- cross-posted to:
- Ukraine@europe.pub
- cross-posted to:
- Ukraine@europe.pub
Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States have lifted restrictions on the types of weapons that can be supplied to Ukraine, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced on May 26. (video)
The move clears the way for the EU to send its most powerful and long-range missiles to Kyiv that can strike targets deep inside Russian territory, something the allies have been reluctant to do for fears of escalating tensions with the Kremlin and possibly provoking a direct clash between Russia and Nato countries in Europe.
"There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine, not from the British, not from the French, not from us, not from the Americans either. This means that Ukraine can now also defend itself by attacking military positions in Russia, for example,” Merz said during an interview on German television. “It couldn’t do that until some time ago, and with very few exceptions, it didn’t do that until some time ago. Now it can. In jargon, we call this long-range fire, i.e., equipping Ukraine with weapons that attack military targets in the rear.”
The decision comes the day after Russia launched a devastating missile and drone barrage on Ukraine over the weekend of May 23-25 that largely targeted civilian targets in Kyiv and many other urban centres in Ukraine – amongst the largest attacks since the war started over three years ago.
…
The decision also clears the way for Germany to deliver its powerful Taurus cruise missiles that Kyiv had been asking for, but Berlin had so far been reluctant to supply. Merz didn’t mention the Taurus missiles by name during his interview, but has suggested that unlike former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he was not against supplying Kyiv with the missile, which can hit Russian targets deep in the rear or could destroy the Kerch bridge connecting Russia to the Crimean peninsula.
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They should have done this a year ago, though now’s the second best time.
I hope this announcement means that the Taurus missiles are already in Ukrainian hands, and ideally one of them is rapidly approaching a high-value target that has hitherto been considered safe.
They should have done it at the start of the conflict
Or admitted Ukraine to NATO the first time Putler started making expansionist noises towards it.
The concept was very clearly to slowly push Putin red line, let him walk it back a little, rince and repeat. Because like it or not, Putin has nuclear weapons and that’s enough of a threat to not take the risk of skipping steps up the escalation ladder.
Fuck 'em up
This is pretty much always the result of widespread bombardment of civilian cities. It seems like it would result in people suing for peace, and if you have a certain type of psychopathic version of how to interact, it seems for that reason like it would be a good idea. But it just doesn’t work. Even if you kill a huge fraction of people in the country and reduce a bunch of their cities to rubble, what they want to do is fuck you up even worse in retaliation, not suddenly become submissive and hope you will stop.
Ukraine’s not even retaliating in kind, just hitting military and strategic targets inside Russia. Anyway. Fuck 'em up.
It would be pleasant to hear that the multi billion dollar mansion where putin sometimes resides cops a decent amount of “rain”. With him in it at the time would be the icing on the cake.
It’s full of mold. Putin won’t be there.
It would still be a good humiliation
Estonian military expert: Russia’s actions show they don’t really believe they can defeat Ukraine
Russia is trying to convince the world that they are winning their war on Ukraine, yet reality demonstrates the opposite, independent Riigikogu MP and Brigadier General (ret.) Alar Laneman said.
Time for Tomahawks as well, right?
Am I the only one surprised to see the USians supporting this? In spite of Trump. Just great!
If anyone can share details on this… It would be very welcome
giving what was lost in 1994 to ukraine too?,
Slava Ukraine! Strike hard, strike deep, and let 'em feel the burn.
Let’s see if this forces the Russians to negotiate in good faith. Either way, now the ukrainians can fight better
Good faith and Russia don’t ever belong in the same sentence. They only understand superior armaments.
Merz didn’t mention the Taurus missiles by name during his interview, but has suggested that unlike former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he was not against supplying Kyiv with the missile, which can hit Russian targets deep in the rear or could destroy the Kerch bridge connecting Russia to the Crimean peninsula.
Scholz may be out but his party SPD are still in the coalition and his goons already ruled out sending Taurus. And without Taurus, the entire statement is kinda pointless, as Germany hasn’t sent anything else that could reach far inside Russia, and France and UK never opposed using their already delivered Scalp/Storm Shadow to hit targets inside Russia.
Scholz wasn’t willing to make the call for delivering Taurus missiles. Merz does seem willing.
Yeah but he’s in a coalition with the SPD and if they really want to, which it seems they do, they can block Taurus or break the coalition. https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/internationale-politik/id_100720802/wird-die-taurus-lieferung-zum-streitfall-miersch-spd-gegen-union-.html
The SPD fraction isn’t unified when it comes to this and the misgivings are about “Not becoming a party to the war” not Taurus as such. As delivering weapons does not make anyone a party to anything all they have to do is to stop falling for Putin’s psyop.
Get rekt putler
Here comes a senseless world war. Here’s hoping Russia backs down fast.
It’s funny how, according to online commenters, every single thing the west did in support of Ukraine over the last few years would cause a new world war. We should be at WW42 by now!
I’m of service age, labour (uk government) and the Tories tickled around the idea of national service and patriotism has been ramping up in the last year.
Oh do shut up. National service was never suggested by either party, Rishi suggested it but that was solely because he’s a twit, and he was never going to be allowed to implement it.
The military flat out told him that it was a stupid idea and they wouldn’t support it. That’s why he turned it into community service instead because the military part of it was never going to fly.
If this does turn into a war it’s going to be fought with missiles and very few troops so forcing the military to train up a bunch of reluctant civilians is a waste of resources. Anyone with a modicum of military thinking would be able to identify that.
calm down.
Great rebuttal very detailed. Explain why I’m wrong
We’re not arguing or at least I’m not. So calm down don’t be rude.
I’m not being rude I was however pointing out that you were claiming something that was factually incorrect. The conservatives and labour have never suggested national service as a serious policy. So if you would like to provide some evidence for your claim that would be great.
A lot of that was down to not really having a good grasp of how powerful the Russian military was. Now that we’ve learnt that a lot of it was dysfunctional to the point of effectively not existing the equation has somewhat changed, and of course Russia have now had a battering.
The world war is already here, it’s just not all-out yet. This policy change isn’t going to be the instigator of it.
Regardless of Trump, the US is not the preeminent military or economic power in the world anymore. Further, the global climate is changing. As such, a global reshuffling of resources and alliances is inevitable.
But that one looks like something i’ve done in KSP.
It’d be really nice if the US could decide which side they were on. Obviously we don’t really want them to be on the side of Russia but this flip-flopping is confusing.
I personally think that the U.S. is at moment a subsidiary of Donald Trump & Silicon Valley Enterprise LLC. Could be wrong, of course, that’s just an opinion formed out of the news in recent months.
