Moscow May Strike Berlin Should Taurus Missiles Hit Russia

Statements made by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz about lifting restrictions on the striking range of weapons that Ukraine can use represent an act that "provokes war," Kremlin's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"This is nothing but further provocation of war. It is nothing but further attempts to force Ukrainians to continue fighting. And it is nothing but an obstacle to efforts to move towards a peaceful process,” he said.

On May 26, Merz stated that Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States "no longer have any restrictions on the range of weapons supplied to Ukraine.” The next day, he said the decision to lift the restrictions had been made "several months ago.”

At the same time, German Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said after Merz's comments that Berlin's policy regarding long-range missiles remained unchanged. The U.S. State Department also declined to confirm reports about lifting restrictions.

Among the countries named by Merz as having lifted restrictions, Germany is the only one that has not supplied long-range missiles to Ukraine. Germany possesses such weapons, called Taurus.

Moscow May Strike Berlin

Margarita Simonyan, Editor-in-Chief of the international media group Russia Today and the RT channel, suggested that Moscow might retaliate by striking Berlin should Taurus missiles hits the Russian capital.

"In Moscow's offices, they are discussing that if German troops strike Moscow with German weapons (…), then we have no choice but to strike Berlin,” Simonyan wrote on her Telegram channel.

Simonyan believes that the fact Germany allowed the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to use long-range weapons without restrictions can only mean that the strikes will be carried out by German military specialists as Ukrainian servicemen do not know how to operate Taurus missiles, she noted.

Details

The Taurus KEPD-350 is a German-Swedish air-launched cruise missile, manufactured by Taurus Systems and used by Germany, Spain, and South Korea. Taurus Systems GmbH is a partnership between MBDA Deutschland GmbH (formerly LFK) and Saab Bofors Dynamics. During the Cold War Germany wanted to buy French Apache missiles, which did not work out. In 1998, Germany funded the development of a powered system to be designated KEPD-350 with the acronym TAURUS (Target Adaptive Unitary and dispensor Robotic Ubiquity System).