German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that the leak of the conversation between German officers in which they discussed the attack on the Crimean Bridge most likely occurred in Singapore. The audio leaked due to the use of an unsecured communication line, he added.
One of the officers used an unsecured communication line when trying to connect to a group call on the secure Webex platform through a regular phone.
"Not all participants adhered to the secure dialing procedure as intended,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said.
Pistorius ruled out a version of a Russian spy joining the group call directly stressing that the audio leaked because of a mistake that one of the officers made. A disciplinary review is being carried out in connection with the incident.
"I will not sacrifice any of my best officers to Putin's games, to put it very clearly,” Pistorius said adding that internal communication channels that German officers used were not compromised.
"As you already know, we use Webex [platform] for conversations of a certain level of privacy — not the public Webex platform available to everyone, but the option certified for official use," he also said.
The politician is convinced that the interception of the conversation between Bundeswehr officers did not undermine the trust of partner countries. Everyone knows that providing 100-percent protection against such attacks is impossible, Pistorius also said.
On March 3, Pistorius linked the publication of military conversations about a supposed attack on Crimea with Russia-led information war. The fact of the conversation did not mean the possibility for supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine, although the officers spoke about a potential strike on the Crimean Bridge with this weapon.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on Berlin to take responsibility for what happened.
"We can see this situation when they throw up their hands, say something absurd, mumble something, and say: "We need to figure it out.” They need to be responsible for what they have done in the first place," Zakharova said.
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow would remember the incident.
"What did we see and hear? We heard discussions about how to fight with Russia behind someone else's back, destroy our civilian facilities that a lot of people use. They discuss it all with a cold eye, because they need it now, and they need to do it in a way that their head does not stick out," Medvedev said.
On March 1, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan published a transcript of the conversation in which German officers discussed plans to use Taurus cruise missiles to strike the Crimean Bridge.
Germany confirmed the authenticity of the conversation. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the publication of the recording.