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The German Chancellor refuses to deliver Taurus missiles with a range of 500 kilometers to Ukraine because he fears involving Germany in the war.
Radoslaw Sikorski, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs
Thierry Monasse/ Getty
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski hopes that the German debate on the delivery of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refuses to accept, will be changed.
“The United States delivered long-range missiles to Ukraine. The famous ATACMS missiles with a range of 300 kilometers. And I hope your chancellor understands that this is a response to the drastic Russian escalation,” Sikorski said in an interview with the daily Bild.
Scholz refuses to deliver Taurus missiles with a range of 500 kilometers to Ukraine because he fears involving Germany in the war, saying that German soldiers would have to program the missiles, which could reach Russian territory, and the chancellor does not want to lose control about the targets that could be hit.
The previous day, the social democratic politician stated, at the launch of his party’s campaign for the European elections, in Hamburg, that Germany gave more aid to Kiev than any other European country and that it will continue to support Ukraine, but in a “prudent” way.
The head of Polish diplomacy also stated that “German politicians seem to be satisfied with the fact that Russia will only be ready in four or five years” to invade other countries, because at that time “Germany will be ready”.
“But the point is that, before Russia reaches Germany, it has to reach other countries”, he stressed.
“We have a choice: either we have a defeated Russian army outside the borders of Ukraine or a victorious Russian army on the border with Poland. And what Putin would do then would be what Hitler did with Czechoslovakia, he would take the industry and the people of Ukraine. and mobilize them to move to other countries”, he warned.
“It’s better to stop Putin in Ukraine, 500-700 kilometers east of here,” he added.
On the other hand, the minister sees no signs of a nuclear threat from Putin.
“There are no physical signs that the nuclear warheads have been removed from the warehouse. We would know in advance if that happened,” he said. In any case, he added, Putin cannot decide on his own to use nuclear weapons.
“These are not weapons that he can activate at the push of a button. There is a normal chain of command from the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff to use them. He has to convince his generals to comply with that order. These generals They know that if they comply with this order, they will become war criminals,” he said.
“I also know what was published in the newspapers. The US told Russia, very emphatically, that it would use its conventional forces to destroy any Russian targets in the occupied territories of Ukraine if they exploded a nuclear bomb (…). I think that This is a strong deterrent,” he said.