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Germany's refusal to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine tied to operational complexity

Colossal amounts of data requiring special technical systems are needed to use them effectively

BERLIN, March 15. /TASS/. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s refusal to supply Kiev with long-range Taurus cruise missiles may stem from the fact that using them is more complicated than previously thought, the t-online news portal reported.

According to the news portal, Bundeswehr Inspector General Carsten Breuer delivered a 20-minute report on the use of Taurus missiles at a meeting of the parliamentary committee on defense. According to sources familiar with the situation, some of the lawmakers were taken aback after Breuer’s report, as it left them speechless.

The general evidently told the lawmakers that the use of these missiles, with all their advantages, has proved to be more difficult than expected. Thus, colossal amounts of data requiring special technical systems are needed to use them effectively. But there is a limited number of these kinds of technical systems.

Apart from that, if such systems are also transferred to Ukraine along with the missiles, they will no longer be available to the Bundeswehr. Neither MBDA, which manufactures the Taurus, nor the German defense ministry provided any comment on these reports. The question is how many of these systems are available and how much time it would take to replace them. "If we provide such a capability, it will no longer exist for us," a source stressed.

On Thursday, the majority of Bundestag lawmakers voted down another resolution initiated by the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union bloc, demanding that Germany supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly rejected the idea of sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine. According to him, the effective use of these missiles requires the involvement of German military personnel, and this is precisely the line he does not want to cross. The bloc, in turn, accused the chancellor of "speaking untruths" and "playing on the fears of the German people.".

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