Having received long-range Storm Shadow missiles from the UK, Ukraine is continuing its efforts to obtain other types of long-range weapons from its allies.
In particular, Ukrainian diplomats have begun work on obtaining long-range Taurus missiles from Germany and hope that the decision will take days, not months.
Source. Head of the Permanent Delegation of Ukraine to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Yehor Chernev said this in a commentary to Suspilne.
According to him, it is important for Ukraine to have the support of the German parliament, and it works very closely with the Bundestag at the parliamentary level.
"And about 4 months ago, after we received Storm Shadow, we started working on getting Taurus, long-range missiles that have a larger warhead, that fly 500 km, that are more modern than Storm Shadow. They are needed on the battlefield to eliminate depots, command posts, logistics chains throughout the occupied territory of Ukraine, all these russian bases," Chernev said.
According to him, members of the Bundestag informed him that there was a consensus within the coalition to provide Ukraine with these missiles, since parliamentarians understand that today they are needed to make the Ukrainian counteroffensive more successful, and "that we should not wait for the provision of ATACMS and only then provide us with Taurus."
"And it is very important that the faction of Scholz's party, the SPD, also supports this position. This means that in principle there is a direct dialog with the German government, with Scholz, with the cabinet. And I hope that this will push the government, Minister Borys Pistorius, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz to make the decision to provide us with such missiles," he said.
"Now it looks good and promising to make a decision on Taurus for Ukraine," said Markus Faber, a member of the Bundestag Defence Committee, as quoted by Chernev.
"I hope that it will be really soon, that is, if this issue is being discussed in the public space, in the German public space, first of all, I hope that it will take days, weeks at most, and not months, as it was with the Leopards," Chernev said.
At the end of May 2022, Ukraine asked the German government to provide Taurus cruise missiles with a range of up to 500 km. The request was made against the backdrop of Britain and France's decision to supply Ukraine with long-range Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles.
On July 26, Markus Faber, a member of the Free Democratic Party of Germany, which is part of the ruling coalition, also called for Taurus missiles to be provided to Ukraine.
Later, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that he was still not ready to supply Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
On August 7, Andreas Schwarz, a member of the Bundestag from the Social Democratic Party of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, called for long-range Taurus cruise missiles to be provided to Ukraine.