exclusive
Defense Minister Pistorius quickly provided an explanation for the leaked “Taurus” phone call from Bundeswehr officers. It is unclear how it was intercepted. Now the case is over WDR-Information from the Federal Prosecutor General.
They talked about arms aid for Ukraine. About the strengths and weaknesses of the cruise missile “Taurus”. However, what the senior German Air Force officers discussed in a 40-minute telephone conference at the end of February was not intended for the public. But that’s exactly where a recording of the conversation ended up, published by Russian propaganda media.
The wiretapping scandal surrounding the “Taurus Leak” is now a case for the German judiciary. After WDR-Information, the Federal Prosecutor General is now conducting an investigation into the matter, against unknown persons. The suspicion is formally: secret service agent activity.
BKA investigates
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe assumes that a Russian secret service secretly recorded the telephone conference. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is now tasked with investigating the incident. The investigators are supposed to clarify how it came about that the Bundeswehr officials’ conversation could be intercepted and who exactly is responsible for it.
Since the intercepted conversation became known, the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) and several departments of the Federal Ministry of Defense have been investigating the matter. It is also being examined whether disciplinary proceedings will be initiated against the Air Force members, as confidential or even secret details may have been discussed via an inadmissible communication channel.
Just one “Intermediate result”
Two weeks ago it seemed as if the wiretapping affair for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius had been all but solved. At the beginning of March, just a few days after Russian propagandists published the recording, he explained at a press conference in Berlin how he believed the embarrassing incident had occurred.
Pistorius spoke of an “individual application error”. A participant who was on a business trip in a hotel in Singapore dialed in via a “non-secure data line,” said the minister. There was a data leak there. The Bundeswehr’s systems are therefore not compromised.
Astonishing: At the time when the minister publicly described the alleged course of the wiretapping, there were… WDR-Information neither the computers and cell phones of all participants nor the hotel Wi-Fi in Asia have been conclusively examined. Pistorius himself spoke of an “interim result” of the investigation.
Numerous open questions
To date, there has been no explanation from the Ministry of Defense as to exactly how the virtual conference was intercepted by Russia. The ministry left several questions unanswered, such as whether the electronic devices had now been finally checked, whether malware was discovered, or whether it could now be determined how exactly a suspected data leak took place in Singapore and only referred to the previous statements Ministers.
The participant in the discussion in Singapore, Air Force Brigadier General Frank Gräfe, visited the “Singapore Airshow”, an international aviation trade fair, at the end of February. In addition to civil aircraft manufacturers, military representatives also come together in the Southeast Asian city state every year.
In this environment and in the hotels used by participants, targeted interception operations by Russian secret services took place “widespread,” Pistorius said in his press statement at the beginning of March. Security circles also point out that increased activities by Chinese intelligence services can generally be expected in Southeast Asia.
Dangers of Russian espionage known
This raises the question of why the brigadier general allowed himself to be connected to the conference call via an insecure line instead of, for example, using a more encrypted communication channel at the German embassy in Singapore.
In fact, there are examples from the past that show that Russian secret services do carry out electronic espionage in hotels: hackers from Unit 26165 of the Russian military intelligence service GRU, which is known as APT28 or “Fancy Bear”., tried to hack into the Wi-Fi of a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a few years ago. At that time, members of the commission of inquiry into the shooting down of aircraft MH17 were there.
In addition, the Russian intelligence agents apparently hacked the Malaysian investigative authorities and the public prosecutor’s office. The Netherlands blames Russian military personnel for the downing of the passenger plane over Ukraine in July 2014. 298 people were killed.