UK pushes Germany to deliver long-range missiles to Kyiv Despite Luftwaffe leak

Britain has urged a reluctant Berlin to supply long-range Taurus missiles to Kyiv.

The move goes despite an embarrassing leak to Russian television of a top-secret call involving German air force officers who said UK troops were “on the ground” in Ukraine, according to the Guardian.

The Kremlin sought to exploit what it saw as a propaganda coup and pressure the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who in turn insisted on Monday he would not donate missiles that could strike at the strategic Kerch bridge linking Russia and occupied Crimea.

Released on Friday by the editor of the Kremlin-controlled news channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, the audio recording – confirmed as authentic by Germany – captures Luftwaffe officers discussing what they said was Britain’s military presence in Ukraine, helping the country select Russian targets.

Rather than publicly criticise Germany over the leak, Britain said it was for Berlin to investigate. Instead the UK toughened up its own lobbying on the Taurus missiles, which have a 300-mile range, twice that of Anglo-French Storm Shadow/Scalp weapons system already given to Kyiv.

“The UK was the first country to provide long-range precision strike missiles to Ukraine, and we would encourage our allies to do the same,” a Downing Street spokesperson said. “The presence of a small number of British troops in Ukraine” had been acknowledged by No 10 a week earlier, they added.

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, however, said the leaked conversations “once again highlight the direct involvement of the collective west in the conflict in Ukraine”, a day after former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev said: “Germany is preparing for war with Russia.”

Scholz insisted on Monday he would not change his mind about Taurus, as he met a group of voters at a vocational school in Baden-Württemberg and cited concerns Ukraine could, in theory, use the weapons to strike at the heart of Russia. “I am the chancellor and my word counts,” he said.

Control over the Taurus missiles, theoretically able to hit targets in Moscow, would only be guaranteed if German soldiers were directly involved in firing them, and “that is completely out of the question”, Scholz added.