Germany may send Taurus missiles to Ukraine when the US sends its ATACMS

Germany may decide to send German Taurus cruise missiles to Kyiv if the United States announces the sending of ATACMS guided missiles. About it reported Chairman of the Bundestag Defense Committee Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann in a comment to The New York Times.

“He [канцлер Германии Олаф Шольц] is under a lot of pressure and may want to stop discussing the issue. But if the Americans give the green light for the delivery of their ATACMS, then, [поставки] possible,” she said.

As the publication notes, the German government previously tried to announce, synchronously with the United States, the supply of weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Berlin and Washington, according to the NYT, did not deliver missiles because they fear that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will use them against targets on Russian territory, although Kyiv has pledged not to do this.

On October 4, Bild reported that the German government had made it clear that doesn’t plan in the foreseeable future, transfer Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Berlin has not yet given an official refusal to Kyiv’s request, and the country’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz could theoretically postpone the supply issue to the future, but its implementation remains unlikely, the publication believes.

In early October, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Logistics Doug Bush reportedthat the Pentagon is ready to send Ukraine some of the long-range ATACMS missiles equipped with cluster munitions, after US President Joe Biden approves the transfer. According to Bush, the missiles that the United States plans to send to Ukraine have already been selected. ATACMS missiles could be launched from the same launchers that Ukraine already uses to launch GPS-guided missiles in batches of six at a time.

The fact that Ukraine has requested from Germany the supply of Taurus missiles with a flight range of up to 500 km became known at the end of May. As the media wrote, Berlin purchased about 600 Taurus ten years ago, of which only 150 missiles can now operate. Initially, the German authorities opposed the supply of such missiles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Now long-range missiles are officially supplied to Ukraine by two countries – Great Britain and France. We are talking about Storm Shadow missiles and their analogue SCALP-EG, both air-launched.