Missile limits lifted

Merz says Kyiv can strike deeper into Russia

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Friedrich Merz said yesterday Germany would remove range restrictions on weapons delivered to Kyiv to allow it to defend itself better against Russia. The German chancellor said Britain, France and the US had lifted the limits to enable Ukraine to hit more military targets on Russian territory.

"There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons delivered to Ukraine - neither by the British, nor by the French, nor by us, nor by the Americans," he said, following Russia's largest drone attack of the war to date.

"This means that Ukraine can now defend itself, for example, by attacking military positions in Russia... with very few exceptions, it didn't do that until recently. It can now do that."

In response, the Kremlin described the decision as "dangerous", saying it would be detrimental to reaching any sort of peace agreement.

"If these decisions have indeed been made, they are completely at odds with our aspirations for a political settlement," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Merz, who has been in power for just under three weeks, would not be drawn on whether Germany was preparing to send some of its long-range Taurus missiles to Kyiv.

In opposition he had supported giving the missiles to Ukraine, which his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, had refused to do.

Since entering office, Merz has taken a more cautious approach, saying Germany was in danger of giving too much away to Moscow if it talked openly about its plans.

He argued that Vladimir Putin, a fluent German speaker, should not be able to find out what Berlin's intentions were simply by watching the German TV news. Merz said last week he preferred "strategic ambiguity".

There is however speculation that he may be on the verge of making a public statement committing to the delivery of longer-range weaponry.