The German government has denied that their ambassador was summoned to Moscow, but instead that the appointment was planned in advance.
ADVERTISEMENTThe German government on Monday vehemently rejected allegations that Russia's leak of a conversation by high-ranking German military officers was an indication that Berlin was preparing for war against Russia.
At the same time, the government sought to contain the domestic fallout from the leak and promised a quick investigation into how it was possible that a conversation by top German military personnel could be intercepted and published.
“It is absolutely clear that such claims that this conversation would prove, that Germany is preparing a war against Russia, that this is absurdly infamous Russian propaganda,” a spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters in Berlin.
Government spokesman Wolfgang Buechner said the leak was part of Russia’s “information war” against the West, and that the aim was to create discord within Germany.
Margarita Simonyan, chief editor of Russian state-funded TV channel RT, posted the leaked audio on social media on Friday, the same day that late opposition politician Alexei Navalny was laid to rest after his still-unexplained death two weeks ago in an Arctic penal colony.
In the 38-minute recording, military officers can be heard discussing how Taurus long-range cruise missiles could be used by Kyiv against invading Russian forces.
It comes as Germany continues to debate whether to supply the missiles to Ukraine as Kyiv faces battlefield setbacks, and while military aid from the United States is held up in Congress.
German authorities on Saturday said they were investigating the recording.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was in Rome on Saturday, called it a “very serious matter” and said that German authorities were working to clarify the matter “very carefully, very intensively and very quickly.”
His comments were carried by Germany’s DPA news agency.
Germany is now the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the United States and is further stepping up its support this year.
But Scholz has stalled for months on Ukraine’s desire for Taurus missiles, which have a range of up to 500 kilometres and could in theory be used against targets far into Russian territory.