Polish FM hopes Germany dares to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, after US sends ATACMS
Міністр закордонних справ Польщі Радослав Сікорський. Фото: PAP/Leszek Szymański
The decision of the White House to provide long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine may push Germany to provide Taurus missiles after all.
This is what Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski hopes for, speaking in an interview with Bild, Spiegel reports.
Polish foreign minister said that he hopes for a shift in the debate within Germany about the possibility of providing Ukraine with long-range Taurus cruise missiles and that Chancellor Olaf Scholz will change his mind after recent events.
Sikorski noted that the United States' provision of the long-awaited ATACMS missiles to Ukraine was a reaction to Russia's escalation, and Scholz admits that Germany "will do more than it already does."
According to the media, the US also hopes that the decision on ATACMS for Ukraine will push Germany to a similar step regarding its own Taurus cruise missiles.
As you know, the United States recently secretly transferred long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. They were apparently included in the March $300 million aid package to Ukraine from the US.
It should be added that according to the experts of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the ATACMS missiles provided to Ukraine by the United States can weaken Russian logistics and threaten Russian airfields and warehouses with strikes. However, for Ukraine, they will have an operational significance if these strikes are reinforced by ground operations of the defense forces.
It will be recalled that Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz is not going to change his decision not to supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles at the moment. He stated this once again after talks with the Prime Minister of Great Britain , Rishi Sunak, in Berlin on April 24.
Taurus for Ukraine
We will remind that on May 27, 2023, Ukraine addressed Germany with an official request, asking it to provide it with Taurus long-range cruise missiles.
Also, Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz once again opposed the supply of Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine. In particular, in his opinion, if the country supplies this weapon to Ukraine, there is a risk that it could involve Germany in a war with Russia.
In turn, the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, Kyrylo Budanov, in an interview with the German media outlet ARD, stated that the life of Ukrainian citizens could be made easier by German Taurus missiles since these weapons can hit enemy command centers and other important targets of the enemy.
