Berlin's Mistakes on Ukraine

Germany's chancellor reversed himself on sending tanks to Ukraine. On long-range missiles, it looks like he won't.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in 2023. (CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2023– Source: EP)

On March 1, the day that Alexei Navalny was laid to rest in Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the top editor of Russia's state-funded propaganda outlet RT, found a different lead story. She uploaded a 38-minute audio recording to Telegram of a hacked conference call with German military officials. They discussed how Kyiv could use Germany's long-range Taurus missiles, which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly refused to provide. Specifically, they discussed that Kyiv might use them to bomb the Crimean Bridge, which links Crimea to mainland Russia. 

Berlin did not deny the authenticity of the recording, which took place on February 19, according to Simonyan. The leak was traced to a military official who dialed into the Webex conference from an unsecured line in Singapore. “It is quite humid here,” said the official.

The embarrassment was both the fact that the call that it was compromised and that ministers were discussing scenarios for a policy decision that Scholz has said he won't take. Ever since Scholz declared a "historic turning point" or Zeitenwende three days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the German government's response has lacked coherence. On one hand, according to the Kiel Institute for World Economics, Germany has sent the second-highest amount of military aid to Ukraine, behind the United States.  Coming after he relented after months of foot-dragging to send Leopard tanks last year, Scholz's outspoken opposition to sending the Taurus missiles has caused disunity among Western allies.

Calls for Germany to ship the Taurus long-range missile grew last fall after Kyiv was more successful at attacking Russia by air and sea than by land in the much-hyped counteroffensive. Over the summer, explosions rocked the Crimean Bridge and Kyiv hit another bridge in the Crimean peninsula with Anglo-French Storm Shadow long-range missiles. The Crimean Bridge is a key way that the Russian army resupplies troops from mainland Russia to occupied southeast Ukraine. The Taurus missiles, with a longer range and adeptness at evading Russian detection, have the potential to "penetrate" the bridge's structure, according to a German official on the leaked call.