Germany yet to be ‘denazified’ – Zakharova
Germany could face “dire consequences” if something is not done about the mindset that produced the conversation between Luftwaffe generals on a possible operation to destroy Russia's Crimea Beidge, Moscow's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.
RT has published a recording and transcript of the February 19 call between senior leaders of the German Air Force, in which they discussed how Taurus long-range missiles could be deployed against the 18 km long connector, at the request of Ukraine.
“As we now understand, they have not been fully denazified,” Zakharova told reporters on the sidelines of the World Youth Festival (WYF 2024) in Sochi.
“If nothing is done, if this process is not stopped by the German people themselves, this will lead first of all to dire consequences for Germany itself,” she added.
Earlier in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Luftwaffe conversation was proof of the West’s direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The military officers involved “substantively and specifically” discussed plans to launch strikes on Russian territory, Peskov said.
The Germans also revealed the presence of other Western military personnel in Ukraine, acting as targeting observers for British and French long-range missiles.
According to the Kremlin, the question now is whether the German military was acting on its own – which raises issues of civilian control – or if their discussion was in line with official government policy.
“Both possibilities are really bad,” Peskov said.
Denazification was a policy of the USSR, the US, the UK and France after the Second World War, intended to remove the Nazi ideology from German and Austrian politics, society, culture, economy, courts and journalism. Russia has accused the current government in Kiev of having rehabilitated Nazism. It vowed to “denazify” Ukraine as one of the objectives of its military operation, which began in February 2022.
The US and its NATO allies have responded by sending Ukraine over $200 billion worth of weapons, ammunition and supplies, while insisting they aren’t directly involved in the conflict.