Loose-lipped Luftwaffe chiefs have sparked dismay after they revealed to Russian intelligence secret military operations involving “British people on the ground” in Ukraine.
It’s emerged German Air Force top brass used a standard unencrypted video conference platform to discuss highly sensitive operations.
Described as a “very serious” breach by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the slip is likely to also dismay British military commanders and NATO allies.
German lawmakers have been debating the deployment of 100 of their stock of 600 Taurus cruise missiles to bolster the UK Storm Shadow system, which is already being used by Ukraine against Russian forces.
Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz held a 38-minute-long video meeting with three other officers discussing sending the German weapons.
During the call, Lt Gen Gerhartz said it was not known why Chancellor Scholz was “blocking the dispatch of the missiles”.
During the call the Lt Gen Gerhartz said it was not known why Chancellor Scholz was “blocking the dispatch of the missiles”.
He continued: “If we’re asked about delivery methods. I know how the British do this. They always transport them in Ridgeback armoured vehicles. They have several people on the ground.”
He also revealed Britain had outfitted Ukrainian aircraft with Storm Shadow missiles.
Embarrassingly, according to the Times, the sensitive content spoken about in the meeting has come to light from a Russian transcript of the call which has been confirmed as authentic by the German defence ministry.
It’s feared with the information that British personnel are potentially operating on the ground, Russian forces could be able to target them.
Ironically another officer, Brigadier General Frank Graefe stressed on the easily hackable call that Germany should be “very careful” to avoid any wording that would “implicate” their own forces in the conflict.
He added: “Once they have been trained, we’ll ask the Brits if they would take over at that stage. I believe this would be the right course of action. Just imagine the uproar if the media were to find out.”
But the national German newspaper Bild has found out about the meeting and reported: “There are indications that an insufficiently secure means of communication was used in view of the content that was obviously discussed. This is, among other things, the subject of further investigations.”
In Britain, former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace slammed the leak. He said: “We know Germany is pretty penetrated by Russian intelligence, so it just demonstrates they are neither secure nor reliable.”
