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German Taurus leak

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.

Background
On 19 February, Gerhartz and his subordinates were discussing an upcoming briefing to bring German Defense minister Boris Pistorius up to speed on Taurus. /SCALP missile A week after the intercepted 19 February conversation, and a few days prior to the 1 March leak of the audio file, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – under mounting pressure to approve the delivery of long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine – caused controversy by indicating that British soldiers were helping Ukraine fire the Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles supplied by United Kingdom and France, which are less precise than the Taurus and are thought to have either a shorter or a similar range to the Taurus, depending on the precise version supplied to Ukraine. Scholz argued that Germany would not be able to follow the example of the UK and France: "This [the Taurus] is a very far-reaching weapon, and what the British and French are doing in terms of target control and support for target control cannot be done in Germany. Everyone who has looked at this system understands that." "German soldiers can at no point and in no place be linked with the targets that this system [the Taurus] reaches. Not even in Germany," Scholz said. Following the UK's example would make Germany a "participant in the war". The degree of German involvement required was one of the topics Gerhartz and his subordinates discussed in the intercepted conversation. ==Content==
Content
was discussed in the leaked conversation as a potential target. So, they also QC the Ukrainians when loading the SCALP, because Storm Shadow and SCALPS are relatively similar from a purely technical point of view. They've already told me that, yes, for God's sake, they would also look over the shoulders of the Ukrainians when loading the Taurus. But the question is, how do we solve that? Do we let them do the mission planning and give them MBDA as a reachback and then put one of our people in MBDA?″ The participants discussed using the defense contractor MBDA in Schrobenhausen as a go-between to send targeting data or to drive the targeting data file by car to Poland – "someone could drive back and forth," one of them suggested. Another cautioned against pitching such ideas to Pistorius because it would scupper the project right away: "We have to be careful that we don't articulate any kill criteria at the beginning," he said. “Imagine what would happen if the press were to catch wind of this!" quoted in English news reports featured a number of errors, some of which were backtranslated into German and entered reports by German news providers such as Tagesschau. The reference to mission planning by "reachback", for example, meaning consultation of British personnel stationed in Britain, turned into a missile transport using "armoured Ridgeback vehicles". The reference to QC, short for quality control, turned into reports that the French were transporting missiles in Audi Q7 SUV vehicles. == Responses ==
Responses
Germany Germany confirmed the recording was authentic but said it couldn't rule out that it might have been edited; Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the leak as "very serious" and promised a swift investigation. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on 5 March that "Our communication systems have not been compromised. The reason the air force call could nonetheless be recorded was because of an individual's operational mistake," referring to one of the other participants who had joined the discussion with Gerhartz from Singapore. Asked about the position of Gerhartz himself, Pistorius said if the investigation revealed nothing further, then he would not "sacrifice one of my best officers to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's games". Former British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told The Times, "We know Germany is pretty penetrated by Russian intelligence so it just demonstrates they are neither secure nor reliable." Alec Shelbrooke, a former UK Minister of State for Defence Procurement, described the leak as an "amateur blunder" on Germany's part, while Conservative MP Bob Seely called Germany "incredibly complacent". Tobias Ellwood, a former junior defence minister, said that Russia probably already knew about the British presence in Ukraine. In fact, the UK itself had confirmed the presence of a "small number of personnel" in Ukraine to the public on 27 February 2024, although without saying what tasks they were undertaking, as it was feared any combat involvement could be considered as escalatory. The UK affirmed that it had no plans for a large-scale deployment of troops in Ukraine. ==Further incidents==
Further incidents
In February 2025 the Russian comedy duo Vovan and Lexus called Johann Wadephul, a representative of the German Parliament and member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, pretending to be employees of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In the 20 minute call, Wadephul leaked information about military support and the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles. ==References==
tickerdossier.comtickerdossier.substack.com