2024-09-04 15:11:10
President Olaf Scholz said that the surface-to-air system is part of the production of German and European defenses launched after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Russia has been advancing a lot for many years, especially in the field of missiles and naval missiles,” Scholz said at the inauguration ceremony at a base in Todendorf near the northern city of Hamburg.
Putin had broken armistice agreements and “weapons were transferred to Kaliningrad”, a Russian exclave located 530 kilometers (330 miles) from Berlin, he added.
“It would be remiss not to respond to this appropriately,” the president said. “Failure to do so will endanger peace. I will not allow this.”
Scholz, who was joined by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, said the program was part of the European Sky Shield Initiative, which also includes long-range defenses against ballistic missiles.
The German army has ordered six of the Iris-T SLM systems at a total cost of 950 million euros ($1 million) from the manufacturer Diehl Defense, to be delivered by May 2027.
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Iris-T success in Ukraine
Germany, the second largest donor of military aid to Ukraine after the United States, has already supplied four Iris-T SLM systems to Ukraine and contracted another eight.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov is visiting Germany on Wednesday, a day after a Russian missile attack killed at least 51 people in the Ukrainian city of Poltava, one of the deadliest bombings of the war.
The Iris-T systems deployed to Ukraine feature truck-mounted launchers that fire missiles to intercept air threats at a range of up to 40 kilometers (25 miles).
Scholz said that “in Ukraine, Iris-T has shot down more than 250 rockets, drones and surface-to-air missiles to date and saved countless lives”.
The German leader said that Europe, without defense systems, will also need more precision missiles of its own “so that it does not have a dangerous gap with Russia in this strategic point”.
In July, Washington and Berlin announced that “incidental deployments” of long-range US missiles, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, to Germany would begin in 2026.
Scholz stressed that “our only concern is to stop potential attackers. Every attack on us must mean danger for the attacker. Our concern is to secure peace here and prevent war, and nothing else.”
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