Scholz left reeling by leaks on missiles for Ukraine

Olaf Scholz’s message last week was clear: Berlin would not deliver Taurus cruise missiles to Kyiv because German soldiers would have to be sent to Ukraine to programme them. And that meant Germany would be dragged into war with Russia.

The German chancellor’s argument has now been blown apart — by his own military. A conversation between German air force officers that was intercepted and leaked by Russian media late last week revealed Ukrainian soldiers could operate the Taurus missiles without German “boots on the ground”, as long as they were adequately trained.

“The leak is official confirmation that the chancellor wasn’t telling the truth,” said Norbert Röttgen, an MP for the opposition Christian Democrats and member of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee. “It massively damages his credibility.”

Scholz’s allies have rallied to his defence. Rolf Mützenich, head of the chancellor’s Social Democrat (SPD) parliamentary group, told ARD TV on Sunday that the business of sending Tauruses to Ukraine was always “a political and legal grey zone which I myself wouldn’t want to set foot in”. “For that reason, [Scholz’s] decision is politically and legally reasonable,” he said.

Even before the leak, doubts were being expressed in western capitals about Scholz’s approach. Officials in London and Paris expressed dismay last week after he revealed publicly that British and French troops were on the ground in Ukraine helping to operate Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles — a situation he would not permit with the Tauruses.

But the eavesdropping affair has caused much more damage, triggering massive concern about the safety of German government communications as wars rage in Europe and the Middle East. Germany was “caught with its pants down, again”, lamented the mass circulation Bild Zeitung on Monday. “It’s as if [Russia’s leader Vladimir] Putin dropped a cluster bomb over Berlin,” said the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

The leak reignited a long-running debate that Scholz thought he had drawn a line under for good, and amounted to a massive propaganda coup for Moscow, which said it proved the “collective west” had designs to attack Russia.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the call made it “more than obvious” that Germany’s military was “discussing substantive and specific plans to strike Russian territory” — an idea dismissed by Berlin as “absurd, infamous Russian propaganda”.

It was in May 2023 that the Ukrainian authorities first asked for Taurus cruise missiles, one of the most modern weapons systems in the Bundeswehr’s arsenal. With a range of up to 500km they can be used against “high-value targets” such as bunkers or command posts and can penetrate several walls of reinforced concrete.

But in October, Scholz turned down the Ukrainian request. For many this was typical: he had long refused to supply Kyiv with German Leopard tanks, fearing Russian retaliation. But in January last year he finally bowed to intense domestic and international pressure and reversed course.

For months Scholz declined to explain his position on Tauruses. But last week he finally broke his silence, saying German soldiers would have to be stationed in Ukraine to programme the missiles. Berlin would then become directly involved in the war, an outcome he has consistently sought to avoid.

“German soldiers must not be connected at any point with the targets that this system reaches,” he said.

Fellow SPD politicians say Scholz’s caution has huge support among German voters, and the Russian leak has not changed that.

“People here like the way he cautiously weighs up the pros and cons of supplying different weapons systems,” said Nils Schmid, the SPD’s foreign policy spokesperson. “Like Scholz, they don’t want Germany to become a party to this war.”

Schmid added Germans also agreed with the chancellor about the risks of supplying Ukraine with “so impactful a weapon”. “You just don’t know how they would deploy it in an emergency situation,” he said.

But Scholz’s position on Taurus has raised hackles inside his own governing coalition. Worried about Ukraine’s recent setbacks on the battlefield and the US Congress’ failure to approve more military aid for Kyiv, liberal and Green MPs have urged a rethink on a missile that has the potential to significantly boost Ukraine’s military capabilities.

Late last month the three parties in Scholz’s coalition passed a resolution requesting the delivery of “long-range weapons systems” to Kyiv that could strike “far in the rear of the Russian aggressor”. Taurus was not named, but it was clearly implied.

It was also the main subject of the intercepted Luftwaffe call. The officers involved, who included Luftwaffe chief Ingo Gerhartz, were heard to say the missiles could be used by Ukraine to attack the bridge linking mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula, among other targets. The men also said Ukrainian troops could be trained in Germany to use the missiles. But they stressed that Scholz’s government had still not given the green light for the missiles to be delivered to Kyiv.

Some in Scholz’s SPD think that could one day change. “The leak doesn’t reduce Scholz’s room for manoeuvre — he can still come to a different decision on Tauruses in the future,” Schmid said.

But others said Russia’s aim was to make sure Scholz would never be able to execute a U-turn on the missiles. “Russia has succeeded in creating the perfect political dilemma in Germany,” said Christian Mölling, a defence analyst with the German Council on Foreign Relations. “It will now be all the more difficult for Scholz to re-evaluate the situation and change his mind on the Tauruses after all.”

Johann Wadephul, the Christian Democrats’ spokesperson on foreign and defence affairs, said Putin’s aim was to “entangle Scholz in a web of hints and contorted explanations” to such an extent that it would be impossible for him to opt to supply the Tauruses in the future.

“Scholz has hunkered down in his refusal to send the missiles,” Wadephul said. “He doesn’t seem to understand that by doing that he’s become the best piece on Putin’s chessboard.”