Is the West holding back Ukraine's rightful self-defense?

The start of the new year in Ukraine has been marked by a massive wave of aerial attacks from Russia. In response, some in Germany are renewing the call for Berlin to supply Kyiv with Taurus cruise missiles.

On Friday, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the defense expert from the Free Democrats (FDP), one of the coalition partners in the three-way German government, told the daily Rheinische Post that "Germany must finally deliver it in order to disrupt Russian supply lines" — "it" being a reference to the medium-range Taurus missile. Zimmermann also chairs the parliamentary defense committee,

However, just two days earlier, a government spokesperson reiterated Berlin's position, saying that Chancellor Olaf Scholz is opposed to supplying Kyiv with Taurus.

Scholz believes that delivery of the weapons would increase the risk of an escalation in the war and of Germany being drawn in. Taurus missiles have a range of up to 500 kilometers (311 miles), meaning that they could, in theory, be used against targets on Russian territory.

However, Kyiv says it is willing to promise not to use the missile for this purpose.

Is Berlin waiting for Washington?

Since the spring of 2023, Ukraine has been obtaining its longest-range missiles — capable of flying some 250 kilometers — from the United Kingdom and France. The English rockets are called "Storm Shadow," the French "Scalp EG."

With these weapons, Ukraine is able to attack Russian forces across the front line in the occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea. All weapons supplied by the West to Ukraine are, however, subject to the condition that they must not be used to attack internationally recognized Russian territory. It seems that Berlin does not consider assurances from Kyiv that it will refrain from such attacks to be sufficient.

"It seems to me that Chancellor Scholz will make Taurus available to Ukraine only when the US supplies it with a similar weapon," Nico Lange, a defense expert and senior fellow at the Munich Security Conference, told DW. This might, for instance, be ballistic Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) with a range of around 300 kilometers. Last fall, the US supplied Ukraine with ATACMS missiles that had cluster warheads and a shorter range of around 160 kilometers.

The procedure was more or less the same a year ago, when the issue was whether or not to supply Ukraine with modern battle tanks. Then, too, Germany only agreed once Washington had done so. Lange says he hopes Berlin and Washington will decide "soon" in favor of supplying medium-range weapons.

One of the features of the Taurus missiles is that they are considered to be ideal for destroying bunkers and bridges. The Crimean Bridge would be one such target, and one with great strategic significance. However, up to now, Ukrainian forces have not used Western weapons to attack the bridge between Russia and Crimea, even though a large part of the structure is situated on what is considered Ukrainian territory under international law.

Kyiv has kept its word

Ever since the start of the Russian invasion, Kyiv has always adhered to the West's stipulation that Western weapons must not be used to attack internationally recognized Russian territory. There have been drone attacks on Moscow, which Kyiv has not officially claimed, and attacks by the Ukrainian navy on Russian ships in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, but for these operations Ukraine seems to have used weapons of its own design.

The same is true of the attacks in recent days by Ukrainian forces on targets in the Russian border city of Belgorod.

There have only been a couple of incidents in which combat units on the Ukrainian side may have deployed Western missiles on Russian territory. On May 13, 2023, both Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that a group of Russian fighter aircraft, consisting of about four planes and helicopters, had been shot down in Russia's Bryansk region near the border with Ukraine. There was speculation that, on this occasion, Ukrainian forces had deployed the American Patriot air defense system.

At around the same time, shortly before the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, fighters from the Ukraine-based "Freedom of Russia Legion" and "Russian Volunteer Corps" infiltrated the Russian region of Belgorod. These are paramilitary groups that claim to be Russian citizens opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

During their operation in Belgorod they deployed Western weapons and Western light armored vehicles, which drew criticism from Ukraine's partners. There are not known to have been any other such incidents.

The West doesn't want to 'provoke' Russia

The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has said repeatedly that, if Ukraine is to win the war, it is important that it be able to attack the Russian army on its territory as well. "It is possible and necessary to kill [the enemy] on his territory in a war," Zaluzhnyi said in an interview in the Washington Post in July 2023. "If our partners are afraid to use their weapons, we will kill with our own."

The Kyiv-based military expert Serhiy Hrabskyi told DW that, in any case, Ukraine currently has such a "critically low number of Western missiles" that it makes no sense to use them "for attacks that won't make any difference on the battlefield."

"The weapons that have been delivered are more effective against tactical targets, most of which are located in occupied Ukrainian territory," he explained. From a military point of view, he said, it would only make sense to consider using them against targets across the border, such as in the region of Belgorod, if Ukraine had hundreds of Western rockets at its disposal, rather than just a few dozen.

Hrabskyi says he understands the position taken by Germany and the West: Ukraine's partners are currently not willing to repel a Russian attack on NATO countries, and they do not want to provoke Russia, a nuclear power.

UN Charter affords Ukraine the right to self-defense

In the view of Markus Reisner, a historian who is also a colonel in the General Staff of the Austrian Armed Forces, "the fear of many Western countries is often based on pure self-interest". They want their "old lives" back, he says, and to be able to do "good business" with Russia again.

But according to Reisner, those days are over — and the West's attitude means that it is indirectly denying Ukraine the right to defend its internationally recognized territory. "Countries are not supplying everything available to them in their military 'toolboxes,'" Reisner told DW. "But it's hard to drive in nails if you don't have a hammer."

Reisner believes Ukraine has been conducting special operations on Russian territory for some time. Drone attacks, he says, are more suited to showing the Russian people that "the war is not raging somewhere far away."

The military expert concedes that it is hard to avoid civilian casualties in urban environments. But compared to what Russia is doing, he says, the actions of Ukraine in Russia have had negligible consequences. "In the space of just a few days, the Russians have carried out more than 500 rocket and drone attacks," Reisner points out. "How has the West responded? A few paltry comments and declarations of intent."

This article has been translated from German.