BERLIN, April 17. /TASS/. Deliveries of Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev will not change the situation on the front, but classical artillery shells are capable of doing so, Armin Papperger, CEO of Germany’s defense corporation Rheinmetall, said in an interview with the Handelsblatt newspaper.
"These (Taurus deliveries - TASS) will not change anything in the war, Taurus missiles will not allow to turn the situation around. Besides, Ukraine already has cruise missiles with a similar range," he said. "Taurus is a good missile, no doubt, but Germany has only a few hundred of them. Many of them can't be used at all," the Rheinmetall CEO said.
"We get hung up on things that don't significantly change the course [of the conflict]. Drones can't turn the tide either, because they can be intercepted quickly," Papperger pointed out. In his opinion, the only reason they are effective today is that there is supposedly no effective anti-drone defense.
"What can turn the situation around are classic artillery shells," the Rheinmetall CEO emphasized.
On April 13, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz, who is expected to lead Germany's new government in May, said that the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev is possible, provided that the transfer of these weapons is coordinated with partners in the European Union. He argued that the Ukrainian military was in a defensive mode, but that it should be able to strike at the supply routes of the Russian Armed Forces. In particular, he mentioned the Kerch Bridge in this context.
Kiev has long asked Berlin for Taurus missiles. They are considered analogous to the British Storm Shadow missiles that have already been delivered to Ukraine, but the range of the German-Swedish missiles is longer. As Russian President Vladimir Putin recalled at the Collective Security Treaty Organization summit on November 28, Moscow has repeatedly warned that the use of the West's long-range weapons on Russian territory would mean NATO's direct involvement in the conflict.