The Bundewehr scandal: loose ends
There are many 'loose ends' in the story about the Bundeswehr generals discussing how to use Taurus missiles to destroy the Kerch (Crimea) bridge, not least of which is the question of Russians supposedly breaking secure communications lines to obtain the recording which RT’s Margarita Simonyan made public. Just how complicated and rife with speculation the entire scandal may be was made clear yesterday by a certain Alexander Sosnovsky in his appearance as a panelist on the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show.
Born in Kiev, Sosnovsky is a naturalized German who arrived in the country in the 1990s and has made a career as a university and think tank lecturer on international politics. He is also the editor of the internet journal World Economy. Sosnovsky’s side line is as guest on Russian state television talk shows, either in studio in Moscow or by remote from Berlin, as was the case yesterday when he spoke from behind the wheel of his parked car. One may assume that Sosnovsky is paid handsomely for his time on Russian television, unlike the domestic Russian panelists who are treated to a cup of coffee, a little sandwich and a handshake.
Most of Sosnovsky’s appearances on the Solovyov show have been empty of content from my perspective. Given his place of residence and Jewish identity, Sosnovsky regularly does verbal ‘high fives’ with the program host and little more. But his ten minutes at the microphone last night caught my full attention.
Sosnovsky did what the Financial Times journalists in their feature article on the scandal failed to do: he asked who were the generals recorded on the tapes, what are their relations to the civilian authorities in Germany and to Big Brother in Washington. When you do that, the plot really thickens.
The overall commander of the Luftwaffe, Lt General Gerhartz is very close to German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who depends on him for advice on military questions since he, Pistorius, is clueless. Pistorius received a higher education in political science and has had a government career at the municipal level (Osnabruck) followed by service as Minister of Internal Affairs in Lower Saxony for 2013-23. He was named Defense Minister just over a year ago.
Of course, there is nothing surprising in the fact that a person totally incompetent in military affairs should have been appointed to run the Defense Ministry in Germany. After all, before she was ‘kicked upstairs’ to head the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen had been the Defense Minister of Germany and her professional training was as a….gynecologist.
Pistorius is a member of the same party as Scholz (Social Democrats) and is perceived as more popular with the broad public. Certainly he is positioned as more hawkish on Russia and more determined than the chancellor.
Sosnovsky speculates that the discussion of possibilities for using Germany’s 500 km range, air launched Taurus cruise missiles to attack the Kerch (Crimea) bridge, a discussion in which Gerhartz acted as moderator, was intended to find holes in the Chancellor’s arguments against turning over these weapons to the Ukrainians. The fact that their conversation was overheard, that is to say ‘tapped,’ by outsiders may not have been an accident but instead was their very intention. In short, Sosnovsky is suggesting that a putsch to oust Scholz from power may have been the real intent of the plotters.
This scenario is supported by the use of communication lines that were not and could not be completely secure. Discussions of such confidential security issues are, by military regulation, never to be held with anyone outside the boundaries of the Federal Republic. And yet one of the key participants, Erik Gräfe, was in Singapore at the time and the line was WebEx internet telephony from Cisco, meaning that U.S. intelligence could have easily intercepted it, not to mention the intelligence gatherers of another 15 countries, including Russia.
As Sosnovsky points out, Gräfe was not vacationing in Singapore. No, he was just on a stopover on his way to Alaska. To Alaska? In this regard, it is highly relevant to mention that Gräfe has had close professional relations with the Americans. At the end of 2019, he was appointed as the Federal Republic’s military attaché in the German embassy in Washington. This was when he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.
I will take a step beyond the educated guesswork of Mr. Sosnovsky and ask whether it was not indeed Washington that was behind this putsch plot, since to its more rabid Russophobes in the Biden administration Scholz is not fit to purpose.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024