Putin breaks golden rule of intelligence: expert on publication of Bundeswehr talks about Taurus strike on Crimea bridge

He stated this on Espreso TV.

"The Russians are spying on NATO soldiers and officers around the world, we must understand this, this is another example. No one can say for sure how many previous conversations have already been listened to by the Russians in this way. The officers used the Zoom analogue, they communicated there, a conference was held for four people," the expert said.

Stupak stressed that the main questions are whether the messenger was hacked or whether one of the four officers worked for the Russians, recorded the conversation and later passed it on to the enemy, but did not expect them to distribute it.

"The person who published this recording, and it's important to just understand this, is Margarita Simonyan, the queen of Russian propaganda, but she has an extremely close and friendly working relationship with Alexei Gromov, who is the first deputy head of President Putin's administration. I'm just more than sure that Gromov showed this recording to Putin, or sat with the security forces with Patrushev, Bortnikov, and Putin personally ordered it to be published. What does this do? He has such a sick idea that NATO is fighting on the side of Ukraine, and this conversation, just communication, is further evidence that he is "right". But he broke a very golden rule in intelligence - never, ever expose your sources in intelligence," the former Security Service of Ukraine official explained.

He recalled the example of World War II: when the British and Poles broke the code of the encryption machine on German submarines, they kept this information extremely secret, and even when they decrypted the records, they did not disclose the sources of their information.

What preceded 

On February 22, members of the German parliament voted in favour of a recommendation to provide Ukraine with long-range weapons. Presumably, it was about Taurus missiles.

Earlier this week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained in detail his refusal to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine. He noted that "the Taurus has a range of 500 kilometres, and if it is misused, it could hit a target somewhere in Moscow". In addition, according to the chancellor, to ensure control over the use of missiles, it would be necessary to send German troops to Ukraine, but this is out of the question. Scholz fears that this could indirectly draw Germany into the war in Ukraine.

On the morning of March 1, the editor-in-chief of the Russian propaganda TV channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, reported that she had allegedly received a 40-minute audio recording of "high-ranking Bundeswehr officers" discussing possible strikes on the Crimea bridge using Taurus missiles. Simonyan published a transcript of the conversation, which, according to her, took place on 19 February 2024, as well as the audio recording of the conversation, the participants of which communicate with each other in German. The Russian Foreign Ministry then demanded an explanation from the German government.

The German Ministry of Defense has launched an investigation into whether internal conversations in the Air Force could have been intercepted. A defense ministry spokesperson in Berlin said that "the Military Counterintelligence Service (BAMAD) has taken all necessary measures".