Days after the newly appointed chancellor claimed Kyiv’s Western allies had lifted range restrictions on their missiles and would allow Ukraine to use them to strike deep inside Russian territory, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with German President Friedrich Merz in Berlin.
Merz made the announcement on Monday as Russia carried out heavy aerial bombardments on Ukraine and both sides launched tit-for-tat drone attacks.
That statement rekindled Kyiv’s optimism and renewed interest in Germany’s request for Taurus missiles, which the war-torn nation has long demanded.
However, Merz and Zelenskyy made a promise to the Ukrainian leader that Germany would support their country in developing long-range missiles on its soil in a joint press conference on Wednesday. He did not make any commitments regarding the Taurus.
Germany, which supplies military aid after the United States, has been a major supporter of Ukraine. Former German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who did not want Germany to be directly involved in the Ukraine war, resisted providing Kyiv with Taurus missiles. He agreed to provide Leopard 2 battle tanks in January 2023 after pressure from his NATO allies. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has warned that NATO will go “at war with his country” if Western nations permit Ukraine to attack with long-range weapons inside of Russia.
Merz has increased efforts to keep Ukraine’s support in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to end the conflict since taking office on May 6. Trump has been critical of the US aid to Ukraine under his predecessor Joe Biden. Trump, who has criticized Putin, was angered by recent, more frequent Russian aerial assaults against Ukraine.
The Taurus, in Ukraine’s opinion, would change the course of the conflict.
Here’s what to know about the weapons:
How do Taurus missiles work?
A German-Swedish long-range air missile with a low-cruise range of 500 kilometers (300 miles) can accurately fire heavy explosives at targets.
It was manufactured in 1998 through a joint partnership between the German missile company MBDA Deutschland and Sweden’s Saab Bofors Dynamics.
The missile can penetrate deep or hard targets, such as ships, communication centers, ammunition storage facilities, and bunkers, with the aid of a powerful warhead. Without GPS, the missile can also travel for a long distance.
Although Ukraine already uses Western-provided missiles from the US and the United Kingdom, some experts and Ukrainian officials believe this projectile would be the strongest Western missile to be used by Ukraine if Germany gives a green light because the others have only half of the range of the Taurus and cannot carry as much ammunition.
Why has Germany not yet given these missiles to Ukraine?
Scholz’s left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) -led coalition government was cautious of escalating the war and possibly drawing in Germany, and by default, NATO.
Moscow has already made a number of warnings that Ukraine would be seen as the country that is directly entangled in the conflict if it fired any Western missiles into Russian territory. The SPD’s opposition to war is also at play here.
Germany – which currently provides Ukraine with short-range rockets, including the M142 HIMARS MLRS and MARS II MLRS – and other weapons-providing Western allies initially restricted Ukraine from using their weapons inside Russia but allowed Kyiv to hit Russian targets within Ukraine.
However, former US President Biden lifted restrictions on US weapons in November, allowing Ukraine to use them in the Kursk region of Russia. When Kyiv had launched an unexpected offensive against the border region, that was when. Some experts said lifting the restrictions was a major help to Ukraine. The majority of the territory it had seized has since been lost, but it still continues to hold some Russian land.
Russia tapped a top-secret discussion between German military leaders in March 2024 during which they discussed whether Scholz might be able to persuade him to send the Taurus to Ukraine and whether the missile could devastate the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia to Ukraine’s occupied Crimea region.
Is Germany changing its stance now and will it matter?
Under Merz’s new administration, Berlin appeared to be ready to change its tone.
Merz, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had pressed Scholz to send the Taurus to Ukraine and for Germany to adopt a stronger stance against Russia as an opposition member.
During his election campaign, Merz promised to support Ukraine more concretely, including by sending long-range missiles. The SPD is also a part of his coalition government, though.
In what appeared to be a compromise position, Merz promised Zelenskyy German support on Wednesday when they agreed to launch long-range missiles on Ukrainian territory. The chancellor promised that financing for the project would be discussed subsequently at the Group of Seven summit to be held in Canada in June.
According to Atlantic Council analyst Michael Bociurkiw, the pledge is still “pretty significant,” adding that it was one of Germany’s first genuine pledges to Ukraine. He said, “I believe it shows that Ukraine has capabilities.”
