Germany won’t send long-range missiles to Ukraine – defense minister

The German government has no intention of approving the supply of long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine for strikes inside Russia, despite a reported shift on the issue in the US, according to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

US President Joe Biden has granted Ukraine limited permission for long-range strikes against targets deep inside Russia with American-donated ATACMS missiles, multiple news outlets reported on Sunday. Moscow has said any such attacks would cross a red line and would constitute a direct NATO war with Russia. The US, UK, and France previously provided long-range weapons to Ukraine, but Germany refused to do so.

The decision by Washington “doesn’t change our assessment at the moment,” Pistorius told reporters on Monday, when asked if Chancellor Olaf Scholz would lift his ban on sending Taurus air-launched missiles to Kiev. Currently there is “no reason to make a different decision,” Pistorius added, speaking during a visit to a helicopter plant in Bavaria. Instead, the German military intends to provide 4,000 drones that use AI-assisted piloting, he said.

Washington informed Berlin about the policy change in advance, a German government spokesman said. The Foreign Ministry stressed that none of the German weapons donated to Ukraine is considered long-range.

Scholz has justified his refusal to give Taurus missiles to the Ukrainian military by saying that the move would make Germany a direct party to the conflict. The chancellor has been criticized for his position by some of his partners in the now-failed ruling coalition as well as some senior opposition figures.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed the reports about Biden’s decision. Her party, the Greens, “sees this issue in the same way as our Eastern European partner, the British, the French and the Americans,” the official said in an interview with RBB Inforadio on Monday.

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, an MP from the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who chairs the Bundestag Defense Committee, has called the reported American move long overdue. Speaking on Deutschlandfunk radio, she urged Scholz to change his mind on Taurus donations.

The Greens and the FDP were junior partners in the coalition led by Scholz’s Social Democrats, which collapsed earlier this month. The Christian Democrats, the leading German opposition party, supports sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Other politicians who have been critical of the entire Western approach to the conflict have enjoyed a surge in popularity this year.

Germany is widely expected to hold a snap federal election in early 2025.