German Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz would closely coordinate the delivery of Taurus missiles to Ukraine with the U.S. and European partners, he said in an interview with Bild on Dec. 9.
According to Merz, training the Ukrainian personnel for these missiles would take at least four months and would not be completed before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
"And that is why I advocate answering these questions together with the Americans. Not alone, not in Germany, but together with Europe and America," Merz told Bild during his visit to Kyiv.
Trump's return to the White House is causing concern among Kyiv's partners in Europe as the president-elect signaled a decrease in military support for Ukraine.
Merz, whose conservative CDU/CSU alliance is leading in the polls ahead of the February elections, arrived in Ukraine's capital for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky, promising a more decisive strategy on long-range strikes against Russia.
"We want your army to be capable of hitting military bases in Russia. Not the civilian population, not infrastructure, but the military targets from which your country is being attacked," Merz said.
Merz previously voiced support for providing Ukraine with the Taurus missiles, a step Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to take, fearing it would draw Germany into war.
Talking to Bild, Merz nevertheless said that the Swedish-German cruise missiles with a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles) would not be a "miraculous" game-changer in the war.
The politician also stressed he agrees with Scholz that Germany must not become a party at war, but he pointed out that neither the U.K. nor the U.S. became belligerents when lifting restrictions on the weapons they provided.
Ukraine fields U.S. ATACMS and the SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles from France and the U.K., with Washington and London only recently permitting strikes within Russian territory.
Olena Goncharova
(Updated: )