On Monday, Merz had spoken to the public broadcaster WDR about the range restrictions enforced by NATO members and said there were “no longer any range restrictions for weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine – neither by the British, nor by the French, nor by us, and not by the Americans either”.
Merz’s comments, which did not specifically mention Germany sending the Taurus to Ukraine, sparked a speculative frenzy in the eyes of many analysts. Merz made it clear on Tuesday that he was specifically referring to his support for Ukraine’s right to strike deeply inside Russia.
“Hence yesterday in Berlin, I was describing something that already happened months ago”, Merz said.
However, Merz’s comments received criticism from both his own CDU and the SPD. Some people claimed that his statements and actual events were contradictory.
CDU lawmaker Roderich Kiesewetter said in a post on Tuesday on X that Germany was “irrelevant” in the long-range missile conversation because it has refused to send Ukraine the Taurus and he saw no willingness to do that under the current coalition.
We should also refrain from making contradictory statements about this issue. Despite Russia’s unprecedented escalation, I continue to see no political will to act appropriately and with strength and consistency in the coalition. Such statements are therefore overall unhelpful because they highlight Europe’s weakness to Russia”, he wrote.
Additionally, SPD head and vice-chancellor Lars Klingbeil stated at a press conference on Tuesday that no restrictions on the use of German weapons in Ukraine had been changed.
Even if Germany sends the Taurus at this point, according to expert John Foreman, who is associated with the UK think tank Chatham House, it might have a more symbolic and tactical impact.
A Taurus delivery would arrive “too late to change the overall trajectory of the war”, Foreman told Al Jazeera, adding that Germany would have to supply a significant number to make a difference.
Over the past three years, Russia has developed more skill at dispersal, air defense, and camouflage to complicate targeting, he continued.
What other long-range missiles does Ukraine possess?
- From the US, Ukraine has received about 40 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which can fire ballistic missiles carrying cluster munitions up to a range of 300km (190 miles). Russian military installations, runways, and energy infrastructure can all be struck by them. Six ATACMS were used by Ukraine on a Russian weapons depot in the Bryansk border region after Biden lifted the ban on using US weapons inside of Russia. In March, The Associated Press news agency reported that Ukraine ran out of ATACMS in January, and it’s unclear if the US has supplied more since then.
- In addition, the UK delivered Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine as the first nation to do so in May 2023. A cruise missile launched from an aircraft rather than a ground is the Storm Shadow, which has a price of about $1 million each. It has a range of up to 250km (155 miles) and can reach deep into Russian territory from Ukrainian airspace to destroy bunkers and weapon storage facilities. Ukraine has used them to attack high-value military installations in occupied areas like Crimea and Luhansk. A Russian military general in Kursk and several North Korean soldiers reportedly fighting for Moscow were killed when Ukraine launched the missiles into Russian territory for the first time in November. One hundred to 200 units have reportedly been delivered.
- Scalp, France’s version of the Storm Shadow, has comparable capabilities. Both missile components are produced in the UK, France, and Italy by European manufacturer MBDA, who built them in a UK factory.
How might Russia react to the news?
Russia has not commented on Germany’s decision to work with Ukraine to build long-range missiles in the nation.
Russia has consistently warned that any attack on the country by Western-provided weapons would be seen as an escalate, as Putin predicted in September, which could lead to nuclear retaliation. But Merz’s move attempts to circumvent that threat.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova repeatedly stated that Russia would launch a Taurus strike as a result of Germany’s “direct” involvement in the conflict following Merz’s victory in the election in April and his continued assurances that he would send Taurus missiles to Ukraine.
According to the Russian news agency TASS, Merz’s comments this week have also had an impact on the Kremlin. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Merz “has confused everyone, if not himself”, after the vice chancellor denied that such decisions had been made. Poskov cautioned Berlin against an escalation, calling it an “extremely dangerous decision” that would conflict with current peace efforts.
He claimed that adding more confrontation would literally be several steps in the right direction.
Zakharova added that Germany would “drive itself deeper into the hole in which the Kyiv regime it supports has long been”.
Source: Aljazeera
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