I’ll Issue Putin an Ultimatum—End the War In 24 Hours or I’ll Supply Ukraine With Taurus Missiles, Says German Chancellor Candidate Merz
End the War in 24 Hours or Face Taurus Missile Supply to Ukraine, German Candidate Merz Tells Putin
Merz says a lot of things when the day is long, especially when elections are getting closer.
Thank you for the perspective.
Don't trust him. Merz is and always has been a bullshitter. He is angling for votes.
Just for the record, and context: That wasn't misogyny, it's not calling any woman anything (though using a word vulgarly referring to female genitalia), it's the established insult for Merz. Really doesn't translate well, not so much word-wise but connotation and implication-wise. Cf. the American vs. English vs. Australian usage of the word, doesn't translate at all and that's within the same language.
It's an imputed high-school nickname calling him, in my reading, an immature braggart. You know, 12yold brags about their extensive sexual experience, gets called "pussy hunter" in return to make fun of him. There's also the additional linguistic quibble that the word, to the amusement of the rest of the republic, simply means "face" in Bavarian and can be used there more or less in the sense of "gob", as in "shut your gob". He indeed has a big one.
It’ll be interesting to see how much the Allies game kicks up in the next 2 months now that the Orange Potato and Elon Musk were elected President.
I hope it’s effective.
The new fragrance, Orange Potato Musk. Mmmmmm
“I am also willing to promise anything to get elected”
You have my vote
Noise from a political candidate who will do something if and when he gets elected.
To quote the Spartans, "If".
Glad to see someone in Europe is growing some balls about standing up to Russia though
sorry to break it to you, but Merz is a populist. He will tell you everything to get voted.
And, frankly, he is a real dickhead. The little Trump of Germany.
The Spartans got annihilated so maybe not a great group to quote.
Is there any hint of a reason why Putin would ever be scared of Taurus missiles?
from a glance, they look very equivalent to the british storm shadows Ukraine already gets.
Not that Germany shouldn't supply, it just seems that this ultimatum is a purely political idea about the upcoming german elections.
Merz ist a Joke and he will most certainly not pull through if the Trump Administration interferes. Just another US Puppet, which in Turn is a Russian puppet... so yeah, just a stunt.
Also, what would even be the end of the war? By Putin logic complete and unconditional surrender by Ukraine would also be the end of the war.
Merz's threat is not "fuck off behind 1991 borders within 24 hours". Complete smoke and mirrors shitshow.
if something like this works (I am guessing only if many EU countries follow suit) then maybe us Americans can suffer 4 years of Trump in exchange for Ukrainian freedom.
As an american, I'll suffer the bullshit that the right does, if it means Ukraine gets to still exist. Give me some of their pain. I wish I could take that for them.
Oh I'm sure the thought of two dozen cruise missiles will straighten Putin out ASAP.
For starters, this would not be a new or unprecedented capability for the Ukrainians.
If Germany had several hundred to part with immediately, and the capacity to regularly replenish those stocks, that would make a significant difference on the battlefield, but I doubt it would make Putin sue for peace.
But of course, Germany does not have those kind of stockpiles or manufacturing capacity to maintain that.
Still, it would be nice to see more European politicians picking up the banner of supplying Ukraine in the face of likely diminished, or eliminated, American transfers.
Oh, believe me...we have that manufacturing capabilities. I live near where parts of Taurus are made... It's just that there's no "demand" and the bundeswehr doesn't have enough money to just order them to stockpile.
Capability and capacity are two very different things.
Yes, I understand the manufacturing capability exists, but it's capacity is limited i.e. existing facilities could not maintain a strategically significant production volume relative to Ukraine's needs, much less to deter Putin.
Taurus would be used more or less like Storm Shadow against high value strategic targets. The big difference is that Germany would have to default to allow its use on targets inside Russia, since activly being part of the targeting might very well be unconstitutional. So what could be expected are a bunch of Russian jets, ammunition stockpiles and maybe the Kerch Bridge being blown up. Ukrainian drones are not stealthy, so they are much easier to intercept or to warn against. Hence something like Taurus can make a difference.
So it is usefull, but it is not going to change the war fundamentally.
The Taurus KEPD-350 is a German-Swedish air-launched cruise missile, manufactured by Taurus Systems ... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_KEPD_350
Wow, I thought I was on NCD for a second.
Wow. The same "we'll easily end this war" bullshit that Trump is spewing. That didn't take long.
When this moron takes over (and he will), it's gonna get real bad.
"End the war or I'll arm the shit out of Ukraine" is different from "end the war please daddy I'll let you have half of Ukraine."
Sounds like this guy is a piece of shit though so who knows.
Halt dein Maul, Merz!
Not for much longer unfortunately. He will likely be elected the next chancellor when early elections happen sometime in the next months. It's also not unlikely that he will willingly form a coalition with the far-right extremist AfD that love to suck on Putin's tit and have supported the idea of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.
He's a disgusting piece of shit and this is just him using Ukraine to fish for votes.
what a muppet.
Taurus is a bunker buster https://youtu.be/y1JBM8fjd2Q
It's optimised for use against HDBT (hard and deeply burried targets) and high-value targets.
We are in WW3.
Finally some leadership. Biden has been slow walking aid this entire war, to Russia's benefit.
Let's see how big on words he is once he's out of opposition. Either way his leadership comes at the cost of him being a 90s neo libertarian with his own private plane. Other than that he is conservative through and through.
So (I) expect no big investments into health care, education, green technology or public transport but more in tax cuts for the wealthy and investments into "new and revolutionary technologies that will solve all our problems for sure bro" and individual transport infrastructure (which tbh would actually be needed since the German infrastructure is in a pretty bad state with a lot of highway bridges being at the end of their life cycle). And for all the problems we just blame migrants and strengthen right wing populist positions.
Soo yeah, not really happy with him, not really happy with anyone else atm.
Wait... there's a candidate named Fred Merz?
Like William Frawley's character from I Love Lucy?
Friedrich, shortened to Fritz.
whooboy, ol borscht britches better toe the line heh
That's nice but Ukraine does not have anything that can launch it...
F16? Mirages?
They'll figure it out.
Most likely launcher would be Gripen. So this kinda depends on Sweden more than on Germany. Though the signals i saw coming from Sweden are that they would be willing to give Ukraine what they need, including fighter jets, provided that NATO takes up the slack in air defence in Sweden.
No and no. There are talks to provide the Typhoon and the Gripen but nothing set yet. And there would still need to be several months of training.
@Sunshine he already backpaddled. He will not send them.
_
When you're so anti-american you actually give trump credit. Jeez.
[American Politicians and Billionaires] are Putin's bitch, would be more accurate.
That’s a pretty stupid take.
lol, okay.
Another “game changer” that totally won’t blow up in Ukraines face.
How’s the front doing?
Please.
Don't get your hopes up. Merz would sell his own mother if it raised his chances of getting elected. He's just listening to what's unpopular about the current government and claiming to do whatever is the exact opposite. A lot of it is just hot air from yet another populist.
I expect him to continue support for Ukraine though, so that's good at least.
Hell, I'm in support of Merz selling his own mother if it means more support for Ukraine.
... I may be in a dark place right now.
That's OK. If this. Message is popular it pushes his opponent in this direction too.
Honestly Merz does a lot of shit, but he is for pro Ukranian action, which is relativly unpopular. The issue is more, that he has never been in government and a lot of his other ideas are horrible.
Also the CDU is in parts very pro Russia. Kretschmer comes to mind.