A majority of Germans are opposed to sending Taurus KEPD 350 air-launched long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, with a fresh poll finding while 36 percent are in favor of their delivery, 52 percent are opposed, with support falling to just 21 percent among residents of eastern Germany.
Despite opposition, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and other members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government have expressed support for delivering the missiles this week, with Lindner saying a decision on the matter would be reached "faster and at shorter notice" than in the past.
German media first reported on talks to send Taurus missiles to Kiev last week, saying the chancellor’s office was hoping to make changes to the missiles’ programming to prevent Ukraine from using them to attempt strikes deep into Russian territory.
Previous assurances in this vein by the US and other NATO powers have turned out to be empty promises, with Ukraine’s military eagerly using its Western-provided military hardware including artillery, missiles and drones to strike Russia, and to indiscriminately fire on cities and settlements in the Donbass.
“As in the past, we will always check every single decision very carefully,” Scholz told reporters last week when asked about the Taurus missiles’ delivery.
These “very careful” checks have already seen Germany send some €7.5 billion ($8.15 billion) in weapons to Ukraine over the past year-and-a-half, the second-largest amount only behind the United States. Berlin has already approved sending over 260 Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks, including from its own armories and those of other European NATO allies, plus Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, MARS rocket artillery systems, Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers, Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Bergepanzer armored recovery vehicles, Panzerfaust RPGs and billions more in other weapons, support equipment, ammunition and supplies.
What distinguishes the Taurus cruise missile is its range and firepower. The €950,000-a-piece bunker buster munition has a 481 kg warhead, and an operational range of over 500 km, making it a standoff weapon which, in the wrong hands, could turn into a tool for terror bombings.
No Wonder Weapon
“The long-range Taurus cruise missiles are an advanced high-precision unmanned weapon system, but they are not a wonder weapon,” AfD European Parliament MEP Gunnar Beck told Sputnik.
“They will add to Ukraine’s military capability, but not decisively,” the lawmaker, who serves as vice president of the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy fraction, said.
Instead, “the delivery of these missiles is significant in that it marks a further escalation of the conflict, leading perhaps to the delivery of other weapons with greater and more decisive offensive capability. That, to me, is the danger here,” Beck stressed.
The lawmaker noted that the danger of Ukraine using Taurus missiles against Russian territory is “the main point of controversy,” with government assurances that this won’t take place of little comfort to ordinary Germans.
“The German government says it would like to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles against Russian territory. However, this is just fanciful talk. In practice, Germany cannot do anything to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles as they like," Beck said.
“Most Germans do not wish to be drawn into a major international conflict with Russia,” the AfD lawmaker emphasized. “This is particularly true of East Germans who still appreciate that without Russian blessing reunification could not have been achieved 33 years ago.” Most Germans “simply do not believe that Russia and President Putin are a real threat to Germany today. That is my own personal view too. Ordinary Germans have less to fear of Russia today than it has from the EU, their own government and any of the major political parties within Germany itself.”
Amid the Ukrainian crisis and economic downturn, Beck’s party has seen a major surge in support, with recent polling indicating it would win up to 18 percent of the vote if elections were held today – on par with Chancellor Scholz’ Social Democrats. The growing prominence of the upstart opposition party and its social conservative, Eurosceptic brand of populism has led to debate inside the German political establishment on whether it should be banned as an “extremist” organization.
Beck emphasized that notwithstanding the “relentless” “anti-Russian propaganda” in German media, many Germans, especially in the east of the country, “have lost faith” in Scholz’s coalition, and “cannot remember when their government last did something for them.” Instead, half of Germans “now regard their political elite as just the executor of the aims and objectives of large multinationals and foreign powers – very well-paid executors at that,” the lawmaker summed up.
Germans Don’t Want Nuclear War With Russia
Dan Kovalik, a US-based human rights and labor rights lawyer and peace activist, echoed Beck’s sentiments on the implications and dangers of the Taurus missiles’ potential delivery to Kiev.
“I think Russia is about to destroy the Ukrainian military and probably the Ukrainian state as it exists, and that’s just a fact. I don’t think the missiles will change that. Of course, what they could do is allow Ukraine to fire more into Russian territory in a more destructive way than they are now with drones, which of course presents a great danger of escalating this conflict into a major world war, possibly even into a nuclear conflict. That’s why I think the German people are against this,” Kovalik stressed.
“Of course, Germany and Russia have been through two world wars against each other, and I don’t think either wants to repeat that,” the observer added. “I do think it’s quite interesting that the East Germans oppose these weapons by a much bigger percentage than the West Germans, which of course makes sense because they were part of the East bloc, because East Germany did a much better job at de-Nazifying their part of Germany.”