Britain urges Germany to supply Kiev with long-range missiles despite Luftwaffe leaks

Britain has urged a reluctant Berlin to deliver long-range Taurus missiles to Kiev despite embarrassing leaks on Russian television of top-secret phone calls involving a Luftwaffe officer who said British troops were “on the ground” in Ukraine.

The Kremlin sought to use what it saw as a propaganda coup to pressure German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who insisted on Monday he would not donate rockets that could hit the strategic Kerch Bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. .

Margarita Simonyan, editor of the Kremlin-controlled news channel RT, released the recording on Friday, which has been confirmed by Germany as authentic. The recording shows German air force officers discussing Britain’s military presence in Ukraine and helping the country select Russian targets.

Britain has refrained from publicly criticizing Germany over the leaks, saying instead that Berlin should investigate. Instead, Britain has stepped up lobbying for the Taurus missile, which has a range of 300 miles, twice the range of the Anglo-French Storm Shadow/Scalp weapons system already supplied to Kiev.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “The UK was the first country to provide Ukraine with long-range precision strike missiles and we will encourage our allies to do the same.” They added that News Ten acknowledged a week ago that “Ukraine has a small number of British Army”.

Former Defense Department insiders added that they viewed the leak as annoying but not important, in part because the conversations were not very specific — and, on the plus side, they also highlighted Taurus’s effectiveness.

However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the leaked conversation, which comes a day after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said “Germany is preparing for war with Russia” “once again highlights how Western Collectively and directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine”.

Meeting with a group of voters at a vocational school in Baden-Württemberg on Monday, Scholz insisted he would not change his mind about Taurus and expressed concern that Taurus could theoretically be used by Ukraine to strike at Russia’s heart. “I am the chancellor and my words matter,” he said.

Scholz added that control of the Taurus missiles, which could theoretically hit targets in Moscow, could only be guaranteed if German soldiers were directly involved in launching the Taurus missiles, “which is completely impossible.”

The leaked 38-minute conversation was conducted by Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, the commander of the German Air Force, who wanted to prepare for a meeting with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius two weeks ago. ) to prepare for a half-hour meeting in Taurus. The conversation took place on the relatively unsecured WebX service, with one participant dialing in from Singapore.

During the call, Gerharz and his staff discussed the prime minister’s refusal to donate weapons, how to circumvent it and what the problems were. In the process, the Germans discussed how Britain could work closely with Ukraine to deploy Storm Shadow missiles.

“When it comes to mission planning,” the German commander said, “I know how the British do it, they do it entirely by firing back. They also have some people on the scene who do this, the French don’t do it.”

“Backstop” is a military term that describes how intelligence, equipment and support from the rear are conveyed to troops deployed on the front line, but Gerhardts said the British approach goes much deeper and involves direct support on the ground.

Downing Street confirmed on Tuesday last week that a “small number of personnel” were present in Ukraine but stopped short of detailing all the tasks they were carrying out amid concerns that any potential involvement in fighting could be seen as an escalation by Moscow.

In the recording, the German officer concluded that the use of these missiles in the near future would be possible only with the involvement of German soldiers. It is possible for Taurus to train Ukrainian soldiers to avoid sending German soldiers onto Ukrainian territory, but it would take months of preparation.

Officials also discussed potential types of targets for Taurus, including an “eastern bridge” said to be difficult to reach with “relatively small” pillars – a description consistent with the strategic Kerch Bridge.

The bridge is a vital supply route into Russian-occupied Crimea and despite repeated attempts by the Ukrainians to bomb it, they have so far been unable to destroy it. They concluded that blowing up the bridge was technically feasible but would likely require “10 to 20 missiles” – and Germany could donate up to 100.

On Monday, there were signs of division in Germany following the leaks. Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock, from the junior Green party in the governing coalition, reiterated her support in principle for supplying Ukraine with Taurus missiles.

“We will do everything we can to enable Ukraine to … defend and protect itself,” she said during a visit to Montenegro. “So we need precise control over whatever means we have… in accordance with international law.”

Roderich Kiesewetter, a defense expert for the opposition Christian Democrats, said Russia leaked the meeting just in time to specifically “sabotage the delivery of Germany’s Taurus.” He said the leaks were “an attempt to divert public discussion from other issues,” including the death of Alexei Navalny.

Carlo Masala, a military expert at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, told German media that following the leaks there was a “hysterical” public reaction to the possibility of Germany being directly involved in a war against Russia in Ukraine. ”, will now block delivery of Taurus.

“What is certain now is that Olaf Scholz did not want to send Taurus to Ukraine, and that is exactly what the Russians wanted to prevent once and for all,” he said.