Within the Bundestag, the German federal legislature, there are disagreements among members of the ruling coalition parties – the "traffic light" alliance of Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), Bündnis 90/Greens and Freie Demokratische Partei; (FDP) on whether to send the much-vaunted Taurus KEPD 350 air-launched cruise missiles to Ukraine.

Chancellor Scholz and his party, the SPD, have thus far stuck to a hard no on this, in defiance of many of Germany's allies.

One SPD deputy, Nils Schmid, also a member of the Bundestag's foreign affairs committee, told ERR's Epp Ehand: "The chancellor wants to avoid that German soldiers take part in the war effort, that they have to operate the Taurus systems which are rather complicated, because they are very modern, and the second level or argument is about the escalation risks by Taurus missiles which could be sued by the Ukrainian government to attack targets inside Russia, and that is why the chancellor is very cautious about it."

One of the supposed sticking points on sending Taurus to Ukraine is that this would entail having to send German military personnel to aid in operating the system.

However, Green Party deputy and chair of the Bundestag's EU committee Anton Hofreiter said this needn't be the case.

"They have Taurus in South Korea, they have 260 Taurus, and as far as I know there is not one single German soldier who handles Taurus there in South Korea," he told AK.

"And then if you really fear that Ukraine cannot be trusted, which so far we have not any sign because they have always used all weapons in the way that we asked them to use them, but if you really fear this, you can technically set a geographical restriction," he went on.

Another fear is that Ukrainian forces would use Taurus or other weaponry to strike at targets within Russia itself, and not just within occupied Ukrainian territory.

Hofreiter added: "I would prefer to deliver the Taurus directly to Ukraine because, without [pauses] it's just that they are better than the Storm Shadows," adding that nonetheless, this was still a preferable option to Ukraine being left with no long-range missiles whatsoever.

Hofreiter was referring to an option proposed whereby cruise missiles would be grandfathered into Ukraine, albeit not Taurus – which would go to the UK – but Storm Shadow; ie. the UK would then send stocks of this system Ukraine-wards.

AK also spoke to some members of the public on the streets of Berlin, whose opinions spanned the spectrum.

One said "Weapons are for waging war and killing strangers...Sending weapons is not the solution," while another said that "the world would be a better place if Germany didn't do this, but when freedom needs to be protected, then this country shouldn't hold back either."

The original AK slot is here.

While Scholz has held out on Taurus, some allies have, The Economist reports, from a British perspective, concocted schemes such as the missile swap noted above. Mr. Scholz has not been enticed by even this proposed project, however.

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