As Ukraine’s ammunition reserves dwindle, support from Western allies in Kyiv is more needed than ever.
After months of what seemed like a stalemate, a new vision of the Ukrainian conflict is taking hold: If the West does not increase and accelerate its support for the Ukrainian military, Russia may soon have a significant opportunity.
With the U.S. House of Representatives still failing to approve a new U.S. military aid package, European NATO allies are scrambling to increase their contributions to the war effort. In this context, Germany, the continent’s largest economy, is more than ever a major political and strategic player for Ukraine and NATO as a whole.
Germany has come a long way since the Russian invasion in February 2022. The government led by Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz oversaw a major shift in German defense policy by announcing that the country would provide military equipment to the Ukraine, a decision that helped prove that the West as a whole was taking the conflict seriously.
The country’s Ministry of Defense has urged Europe to anticipate a Russian threat to countries beyond UkraineAnd deploys combat-ready battalions to Lithuaniawhich means that German troops will be stationed just 100 km from the Russian border.
In contrast, German funds and equipment reach Ukraine only intermittently, and Olaf Scholz’s government has recently resisted pressure for Germany to provide one of its most powerful military tools to the Ukrainians. .
This is the Taurus, a stealth missile with a range of 500 km, twice as long as the British Storm Shadow and French Scalp missiles, both used by Ukraine to strike important Russian military targets.
The Ukrainians have been demanding the Taurus system for months, but Olaf Scholz has always refused under the pretext that these cannot be sent to Ukraine because that would involve sending German troops on the ground to program themwhich, according to him, could lead to a dangerous escalation.
This justification is, however, contradicted by a recording, recently revealed by Russian media, in which German air force officers claim on the contrary that the missile would not require any deployment of German troops in Ukraine.
Moscow threatened Germany with“disastrous consequences” in the event of Taurus deployment in Ukraine, and former President Dmitry Medvedev shared a World War II-era poem on Telegram titled “Kill him!” in writing : “The call of the Great Patriotic War has become relevant again: “DEATH TO THE GERMAN-NAZI OCCUPANTS!””.
At a press conference, the German chancellor also suggested that French and British forces were using cruise missiles ostensibly under Ukrainian control, something neither country admits. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons described the remarks as“wrong and irresponsible”.
During a trip to Prague on Tuesday March 5, the French president argued that “we are certainly approaching a moment in our Europe where it will be appropriate not to be cowardly”a statement that some observers interpreted as criticism of the German chancellor.
The Taurus saga and leaked German military recording come at an extremely inopportune time in the Ukrainian conflict
Recent Russian advances in the east of the country owe much to ammunition shortage on the Ukrainian side, which Kyiv and some of its allies have attributed to the slowness of some Western countries in resupplying the war effort.
In addition to continuing to inflict significant losses on the Russian army – which, according to Kyivhas lost more than 400,000 troops since February 2022 – the Ukrainian armed forces are currently focused on destroying high-value military assets that the Russians will struggle to replace, including a high-tech Russian patrol ship that was hit by a maritime drone on March 4.
Besides the fact that these strikes cost no human lives to the Ukrainians, they undermine Russia’s tactical capabilities and call into question the assurance that the country’s enormous resources provide a guarantee of victory. The same goes for missile and drone strikes on Russian territory, particularly in the border region of Belgorod, which Ukraine has repeatedly targeted.
But to continue these efforts, and as reports mount of troops withdrawing from their positions due to lack of ammunition, Ukraine needs the support of its Western allies more than ever.