3 days ago
Merz's missile plans could escalate tensions with Russia
Friedrich Merz of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) addresses a news conference in Berlin. File picture: Annegret Hilse/Reuters
Image: Annegret Hilse/Reuters
German-based anti-war civil society organisation, the Schiller Institute, has made an impassioned plea to the country's new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, to refrain from dragging Germany into a direct war with Russia.
Renowned peace campaigner and founder of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, made a call for sanity to prevail after Chancellor Merz announced that Germany would be financing Ukraine to the tune of more than $5 billion to produce long-range Taurus and other missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory.
The Taurus missiles destined for Kyiv would be produced in the German town of Schrobenhausen in the district of Schrobenhausen in Bavaria under the complete supervision of Merz's administration. He added that Germany could go to the extent of producing the long-range Taurus missiles by itself and dispatch them to Ukraine for their use.
The announcement, first made by Merz during the recent visit by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, has drawn sharp criticism inside Germany as well as Russia itself.
Veteran Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, responding to Merz's announcement, was utterly blunt, saying: 'Germany is sliding down the same inclined plane on which it has already moved down to its collapse a couple of times in the last century. I hope that responsible politicians in that country will draw the right conclusion and stop the madness.'
The move by Merz comes in the wake of a concerted effort by US President Donald Trump to broker a truce between Moscow and Kyiv. Only last week, both nations exchanged prisoners-of-war, 1 000 from either side, in a gesture viewed as the right move towards more productive direct talks between the two countries.
The US-led efforts toward a peace deal have been met with heightened war-mongering, especially from the UK and France, the protagonists behind the much-mooted Coalition of the Willing military mobilisation aimed at deploying on Ukrainian soil to deter Russia's possible future offensive against Kyiv.
Germany, under the new leadership of Merz, appears to be in sync with the UK and France in beating the drums of war against Russia.
Swift responses from Moscow have been aimed towards crystal clear warnings towards Germany, the country that caused WWII from 1939-1945, while led by the notorious Adolf Hitler, until the Soviet army defeated Hitler to end the war.
This week, a leading Russian military analyst also responded to Merz's plans to manufacture the Taurus long-range missiles for Ukraine by warning that the German manufacturing site, once identified, would be flattened 'with two Oreshnik missiles carrying 12 hypersonic blocks of non-nuclear warheads, so that Germany will no longer be able to build such cruise missiles in the next five to seven years. This will first be a non-nuclear strike.'
Schiller Institute's founder Zepp-LaRouche added by saying: 'I'm sure that the citizens of Schrobenhausen will not be very happy to hear that because if they are hit by Oreshnik missiles — which cannot be stopped — that would forebode great horror not only for Schronbenhausen, but subsequently probably for all of Germany and Europe.'
She further made an impassioned plea for international mobilisation to stop Chancellor Merz's administration from producing or sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine. This, added the head of the Schiller Institute, will help to ensure that Germany does not 'slide down the same inclined plane' which had led to WWII 80 years ago. The greatest danger about the German-led escalation of the war 'could, this time, bring us all to the brink of a nuclear WWIII', Zepp-LaRouche said.
Appeals by highly respected peace campaigners like Zepp-LaRouche deserve to be taken seriously and acted upon without delay. Their voices are voices of reason. They have lived long enough to recall Hitler causing a World War, during which tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people were killed.
It is truly disturbing that at a sensitive time during which President Trump is attempting to stop a war that would never have started had he been in office, as he keeps saying, a few in Europe show a determination to keep the war going.
They should never be allowed to succeed to a trigger an apocalypse for the rest of the human race, and humanity itself.
Sectarian geopolitical interests with scant regard for the right to life have brought us to the current brink. Yet not all is lost. Washington needs to continue to pressure Kiev to ignore war-mongering calls, and focus on efforts geared toward the attainment of a permanent peace and the reconstruction of Ukraine that would not be used by NATO as a door-step that poses an existential threat to Russia.
Had such concerns been addressed when Russia first raised them with NATO and the West, the Kremlin believes that there would never have been any reason to go on the offensive in Ukraine.
On June 2, the next round of direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow will likely take place in the Turkish capital, Ankara. Until the world learns to give peace a chance, ruin will become our collective certainty. Voices such as that of the Schiller Institute are thus vital in international public discourse.
The biggest hope one may have is that Trump and his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, could find a common middle ground on which they could bring in Ukraine, and the three could then reach an amicable resolution to a conflict the erstwhile Biden administration was too happy to shore up unconditionally.
The ascension to the international stage of players such as Chancellor Merz should concern all the peace-loving German people and the international community at large.
After the loss of so many lives, and destruction of infrastructure that continues unabated, the majority of the peace-loving leaders should rally behind all forms of endeavour to achieve peace and bring an end to the Ukraine war.
