BERLIN – Germany will not supply Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in an interview with Bild published Saturday, stating that Ukraine no longer needs them.
“I do not think Ukraine still needs Taurus missiles,” Pistorius told the newspaper when asked directly whether he supports the transfer. The statement closes the discussion, at least for now, on a weapons category that has generated sustained political pressure inside Germany and diplomatic friction with Russia for more than two years.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz reached an effectively identical conclusion in March. Speaking on March 25, Merz said Ukraine had developed its own domestically-produced long-range weapon systems capable of substituting for the German-made cruise missiles. Pistorius’s Saturday interview reinforces that position, shifting the rationale from a political objection into a capability argument: Ukraine no longer has a gap that Taurus would fill. The Kyiv Independent reported that Pistorius also urged European weapons makers to step up production to offset the gap left by the decision.
Russia has made its position on the matter consistently clear. Vladimir Putin said in June that the missiles’ use would damage Russian-German relations, though he added it would not alter the course of the Russian operation. Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechayev had previously said Moscow would closely monitor any transfer decision and the training of Ukrainian personnel in the missiles’ use. Russia considers arms supplies to Ukraine an obstacle to any settlement and a form of direct NATO involvement in the conflict.
Pistorius reaffirmed as recently as February that the German government ruled out supplying Taurus. Saturday’s Bild interview extends that position into July, framing it not as a political constraint but as a practical assessment that the gap the missiles were meant to fill no longer exists. Broader peace efforts continue in parallel: US envoys Witkoff and Kushner remain ready to visit Moscow to continue Ukraine mediation, though whether that diplomacy progresses depends on developments far beyond Berlin’s weapon decisions.
