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Germany is willing to send Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine, the country’s chancellor-in-waiting has said, as he stressed the need to put Kyiv on the front foot and force concessions from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Friedrich Merz, who is set to take office as the leader of Europe’s largest nation next month, denounced a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Sunday as “a serious war crime” and said that Kyiv needed help to “get ahead” in the conflict.
Asked if he would follow through on a previous call for Germany to supply Ukraine with the Taurus missiles that Kyiv has long asked for, he said that he would be willing to do so if done in co-ordination with European allies.
“Our European partners are already supplying cruise missiles,” he told the public broadcaster ARD on Sunday night. “The British are doing it, the French are doing it, and the Americans are doing it anyway.”
He added: “This must be jointly agreed. And if it agreed, then Germany should take part.”
In a reference to US President Donald Trump’s efforts to ram through a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, Merz warned that Putin would not “respond positively to weakness and peace offers”.
He said the attack on Sumy, which left at least 34 civilians dead and 117 injured, was “what Putin does to those who talk to him about a ceasefire”.
He added: “At some point, [Putin] must recognise the hopelessness of this war, which means we have to help Ukraine.”
Germany’s outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly rejected pleas from Kyiv and its allies to supply the Ukrainian armed forces with Taurus missiles, which have an intelligent warhead system that can inflict huge damage to structures such as bridges and bunkers.
The 500km plus range of the Taurus system — built by a joint venture between the European missile maker MBDA and Sweden’s Saab — is longer than the Storm Shadows supplied by the British and French and the Army Tactical Missile System provided by the US, and would allow Ukraine’s armed forces to strike deep beyond the front line.
Scholz has said supplying Kyiv with Taurus missiles would carry “a great risk of escalation” in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Merz, the leader of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) which came first in February’s federal election, criticised that stance, calling on Scholz last October to set out an ultimatum to Putin and vow to deliver the weapons within 24 hours if he failed to halt attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
However, Merz rowed back on those comments during the election campaign as Scholz sought to cast himself as a “chancellor of peace” who would protect Germany from being dragged into the Ukraine conflict. He also had to contend with a surge in the polls for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which supports détente with Moscow.
But on Sunday Merz indicated not only that he was willing to supply Taurus missiles but also suggested that they could be used to strike targets such as the Kerch bridge that links Russia to Crimea, and is seen as a symbol of Putin’s occupation of the peninsula.
It is unclear, however, whether Merz’s coalition partners from the Social Democrats (SPD) would support supplying Taurus missiles.
The party’s co-leader, Lars Klingbeil, last week promised to stand on the side of “brave Ukrainians” as he and Merz announced a coalition deal.
But Klingbeil must contend with deep wariness about the Ukraine conflict in parts of his parliamentary party, as well as among some SPD members — who will this week begin voting on whether or not to approve the coalition agreement.
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