A visitor walks past a guide missile ground target KEPD 350 manufactured by the Swedish-German company Taurus at the International Defense and Security fair of Madrid, on May 17, 2023. (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
BERLIN (Tribune News Service) — Ukraine has asked the German government to provide long-range Taurus missiles, which would be capable of hitting Moscow.
A spokeswoman of the German defense ministry said that the request from Kyiv had arrived in Berlin in the past few days, but did not want to give any further details.
The request, which was first reported by the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, touches a sensitive issue for the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The Taurus missile has a range of up to 310 miles and could thus also potentially hit Moscow, which only lies around 280 miles away from the Ukraine border. Scholz has repeatedly warned Ukraine not to use German weapons to attack targets on Russian territory.
Ukraine has pledged not to attack Russian territory with Western weapons.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy personally asked Scholz for the missiles during his recent visit in Berlin, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported. The ministry spokeswoman denied to comment and also didn’t say when a decision can be expected.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Visit bloomberg.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
