German Taurus leak
2024 military communications leak / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The German Taurus leak was a military communications leak in 2024 that resulted from Russia's interception of a supposedly top-secret webconference of German airforce officials about the possible supply of German Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and about operational scenarios in the Russian-Ukrainian War.[1]
Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Russia's RT channel, released the 38-minute recording on Telegram and VK on 1 March 2024.[2][3] Germany confirmed the recording was of a real conversation but said it couldn't rule out that the recording might have been edited; Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised a swift investigation.[4]
The leak of the conversation between lieutenant general Ingo Gerhartz, commander of the Luftwaffe, and three subordinates was profoundly embarrassing to the Bundeswehr – it caused a political scandal and was seen as a propaganda coup for Russia.[1][2] Among the topics the officials discussed in their conversation, conducted using standard commercial Cisco Webex video conferencing software, were the presence of UK and US military personnel in Ukraine and the potential use of Taurus missiles to blow up the Crimean Bridge.[2][5]