Germany will not deliver Taurus missiles to Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Solz said from Granada, after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of a European Council summit. However, Berlin intends to provide Kiev with one more Patriot anti-aircraft system.

“This is most necessary now,” Mr. Soltz said, noting that Russia is expected to try again this winter to hit Ukrainian infrastructure with missiles and drones. For his part, Mr. Zelensky wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that he had a “fruitful” meeting with the German chancellor and that he is grateful for Germany’s support. “The issue is the protection of Europe and common values,” he noted.

Olaf Solz has been heavily criticized recently – even by members of his own party, the SPD – for his reluctance to send the state-of-the-art German-Swedish-made Taurus long-range air-to-ground missile system to Ukraine.

In the past, he had again rejected a similar request, fearing a further escalation of the war if targets inside Russian territory were hit.

Already late last night the newspaper BILD published that the chancellery, after consulting experts and lawyers, made the decision not to grant Taurus – at least not in the short term.

According to Der Spiegel magazine, Mr. Scholz had already informed Mr. Zelensky of his intentions during their recent meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. There had been extensive consideration of whether the Taurus system could be seen as too much German involvement in the war, as the operation of the Taurus requires the feeding of target data as well as geodata to calculate the trajectory, which would be very difficult to achieve without the support of Germany. These missiles “are not as easy to program as a coffee machine,” Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said a few weeks ago. However, the minister is considered a supporter of the delivery of the Taurus to Kiev, after a careful examination of the technical details.

As Spiegel reports, the chancellor last week explained in a closed session of the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee the reasons why Germany is more cautious than e.g. the USA or Great Britain, pointing out that these countries are more relaxed about the issue of providing geodata and the presence of their soldiers in Ukraine.

The chancellor’s reservations concern, writes the magazine, mainly the possibility that the Ukrainian forces will hit with the Taurus occupied areas in the east of the country, but also points inside Russia. The BILD newspaper specifically refers to the possibility of German weapons being used to destroy the Kerch bridge, which connects Russia with the annexed Crimea.

The chancellery’s decision was met with criticism even today. The representative of the Greens for Foreign Policy matters, Anton Hofreiter, spoke of a “disastrous message”. “The delivery of the Taurus could help the Russian president realize that he is not achieving his war goals and, therefore, that he is ready for serious negotiations,” said the Green politician. Agnieszka Brugger, also from the Greens, described the decision as a “fatal message of lack of trust and solidarity for the people of Ukraine”. “Once again precious time is being wasted and Ukraine has no significant means to defend itself,” he added. “Mr. Soltz probably wants to wait until the US sends long-range Atacms to Ukraine. This way of decisions of the chancellery cannot be understood and leaves us speechless. It’s a disaster for Ukrainians, but for Putin it’s a day of celebration,” said Bundestag Defense Committee Chairwoman Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmerman