Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has held talks with Germany’s Friedrich Merz in Berlin, days after the newly installed chancellor said Kyiv’s Western allies had lifted range restrictions on their missiles and would allow Ukraine to use them to strike deep inside Russian territory.
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 comment sparked hope in Kyiv and put renewed attention on the possibility of Germany supplying Ukraine with Taurus missiles, which the war-wracked country has long requested.
However, Merz, in a joint appearance with Zelenskyy on Wednesday, promised the Ukrainian leader that Germany would help his country develop long-range missiles on its territory. He did not make any commitments regarding the Taurus.
Germany has been a key backer of Ukraine and is the second biggest supplier of military aid after the United States. However, former Chancellor Olaf Scholz was reluctant to supply Kyiv with Taurus missiles because he did not want Germany to be directly involved in the Ukraine war. He agreed to provide Leopard 2 battle tanks in January 2023 after pressure from his NATO allies. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that if Western countries allow Ukraine to use their long-range weapons to strike inside Russia, it would put NATO “at war with his country”.
Since taking office on May 6, however, Merz has deepened efforts to retain Western support for Ukraine amid efforts by US Donald Trump’s administration to end the war. Trump has been critical of the US aid to Ukraine under his predecessor Joe Biden. But recent intensified Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine have angered Trump, who has called Putin “crazy”.
Ukraine believes the Taurus would be a game-changer in the war.
Here’s what to know about the weapons:
What are Taurus missiles?
The Taurus is a German-Swedish low-cruise, long-range air missile that can accurately deliver heavy explosives to targets as far away as 500km (300 miles).
It was manufactured in 1998 through a joint partnership between the German missile company MBDA Deutschland and Sweden’s Saab Bofors Dynamics.
A powerful warhead allows the missile to penetrate and cause significant damage to deep or hard targets, such as underground bunkers, communication facilities, ammunition storage warehouses and ships. The missile can also travel over long distances without GPS support.
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 hasn’t Germany given Ukraine these missiles yet?
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.
That’s because Moscow has warned several times that if Ukraine uses any Western missiles inside Russian territory, it would be perceived as those countries directly entering the conflict. It’s also due to the SPD’s stance against war.
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.
In November, former US President Biden, however, lifted restrictions on US weapons, allowing Ukraine to use them in Russia’s Kursk region. That came at a time when Kyiv had launched a surprise offensive on the region on its border. Some experts said lifting the restrictions was a major help to Ukraine. It has since lost most of the territory it had seized but does continue to hold some Russian land.
In March 2024, Russia tapped a top-secret conversation among Germany’s military brass in which officials discussed whether they might be able to persuade Scholz to send the Taurus to Ukraine and whether the missile could blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia to Ukraine’s occupied Crimea region.
Is Germany changing its stance now and will it matter?
Berlin appeared ready to change its tone under Merz’s new administration.
As an opposition member, Merz, who heads the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had pressured Scholz to send the Taurus to Ukraine and for Germany to take a stronger stance against Russia.
During his election campaign, Merz promised to support Ukraine more concretely, including by sending long-range missiles. However, his coalition government includes the SPD.
On Wednesday, Merz promised Zelenskyy German support in producing long-range missiles on Ukrainian territory in what appeared to be a compromise position. 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.
Analyst Michael Bociurkiw of the Atlantic Council think tank told Al Jazeera the pledge was still “pretty significant”, adding that it was one of the first real pledges from Germany to Ukraine. “I think it’s a recognition of Ukrainian capabilities,” he said.
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 did not explicitly say that Germany would send the Taurus to Ukraine, but his comments sent many analysts into a speculative frenzy. On Tuesday, Merz clarified that he was specifically referring to his support for Ukraine’s right to strike deep inside Russia.
“Hence yesterday in Berlin, I was describing something that already happened months ago,” Merz said.
Merz’s comments, however, attracted criticism from the SPD and from within his own CDU. Some said his statements and actual reality are 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.
“Therefore, we should also avoid making contradictory statements on this matter. … I continue to see no unity in the coalition and no political will to act appropriately and with strength and consistency in response to Russia’s massive escalation. Such statements are therefore overall unhelpful because they highlight Europe’s weakness to Russia,” he wrote.
Also on Tuesday, SPD head and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said at a news conference that there had been no policy change regarding delivering German weapons to Ukraine or the restrictions on their use.
Expert John Foreman, who is affiliated with the UK think tank Chatham House, said even if Germany sends the Taurus at this point, its effects might be more of a symbolic victory for Ukraine rather than a tactical one.
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.
“Russia has learned a lot about the transparency of the modern battlefield over the last three years and has become more adept at dispersal, air defence and camouflage to complicate targeting,” he added.
What other long-range missiles does Ukraine have?
- 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). They can hit Russian military bases and runways as well as energy infrastructure. After Biden lifted the restrictions on using US weapons inside Russia, Ukraine used six ATACMS on a Russian weapons depot in the border region of Bryansk. 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.
- The UK, meanwhile, has delivered Storm Shadow missiles and was the first country to send long-range missiles to Ukraine in May 2023. The Storm Shadow, worth about $1m each, is a cruise missile launched from aircraft rather than from the ground. 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 target high-value military outposts in occupied territories, including Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea. In November, Ukraine fired the missiles into Russian territory for the first time, killing a Russian military general in Kursk as well as several North Korean soldiers reported to be fighting for Moscow. One hundred to 200 units have reportedly been delivered.
- France’s equivalent of the Storm Shadow is called Scalp, and it has similar capabilities. The components of both missiles are manufactured in the UK, France and Italy and assembled by European manufacturer MBDA in a UK facility.
How might Russia react to the news?
Moscow has yet to comment on Germany’s move to collaborate with Ukraine in developing long-range missiles in the country.
Russia has consistently warned that Western-provided weapons striking inside the country would be seen as an escalation, one that Putin said in September could attract nuclear retaliation. But Merz’s move attempts to circumvent that threat.
After Merz’s election victory in April and his continued assuredness of his willingness to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova repeated that Russia would take a Taurus strike as Germany’s “direct” involvement in the war.
The Kremlin has also reacted to Merz’s comments this week, according to the Russian news agency TASS. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Merz “has confused everyone, if not himself”, after the vice chancellor denied that such decisions had been made. Peskov warned Berlin against an escalation, saying it would be an “extremely dangerous decision” that goes against ongoing peace efforts.
“It is literally several steps towards additional confrontation,” he said.
Zakharova added that Germany would “drive itself deeper into the hole in which the Kyiv regime it supports has long been”.
“It is doubtful that the head of the German government was or is authorised by anyone to make such statements on behalf of other countries,” she added.
