Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz continued to differ over the questions of long-range German missile deliveries and Ukraine’s potential membership of NATO.
Despite the United States lifting restrictions on Kyiv’s use of long-range American ATACMS missiles, and similar authorization given by the United Kingdom and France regarding the deployment of their Storm Shadow/SCALP equivalents, Scholz continues to withhold German Taurus missiles.
“It has to do with range and the need to control the target selection,” he said, reiterating Berlin’s argument that the high-tech weapons could only be deployed with targeting assistance from German personnel.
“For individual weapon systems, we have a certain assessment of whether it is right to make them available or not,” Scholz said.
“The Taurus issue is a challenge,” Zelenskyy responded, adding: “We’ve heard a lot about Germany’s position and we are working to have more common ground [on the matter].”
Asked what difference he thought Taurus missiles could make on the battlefield, he said: “We could hit more military targets inside the Russian Federation.”
As for Zelenskyy’s long-term goal of an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, Scholz evaded questions.
“NATO has already passed resolutions on this topic,” he said, referring to recent alliance summits in Vilnius, Lithuania and Washington, D.C.
On Friday, Zelenskyy had signalled that an offer of NATO membership for territory still under Kyiv’s control could end “the hot stage of the war.”
