Pressure on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to provide Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles is mounting from both the Christian Democratic opposition and his own ruling coalition following the latest massive Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian territory.

“Ukraine urgently needs Taurus missiles to be able to defend itself against Russian attacks on its own territory,” said Norbert Rottgen, the foreign policy spokesman of the main opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. “Ukraine used the weapons it received to defend its territory, and there is no indication that it will do otherwise with the Taurus missiles,” he believes, as reported by the EFE news agency on Wednesday, citing Agerpres.

“Why can Russia unilaterally demand that the war be fought only on the territory of Ukraine?”

The vice-president of the CDU parliamentary group, Johannes Vadefühl, spoke in favor of the rapid supply of Taurus missiles to the Ukrainian army. “In this way, Ukraine would have the opportunity to strike Russian supply lines far from the front line. This would force the Russians to move their ammunition depots and command centers further,” explains the right-wing parliamentarian. “Russia started a war. Then why can it unilaterally demand that the war be waged only on the territory of Ukraine?”, the same parliamentarian asks.

And in the coalition of the German federal government there are politicians who demand the inclusion of Taurus missiles in the military aid offered to Ukraine, such as the president of the parliamentary commission for European affairs, Anton Hofreiter, a member of the Green party led by the head of foreign affairs, Annalena Berbock.

“Germany has already done a lot in air defense, but even more is needed to protect the population of Ukraine,” noted the environmentalist deputy. “It is especially urgent to quickly send Taurus (missiles) to them,” he believes.

“We want to help Ukraine, but avoid the participation of Germany and NATO in the war”

But government spokesman Steffen Hebreit said on Wednesday that he had nothing new to announce on the matter. “We want to help Ukraine in every possible way and at the same time avoid the participation of Germany and NATO in the war. On the other hand, all our assistance must be coordinated with the allies,” the German official explained.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has so far been reluctant to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, one of the reasons being that these missiles, which have a range of more than 500 kilometers, would allow Kyiv to attack Russian territory.

The delivery of such air-to-surface missiles is also associated with technical difficulties, since the Ukrainian Air Force does not have a platform to launch them, so they would have to be integrated on the fighters that Ukraine has, or included in the kit. aircraft adapted to launch these missiles and, of course, the training of Ukrainian pilots, which takes time.

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