Germany says Russian intercept was ‘operational mistake’ of one officer

Germany's Defence Minister Boris Pistorius says Russia intercepted military call on Ukraine via non-secure line, no system compromise.

Germany's Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on March 5 that one of the participants on the military call on Ukraine intercepted by Russia had dialled in via a non-secure line and that its communications systems had not been compromised.

Russia had likely intercepted the military call by chance via widespread surveillance, and not through a spy or any compromised German systems, Mr. Pistorius said upon presenting the first results of an investigation into the embarrassing leak.

Russian media last week published an audio recording of a meeting of senior German military officials held by Webex discussing weapons for Ukraine and a potential strike by Kyiv on a bridge in Crimea.

"Our communication systems have not been compromised," Mr. Pistorius said. "The reason the air force call could nonetheless be recorded was because of an individual's operational mistake."

That specific participant had dialled in from Singapore where an air show was taking place. Such an event attracted high-ranking European military officials, making it a target for Russian security services.

"So we must assume that the access to this web-ex conference was a chance hit in the framework of a broad, scattered approach."

The use of Webex for the call was authorized, he said, noting it was not the off-the-shelf software but a specially-certified one with servers in the Bundeswehr's computing centres in Germany.