NATO Ally Proposes Taurus Missile Solution for Ukraine

Taurus long-range air-to-surface missile fired from a South Korean Air Force F-15K fighter jet during an exercise on September 12, 2017 in Taean-gun, South Korea. Calls have been growing to pledge Taurus missiles in Berlin, and within Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s own party, for months.

The British government has offered to replenish Ukraine’s long-range Storm Shadow missile stocks if its own cache is replaced with German Taurus missiles, according to a new report, in a move likely intended to break months of deadlock on sending the latter to Ukraine.

London extended the offer several weeks ago, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday. A British defense ministry spokesperson said the U.K. “and our partners, including Germany, continue to work together to equip Ukraine as best we can to defend its sovereign territory – delivering significant quantities of military aid via the International Donors Coordination Cell in Stuttgart.”

“We recently announced an uplift of our military aid to Ukraine to £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion), continuing our unwavering support, including as the first country to announce that we would provide long-range precision missiles and modern, Western tanks,” the spokesperson said in a statement, responding to a Newsweek request for comment.

A spokesperson for the German defense ministry said they could not confirm the reports.

The U.K. pledged Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles last year, boosting Ukraine’s ability to carry out strikes on high-value Russian targets far behind the frontlines. France has promised several deliveries of its version, the SCALP, unveiling a new batch earlier this month that put more pressure on Germany to give the green light for its Taurus missiles.

Kyiv requested Taurus missiles, with a range of more than 300 miles, back in May 2023. The missiles are broadly the same as the Storm Shadow, but experts suggest the Taurus missiles would be better suited to targeting infrastructure such as bridges.

Calls have been growing to pledge Taurus missiles in Berlin, and within Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s own party, for months. Germany, despite being Europe’s biggest contributor of military equipment to Ukraine, had dragged its feet over the missiles. Earlier this week, it committed six “Sea King” helicopters, boosting Kyiv’s assets in the Black Sea against Russia’s naval fleet.

“Ukraine needs more ammunition, more spare parts and the Taurus,” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the chair of the Bundestag’s defense committee, told German media outlet t-online earlier this month. They should be delivered to Kyiv “immediately,” she said.

“Ukraine’s successes with Western-supplied long-range missiles, including SCALP and Storm Shadow, make a strong argument that more should be supplied,” weapons expert David Hambling previously told Newsweek.

“The missiles previously supplied have been used against valid targets, have made a real difference to Ukraine, and have not resulted in escalation,” he said. “It is hard to see why Germany is still hesitant to supply Ukraine with such missiles when its allies are all pitching in, and when visible support is sorely needed.”

Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles are responsible for several high-profile successes for Ukraine. Kyiv used them to strike key Russian infrastructure in the annexed Crimean peninsula, and to damage Russia’s Rostov-on-Don submarine and the Minsk landing ship in mid-September.

In late December, Kyiv used cruise missiles to strike Russia’s Novocherkassk landing ship in the eastern Crimean base of Feodosia. Ukrainian officials suggested Storm Shadow or SCALP missiles were responsible.

Germany is likely concerned with maintaining its own stockpile of Taurus missiles, and that the long-range missiles would be used to strike the Kerch Bridge, William Freer, a research fellow with the U.K.-based Council on Geostrategy, previously told Newsweek.

Shortly after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, it built the Crimean Bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge. It is a key route for military supplies passing through the peninsula and for maintaining the Kremlin’s war effort in southern Ukraine. The Kerch Bridge has come under attack several times from Ukrainian long-range missiles.

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