U.S. presses Germany to transfer Taurus missiles to Ukraine while weighing Tomahawk option.

The Trump administration is pressing Germany to authorize Taurus missile deliveries to Ukraine, while U.S. officials are also considering Tomahawk transfers to reinforce Ukraine’s air defense and deep-strike options.

As reported by the Kyiv Post on October 14, 2025, Washington has raised diplomatic pressure on Berlin to approve the transfer of Taurus missiles to Ukraine, which coincides with Volodymyr Zelensky’s planned visit to the White House. This also aligns with broader U.S. efforts under President Donald Trump to strengthen Kyiv’s long-range strike capabilities before winter. According to the Kyiv Post and allied officials familiar with the talks, the Trump administration is also considering supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles as a parallel measure to encourage German action on Taurus deliveries.
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For now, German officials continue to explore alternative cooperation mechanisms that would increase Kyiv’s strike or defensive capacity without an immediate transfer of Taurus missiles from existing Bundeswehr stocks. (Picture source: MBDA)

The threat ties a possible U.S. decision on Tomahawk to allied coordination on long-range strike and places Berlin at the center of that diplomatic effort, with public signals including a statement by President Donald Trump that he could send Tomahawks if the war is not settled, and with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz indicating planned talks with Washington about joint efforts on Ukraine. Zelensky’s delegation to Washington is described as including the prime minister and senior defense and security officials, and it is scheduled to include meetings with defense and energy companies to address near-term winter resilience needs alongside military requirements. U.S. officials frame the potential Tomahawk option as both a battlefield contribution and a lever to nudge hesitant partners toward deeper long-range support, while also tying the discussion to broader U.S. thinking about layered air and missile defense architectures sometimes described in policy dialogue as a Golden Dome concept.

Kyiv has argued since 2023 that degrading command and control nodes, ammunition depots, rail chokepoints, key bridges and refining or fuel infrastructure behind the front is critical to blunting Russia’s ability to mount high tempo air and missile campaigns, and that longer-range cruise missiles would provide the ability to hold such rear-area targets at risk from aircraft that can operate from allied or Ukrainian bases. The logic presented by Ukrainian officials and some allied planners links strike depth to reducing sortie rates, disrupting logistics and resupply, and raising costs for air campaign sustainment while also acknowledging that these effects depend on integration, stock management, and the ability to select targets that produce decisive operational effects rather than indiscriminate damage.

Germany’s internal debate over Taurus began publicly in 2023 and crystallized with multiple Bundestag votes in January and March 2024 that did not authorize transfer, reflecting parliamentary reluctance at that time and public opinion that, according to polling cited then, showed a majority opposed to supplying the missile. Chancellor Olaf Scholz argued during that period that delivery risked escalation and could create political and legal thresholds if the process implied German involvement in targeting decisions, a contention that shaped the early German posture and parliamentary outcomes. Countervailing views emerged from other European capitals and industry representatives who argued that Ukraine would operate Western long-range munitions under its own command and that Germany need not assume direct targeting roles, but those arguments failed to produce a Bundestag decision in early 2024. The impasse prompted allied efforts to identify indirect or compensatory routes to expand Ukraine’s capabilities without a direct stock transfer from German inventories.

The controversy intensified after a leaked senior officer call in February 2024 that discussed capability integration steps, target programming, and potential objectives, with the episode elevating scrutiny of operational details such as target data handling, mission planning, and whether certain employment functions could be executed without German personnel on the ground. The leak also triggered public debate about specific potential targets that had been referenced in internal conversations, including the Crimean Bridge, and it generated diplomatic friction as Russian authorities warned that Taurus employment would be treated as direct participation by supplying states. In parallel, an idea was floated by some partners for a United Kingdom exchange to replenish Storm Shadow stocks if London provided more missiles to Kyiv while Germany pursued other measures, but that swap concept did not become a settled arrangement, and Berlin continued to weigh domestic political limits, escalation risks, and industrial considerations such as future procurement and production planning.

German positions evolved in 2025 with public statements by Friedrich Merz that he was not imposing range limits on weapons supplied to Ukraine while simultaneously indicating there were no concrete plans to transfer Taurus from Bundeswehr stocks, and with Defense Minister Boris Pistorius reiterating that Germany was focusing on other support lines, including Patriot and IRIS-T air defense systems. Debates in Germany throughout 2025 also referenced stockpile management concerns and industrial timelines tied to planned orders and modernization efforts, including discussion of a Taurus Neo modernization concept for future German requirements. German political leaders and analysts continued to weigh the operational benefits of long-range strike against escalation risks and parliamentary sensitivities, and at the same time, allied capitals urged faster decisions to address Ukraine’s winter vulnerabilities.

The Taurus is a German-Swedish air-launched cruise missile built by Taurus Systems GmbH, a joint venture of MBDA Deutschland and Saab Bofors Dynamics, with an overall mass of roughly 1,400 kg, a length of roughly 5.1 m, and a wingspan of roughly 2.06 m, and with a quoted operational range that exceeds 500 km under favorable conditions. Its guidance suite combines inertial navigation, GPS, radar altimetry, terrain-referenced navigation, and image-based navigation for terminal phases, and it carries a 480 kg dual-stage Mephisto penetrator warhead intended to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets. The missile is compatible with platforms such as the Panavia Tornado IDS, Eurofighter Typhoon, JAS 39 Gripen, F/A-18A+, and F-15K, and it can be programmed for low altitude ingress, pop-up on terminal approach, dive profiles, and air burst or delayed detonation modes to achieve specific damage mechanisms against bridges, bunkers, hardened command nodes, and industrial targets. Operational employment requires aircraft integration, mission systems, and targeting data pipeline,s as well as trained crews and stock management to maintain sustainable firing rates, and inventory levels matter because historical German orders number in the hundreds, with a substantial portion described as operational in recent years.

The Taurus missile would increase Ukraine's ability to strike command centers, ammunition and fuel depots, rail hubs and chokepoints, bridges such as those spanning the Kerch Strait, selected refinery and fuel storage facilities, airbase infrastructure including runways and fuel storage, and rear area logistics nodes inside occupied Crimea and western regions of Russia that lie within the missile’s stated range. Some of those targets are already accessible under specific rules of engagement when partner aircraft or Ukrainian platforms possess sufficient range and basing, while others would require aircraft capable of penetrating or circumventing Russian air defenses to reach deeper rear-area sites and would depend on flight routing, tanker support, or forward basing options. Tactical effects would be achieved by tailoring fusing and flight profiles to destroy hardened structures or to produce progressive logistics disruption, but such effects are conditioned on accurate targeting, battle damage assessment, and sustainable stock management to avoid rapid depletion. When combined with reinforced air defenses, the operational aim described by Kyiv and allied planners is to reduce the volume and tempo of incoming strikes over time by degrading the logistics and command infrastructure that enable Russia’s high-intensity aerial campaign, thereby raising strategic costs and increasing the resilience of Ukrainian civilian energy networks during the winter period.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.