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Germany should deliver long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, and NATO allies must increase deliveries to help Ukrainians defend themselves against Russian missiles and drones, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Euronews in an interview.
Rasmussen, who was NATO chief from 2010 to 2014 after serving as the prime minister of Denmark, suggested that NATO allies need to increase pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring him to the negotiating table, although at the moment Putin has no motive to do so.
“President Putin has no incentive whatsoever to engage constructively in a peace process, as long as he believes that he can win on the battlefield,” Rasmussen told Euronews.
“So to change his calculus, we have to help the Ukrainians much more, and we have to put more pressure,” he pointed out.
The German-made Taurus is a highly advanced long-range cruise missile with a 500 km range, or twice that of the cruise missiles Kyiv currently has in its arsenal, and could enable Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory.
Although German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in April that he would be open to delivering the Taurus to Ukraine, this has yet to materialise.
The previous coalition government led by Olaf Scholz held back on delivering the missile to Ukraine over concerns that strikes on Russian soil could escalate the war.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Moscow’s war of attrition has seen heavy use of artillery, drones and missiles targeting Ukrainian cities and other civilian targets rather than rapid territorial advances.
Since US President Donald Trump took office for his second non-consecutive term in January, he publicly said that he wants to end the war in Ukraine and started direct talks with Putin.
Rasmussen noted a change of tack from Washington since January.
“The US might be more unpredictable. I didn’t appreciate the red carpet reception of President Putin in Alaska when he and President Trump met,” he said.
However, Rasmussen welcomed the recent US announcement of sanctions against two major Russian oil companies as a positive step.
“It seems that gradually President Trump has lost patience with Putin. And I think the Americans gradually realised that if they have to force Putin into a peace negotiation, they will have to put much more pressure on Russia,” the ex-NATO chief said.
In terms of supporting Ukraine with weapons, Trump also remains hesitant: he told reporters on Sunday that the US will not sell Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv.
The US-made Tomahawk is another long-range missile with even greater range than the Taurus, which Ukrainian officials have defined as a “game changer”.
Video editor • Amandine Hess
Additional sources • Footage by Frederic Garcon