Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, is attempting to downplay what appears to be a significant breach in Berlin’s intelligence gathering capabilities, but will it undo the damage already done?

The dust had yet to settle on Tuesday as Mr. Pistorius allowed as how a German military officer used an unsecured phone line at a Singapore hotel to join a conference call that was hacked by Russians and then leaked to the public. 

The fallout from the leaked audio tape, which features four high-ranking German air force officers discussing hypothetically how Taurus long-range cruise missiles could be used by Kyiv against invading Russian forces, has embarrassed the German government and inflamed tensions between the two countries.

At a Berlin press briefing on the initial results of an ongoing investigation, Mr. Pistorius said with some understatement that “Not all participants adhered to the secure dialing procedure as intended.”

The minister said that the officer in question, whose name he did not give, had participated in the Singapore Air Show, which was attended by high-ranking military officers from across Europe. The officer then dialed into the WebEx call using either his mobile phone or the hotel’s WiFi but not a secured line as is considered mandatory for such calls.

“For the Russian secret services, it was a real find…targeted hacking took place in the hotels used across the board,” Mr. Pistorius said. “It must therefore be assumed that the access to this (phone) conference was a chance hit as part of a broad, scattered approach.”

Mr. Pistorius said the investigation was ongoing, overall security had been increased, and preliminary disciplinary proceedings were being considered, but that severe personal consequences were unlikely. “I will not sacrifice any of my best officers to Putin’s games, to put it very clearly,” he harrumphed.

The 38-minute audio leak was posted by the chief editor of the Russian state-funded television channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, on social media on Friday. That is the same day that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was laid to rest after his still-unexplained death two weeks ago in an Arctic penal colony. The recording also surfaced just weeks before Russia’s presidential election.

While German authorities have not questioned the authenticity of the recording, Chancellor Scholz said last week that delivering those weapons to Ukraine was not an option — and that he does not want Germany to be drawn into the war directly.

That didn’t stop Russia’s foreign ministry from threatening Germany on Monday with “dire consequences” in connection with the leak. Moscow did not elaborate. Relations between the two countries have steadily eroded since Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago.

In the leaked audio, four officers, including the head of the Luftwaffe, Ingo Gerhartz, can be heard discussing deployment scenarios for Taurus missiles in Ukraine before a meeting with Mr. Pistorius. Luftwaffe is the name of the air force used in both World War II and current times.

The officers said that early delivery and rapid deployment of Taurus missiles would only be possible with the participation of German soldiers. The officers said training Ukrainian soldiers to deploy the Taurus on their own would be possible, but it would take months. The recording also showed the German government has not given its approval for the delivery of the cruise missiles sought by Ukraine.

There had been a monthslong debate in Germany about whether to supply the Taurus missiles to Ukraine as Kyiv faces battlefield setbacks until Mr. Scholz said last week Germany wouldn’t deliver the missiles. 

With military aid from Washington held up in Congress, Germany is now the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after America, and it is further stepping up its support this year.

Mr. Pistorius said Tuesday that while the damage caused by the leak was severe, “the mistake is still being worked through and we must now turn our attention back to more important tasks,” such as how Germany and its allies can continue to help Ukraine fight Russia.

He pointed out that while the damage done by the actual content of the leaked audio was “manageable,” Russia’s real success was that with the leak it set the agenda for what is being discussed in Germany, and “that’s exactly what Putin wants to achieve.”