The Ministry of Defence blamed an unnamed individual's improper use of a "non-secure data line" for the recent leak of a German army conversation about the Taurus weapon system to Russia.
The mistake was made by the participant who took part in the conversation from Singapore and had dialled in via a "non-secure data line" such as a mobile phone or via a wireless network, according to the interim result of an investigation presented on Tuesday by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
Pistorius ruled out the possibility that a Russian spy had taken part in the conversation without being noticed.
"Our communication systems were not compromised," he emphasized.
Pistorius said that preliminary disciplinary investigations had been initiated into all four participants in the conversation. However, he also emphasized that personnel consequences were "not currently on the agenda."
"[Unless something worse comes out] I will not sacrifice any of my best officers to Putin's games," emphasized Pistorius.
On Friday, Russia published a recorded conference of four senior officers, including German Air Force chief Ingo Gerhartz. In it, they discussed deployment scenarios for the German Taurus cruise missile if it were to be delivered to Ukraine.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has ruled this out at the present time and justified his "no" by saying that Germany could then be drawn into the war. Taurus has a range of 500 kilometres and can therefore also hit targets in Moscow from Ukraine.
According to Pistorius, the conversation between the four officers took place via the Webex internet platform, which is used by the German Armed Forces, or Bundeswehr, in various protected versions for such conversations.
