Germany and Ukraine’s other allies have lifted restrictions on Kiev’s long-range missile launches into Russia for the first time, the German chancellor said Monday, after days of massive Russian air attacks on the capital and other regions, CNN reports.
“This marks a significant change in approach by key allies, who have so far largely resisted Ukraine’s requests to use Western-supplied weapons on Russian territory.
There are no longer any restrictions on the range of weapons supplies to Ukraine,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said at the European Forum in Berlin on Monday. “Not from the British, not from the French, not from us. Not from the Americans. In other words, Ukraine can now also defend itself, for example by attacking military positions in Russia.”
The German chancellor did not say whether Germany would supply Ukraine with its powerful long-range Taurus missiles, something he supported when Scholz was still in power, Reuters reports.
The US lifted its restrictions last November, when former President Joe Biden allowed Ukraine to use US-supplied Army Tactical Long-Range Missile Systems (ATACMS) in Russia. But that, too, was a controversial decision that took months of debate. For the first two years of the war, the US refused to even supply Ukraine with missile defense systems, only delivering missiles for the first time in April 2024.
Some US officials are worried about escalating the war, which is now in its fourth year, while others are concerned about the Pentagon’s dwindling weapons stockpile.
Russia has said that any lifting of restrictions on long-range weapons would mean war with NATO.