Pistorius: "Human error" caused leak of Bundeswehr conversations on Taurus

Berlin, Germany (Svidomi) — German Defence Minister Borys Pistorius gave a press conference to present the interim results of an internal review of the incident involving the Russians' interception of communications between Bundeswehr Air Force officers.

Pistorius said that the leak was caused by a "human error" - one of the Bundeswehr officers joined the closed meeting from a hotel in Singapore via an unsecured line or phone. At the time, he was at the Singapore Airshow.

Russian intelligence services were most likely wiretapping this officer. There was no hacking, meaning the spies did not connect to the meeting.

Pistorius said that security measures would now be significantly strengthened to prevent such incidents from happening again. A disciplinary investigation is underway against all those involved, but the minister made it clear that the personal responsibility of the "best officers" is not in the first place. He reiterated that the publication of their conversation by Russian propagandists was "Putin's insidious game" and a "hybrid attack".

It will be recalled that the German Ministry of Defence has investigated alleged wiretapping of domestic aviation. The reason for this was a recording of an alleged "conversation" between German Air Force chief Ingo Gerhartz, head of operations and training Frank Grefe, and high-ranking officers of the Space Command's air operations centre named Fenske and Frostedte, published by the head of the Russian state propaganda broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan. They discussed possible missile strikes on the illegally built Crimean bridge that connects Russian territory with the temporarily occupied Ukrainian peninsula.