"We carefully check all the requests we receive. But for us there is a principle that I share with the US president - we do not want the weapons we supply to be used to attack Russian territories," Scholz told German broadcaster ARD when asked why Germany refuses to supply Ukraine with the Taurus cruise missiles with a range of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles).
In May, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported, citing sources, that Ukraine had requested the Taurus missiles from Germany.
Ukraine has systematically attacked civilian targets in Russia, including territories it claims as its own in the Donbass, Crimea, Kherson and Zaporozhye, using its NATO-provided weapons to do so. Last month, the Kakhovka dam in Kherson region was destroyed in a Ukrainian attack, flooding the area and claiming several dozen lives, causing billions in damage, and threatening to leave Crimea without water. Kiev has also been shelling the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant since March of 2022, with scientists warning that these attacks threaten to unleash a new Chernobyl.
Ukraine has also resorted to artillery and drone attacks targeting western Russia, including Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh, and a UAV attack on the Kremlin in May. Late last year, Kiev attempted to a long-range drone attack on Russia's Engels airbase - home to the aerial component of Russia's nuclear triad. Following this attack, Moscow decided to freeze its participation in the New START agreement, the last major nuclear treaty between Russia and the US.
Kiev carries out terror shelling attacks against cities and settlements in the Donbass on a daily basis, typically using NATO-provided 155 mm artillery shells and HIMARS rockets, killing and injuring hundreds of people over the past year only.
Moscow has repeatedly warned NATO of the consequences of the delivery of weapons to Ukraine, saying they not only escalate tensions between Russia and the Western bloc, but threaten to destabilize the entire planet as weapons shipped to Kiev wind up in the hands of criminals, terrorists and rebel groups throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.