German ambassador to Russia summoned over leaked talk on arms for Ukraine

March 4 (UPI) -- Russia summoned Germany's ambassador to Moscow to its foreign ministry Monday to answer for a leaked conversation of German officials discussing arms for Ukraine and a possible attack by Kyiv on the Kerch Bridge in Crimea.

The Russian foreign ministry followed through on demands for "prompt explanations" from Berlin by summoning the German Ambassador, Alexander Lambsdorff, first thing Monday for a dressing down.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the leaked discussion between four top Bundeswehr officers indicated that a desire to secure "Russia's strategic defeat on the battlefield" among European allies "still remains very very high."

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, said Moscow's claims about Europe's attitude toward the war were "completely absurd."

Pistorius instead said on Sunday that Russia was engaged in an "information war" seeking to disrupt Germany and its allies.

"It is a hybrid disinformation attack. It is about division. It is about undermining our unity," said Pistorius who added he had no information about whether Moscow had obtained intelligence from other meetings that may have been hacked into.

Items discussed in the leaked conference call, a transcript of which was posted by Russian Today head Margarita Simonyan on social media Friday, included Kyiv's long-standing request for Germany to provide Taurus cruise missiles and the use of long-range missiles from France and Britain and training Ukrainian troops.

The military brass also discussed if and how Taurus missiles could be used to destroy a bridge, an apparent reference to the Kerch bridge linking occupied Crimea to mainland Russia, prompting a furious response from Moscow coming on the same day Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged Germany would not send Taurus missiles to Ukraine for fear they could be used to target Moscow.

"As promised, I am publishing an audio conversation between Bundeswehr officers discussing how they will bomb the Crimean Bridge," Simonyan said.

"Germany's top brass was in fact mulling how to carry out a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge in a way that would have no repercussions for Berlin by giving it the cover of plausible deniability."

Scholz on Saturday said the leak was "a very serious matter and that is why it is now being investigated very carefully, very intensively and very quickly".

Opposition politician Roderich Kiesewetter warned that more recordings may emerge.

"A number of other conversations will certainly have been intercepted and may be leaked at a later date for Russia's benefit," he told German broadcaster ZDF.

It should be taken as rote, Kiesewetter added, "that the conversation was deliberately leaked by Russia at this point in time with a specific intention ... to prevent the delivery of Taurus [cruise missiles] delivery by Germany."

In October 2022, three people died in a massive blast that severely damaged the strategic Kerch bridge linking Russia and the occupied Crimean peninsula.

Two spans supporting the roadbed of one lane of the bridge collapsed when a truck exploded on the bridge in an attack Kyiv eventually admitted in July that it had carried out.