MOSCOW summoned Germany’s ambassador to Russia on Monday, local media reported.

This came days after the release of an audio recording on social media that revealed top German officers plotting to blow up the Crimean Bridge.

Ambassador Alexander Graf Lambsdorff was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow to answer for the leaked audio posted on social media by Margarita Simonyan, chief editor of Russian TV channel RT, on Friday.

The 38-minute recording featured top military officers discussing in German how the Taurus long-range cruise missiles could be used by Kiev to blow up the link between Russia and Crimea. 

German authorities have not doubted the authenticity of the recording. 

Four officers, including the head of Germany’s air force, Ingo Gerhartz, can be heard discussing deployment scenarios for the Taurus in preparation for a meeting with the country’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.

The discussion concludes that an early delivery and rapid deployment of Taurus long-range cruise missiles would only be possible with the participation of German soldiers and that training Ukrainian soldiers to deploy the Taurus on their own would be possible, but would take months.

There has been a debate in Germany on whether to supply the missiles to Ukraine as Kiev wages an increasingly imperiled war against Russia.

But last week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained his reluctance about a Taurus delivery, saying Germany could then become directly drawn into the war.

Over the weekend, German authorities said they were launching an investigation into how it was possible that a conversation by top German military personnel could be intercepted and leaked by the Russians.

The Kremlin is insisting that the leak is proof that Nato is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that the leaked conversation “suggests that the Bundeswehr is discussing substantively and specifically plans to strike Russian territory.”