Putin himself has not commented on the audio leak but, however his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned Monday that, “The [military conversation] itself means that within the bowels of the Bundeswehr, plans for strikes on Russian territory are being mentioned in a substantive and concrete method.”
Russia’s state-owned information company TASS reported that Monday’s assembly between Berlin’s ambassador and the Kremlin’s overseas ministry was primarily dedicated to the leak. Germany denied that the ambassador had been summoned, and stated it was an “invitation to speak about varied bilateral matters.” The Russian overseas ministry stated it might not instantly reply to POLITICO’s request for remark in regards to the substance of the assembly.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been reluctant to ship Ukraine long-range missiles, fearing that Germany dangers being dragged squarely into the Kremlin’s warfare ought to Kyiv use Taurus to hit targets on Russian soil. (European allies Britain and France have each offered the Ukrainian army with related long-range missiles.)
One knowledgeable on German-Russia relations stated the audio leak is being primarily utilized by Moscow for propaganda functions to this point, because it doesn’t embrace any particular army particulars. It may additionally purpose to inflame broader discussions throughout the German institution to hurt Scholz’s fame, Alex Yusupov, director of Russia program at Germany’s Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, informed POLITICO.
“The impact to this point noticed could be very restricted, for actually the file exhibits that the matter was intently examined simply earlier than the choice to not ship the Taurus, however apparently the Russian facet was sorry to depart the file unused,” Yusupov added.
And RT, the state outlet which first reported on and printed the audio, hinted it may not be completed but.
“If they provide me extra, I will put up extra. Watch for it,” wrote Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan on Sunday.
Denis Leven is hosted at POLITICO beneath the EU-funded EU4FreeMedia residency program.
