(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that there were no longer any restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-provided weapons in strikes on Russian territory.
“There are no more range limitations for weapons delivered to Ukraine. Neither from the Brits, nor the French, nor from us. Not from the Americans either,” Merz said.
“This means that Ukraine can now defend itself, for example, by attacking military positions in Russia. Until recently, it couldn’t do that, and apart from very few exceptions, it hadn’t done so either,” he added.
His comments suggest that Germany may provide Ukraine with its Taurus missile, which has a range of up to 310 miles (500 kilometers), and would give the Ukrainian military the ability to strike deep inside Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Merz’s comments, saying that if the claim is true, it runs counter to recent efforts for peace. “If such decisions have indeed been made, they are entirely at odds with our aspirations for a political resolution and with the efforts currently being made toward a settlement,” Peskov said. “Quite dangerous decisions, again – if they were indeed made.”
Moscow’s view is that strikes on its territory using Western-provided missiles put NATO in a direct war with Russia since Ukraine needs intelligence from the US to fire the weapons.
Last year, the Biden administration gave Ukraine the green light to fire US-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and British-provided Storm Shadow missiles into Russian territory, a step that marked a significant escalation of the proxy war. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally changed Russia’s nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
The ATACMS have a range of about 190 miles, and the Storm Shadows can hit targets up to 155 miles, both short of the Taurus’s range. Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz, had resisted calls for Germany to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine. But Merz, who assumed office on May 6, has previously suggested that he’d be open to providing Ukraine with the weapon.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
