively and concretely. This does not require any legal interpretation. Everything here is more than obvious,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

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“Here we have to find out whether the Bundeswehr is doing this on its own initiative. Then the question is: how controllable is the Bundeswehr and how much does Scholz control the situation? Or is it part of German government policy?” Peskov said.

He said both scenarios were “very bad. Both once again emphasise the direct involvement of the countries of the collective West in the conflict around Ukraine.”