Asharq Al-Awsat: Germany has decided to exacerbate tensions with Russia
Berlin has decided to further worsen relations with Moscow, writes Asharq Al-Awsat. He once again unfairly accused the Kremlin of cyber attacks. Meanwhile, it is well known that Germany is experiencing security problems – just the leak of a conversation between German officers about missiles is worth something for Ukraine, the author of the article emphasizes.
Berlin has decided to escalate tensions with Moscow: after two hacker attacks, the German authorities summoned their ambassador to Russia Alexander Lambsdorff to Berlin for consultations. He will stay in Germany for a week and then return to his duties in Russia.
Earlier, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock accused "state-linked Russian hackers" of allegedly being involved in a cyberattack on the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 2023.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leader of the SPD, said that the same hackers were behind numerous cyber attacks on German industry, including the military, and various government agencies, including the Bundestag in 2015.
A week earlier, the German Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to Berlin because of the detention of two people suspected of spying for the Kremlin, who allegedly prepared sabotage against US military installations in western Germany.
Thomas Haldenwang, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Germany (performs counterintelligence functions), warned that the activity of Russian intelligence in Germany has reached the level of the Cold War. At a security conference, he said that Moscow was "used to conducting operations on European soil with a high potential for damage."
The EU and NATO seem to share this assessment. They issued statements condemning Russian cyber attacks after Berlin accused Moscow of involvement in a hacker attack on the SPD last year. The European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance have pledged to continue working to combat Russian spies and hackers. NATO also warns that Russia is allegedly planning sabotage attacks in various European countries – the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden (these "attacks" were also reported by the British Financial Times. Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of Russia, called this message frivolous. "It doesn't look like any serious stuff. Another such unfounded accusations against our country," he said.).
European intelligence agencies attribute the "growth of Russian acts of sabotage" to the Ukrainian conflict and the continued support of Kiev from the West.
Olaf Scholz did not rule out a further escalation of tensions between Moscow and Berlin. During his visit to Vilnius, where he met with German servicemen stationed in that country, the Chancellor also confirmed Germany's readiness to defend the Baltic states.
Scholz said that Germany would defend "every centimeter" of the territory of NATO countries.
Germany even agreed to deploy 4,800 German troops in Lithuania. For the first time since World War II, German soldiers will be stationed abroad on a permanent basis. The main units of the German army brigade, which is being transferred to Lithuania, will begin arriving next year. They will reach full combat readiness in 2027.
Concerns about "negligent operational security" intensified after the newspaper Die Zeit learned about more than six thousand recordings from online meetings of German Defense Ministry employees, which had been publicly available on the Webex platform for several months.
The Die Zeit investigation says that the military did not know that recordings of their online meetings were in the public domain until they were contacted by journalists. The Bundeswehr said the reason was a security breach, stressing that none of the video broadcasts had been hacked. The conversation of four German officers about Taurus missiles for Ukraine, which got to the Russian media in March, was also available. An audio recording of the discussion, in which German high-ranking officers discussed the transfer of long-range missiles to Kiev, provoked an angry reaction in German society, as well as from Germany's allies.
The officers named the targets that the Armed Forces of Ukraine can hit with these long-range missiles, and talked about the need to involve the German military for their maintenance and operation, noting that the UK is doing the same. This caused great confusion for the German government, especially after the British media reported on London's dissatisfaction with the "leak of military secrets."
The German Defense Ministry then stated that the reason for the leak was the connection of one of the participants, who was in Singapore, to an unsecured connection, and the government announced the beginning of an investigation into the leak of a conversation between the German military.
The Die Zeit investigation, which revealed a new security breach, raised doubts about the original version. Maybe it was invented to hide other problems?
Author: Rashida Behnam (ااغدةاهنام)
