Only Half of Approximately 600 Germany’s Taurus Missiles Ready for Use - Reports

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Only half of approximately 600 Germany’s Taurus missiles are ready for use, the Welt newspaper reported on Tuesday.

According to Welt, Germany has around 600 Taurus missiles, but the total number is classified. Only half of these missiles are ready for use after their technical modernization in 2018, while other missiles have expired certificates, the newspaper reported.

Earlier, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT and the Rossiya Segodnya media group (Sputnik's parent company) published a readout of a conversation among four German military officers discussing a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge with long-range Taurus missiles. Later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ruled out the possibility of supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine and said that the government was investigating the leaked conversation.

The potential delivery of German-made cruise missiles to Ukraine sparked a scandal in Berlin at the beginning of March, with aleaked confidential conversation between Bundeswehr commanders discussing the possible use the weapons against Russian infrastructure in Crimea prompted questions about who’s really in charge in Germany – the military, or a government which has said it has no plans to send the missiles Kiev’s way.

Foreign Minister and Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock added fuel to the fire on Sunday, saying she was open to the “option” tabled by her British counterpart David Cameron of sending Taurus missiles to the UK, so that London could deliver more of its Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine.

The Russian State Duma adopted an appeal to the Bundestag calling on it to investigate the participation of Bundeswehr soldiers in hostilities in Ukraine.

The reason was the publication of an audio recording of a conversation between German officers about possible attacks on the… pic.twitter.com/lrJIKv13Ky

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) March 12, 2024