- 5/28/2025
In a bold and risky move, German opposition leader Friedrich Merz suggests support for U.S. Taurus missile strikes deep into Russian territory—potentially dragging Berlin further into direct confrontation. The Duran analyzes the political gamble, its implications for NATO, and how Russia may respond to such escalation. Is this brinkmanship or strategic miscalculation? 🎙️⚠️
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00:00All right, Alexander, let's talk about the announcement from German Chancellor Merz that
00:08long-range missiles have now been approved by Germany, the UK, France, and he said even the US,
00:20or at least he already said the restrictions on long-range missile strikes into Russian territory
00:25has been lifted. But this is not really new news from Merz. He's playing games, and this was a
00:34walkback, I believe, by the Vice Chancellor, and maybe even Merz is now walking this back.
00:40Anyway, get into this announcement from Merz, and why do you think Merz is making these statements?
00:49What's the reason for him making these statements? He surely knows that what he announced is nothing
00:54new. So, why is he making these announcements? I mean, what he's referencing is the decision
01:03that the Biden administration took last year and which became effective in November to authorize
01:11deep strikes into Russia. That's clearly what he's talking about. And in the typically incompetent
01:20way that he does, he took that announcement to make it appear as if the United States had
01:28suddenly turned around and endorsed the supply of Taurus missiles by Germany to Ukraine, which I
01:35think was not strictly true. Now, I get to say this, I think the Taurus missiles are already
01:40in Ukraine. I think as soon as Merz became Chancellor, he probably transferred those
01:46Taurus missiles to Ukraine. There are probably still problems getting those Taurus missiles
01:51operated because, firstly, you need the Germans themselves there to operate them, and I suspect
01:58that they require American proprietary software and information, and the United States might be
02:04reluctant to provide that. And I suspect... The US has said as much, actually, Alexander,
02:10that they have US components and they need US approval. They've said this statement already.
02:15Exactly. So I think what Merz might be trying to do with this announcement is put pressure on
02:22Donald Trump to authorize the use of these missiles against targets in Russia. But again, he's done it
02:32in a way that is manipulative and, I get to say, dishonest. And that might not go down at all well
02:44with Donald Trump and with some of the people in Washington. My own personal view is that,
02:49sooner or later, we are going to see these Taurus missiles used in some way. I think there is now
02:56huge pressure across the system to try to get Taurus missiles used, to try to get sanctions
03:04of some kind imposed by the United States and the Europeans against Russia. I understand that
03:13having now just enacted the 17th sanctions package, Ursula is now working on the 18th,
03:20and she's already talking about a 19th sanctions package beyond the 17th and 18th that she's now
03:28preparing. So the reason for all of this, this huge cluster of activity, these comments from
03:37Matz and people like this, is that two things have happened over the last couple of weeks.
03:46The first is that they've now finally understood that all of those attempts to bully the Russians
03:52into a ceasefire have so far not worked, and that the Russians are not interested in a ceasefire,
03:58and they're alarmed about the fact that Donald Trump himself seems to understand
04:02that there isn't going to be a ceasefire. They need the ceasefire because they know
04:10that Ukraine is losing the war on the battlefronts. The other thing I think they've
04:16gradually come to realise is that there's going to be a big Russian offensive in a few weeks' time,
04:22and without the ceasefire, there is a real possibility that Ukraine might lose.
04:27So Matz is making these comments, and it is, in my opinion, partly a reflection of panic.
04:35Ursula is talking about 18th and 19th sanctions packages. Again, it's a reflection of panic.
04:42The Wall Street Journal is talking about Trump looking to entitle sanctions on Russia
04:49over the course of this week, this coming week. All of this tells us that there is a campaign
04:56to try to get Trump once again to reverse course on Russia, to try to tighten things up on Russia,
05:03because they realise that they're losing the war. It's as simple as this.
05:07Yeah, agreed. The audio leak, remember that, from two years ago with the
05:14German military officials talking about the Taurus and how the Ukrainians were
05:23thinking of using long-range missiles like the Taurus to take out the Kerch Bridge?
05:29Remember that audio leak?
05:30Absolutely.
05:30And the German officials said that this would need German military personnel on the ground
05:41in Ukraine. There would be no way that this would be done by a Ukraine military. This would
05:48absolutely have to be done by German military in Ukraine pushing the button to fire those missiles
05:57into Russia. The United States, they have come out and said that the Taurus missiles
06:06need US approval to go to Ukraine because you're dealing with US components and US parts.
06:13And Russian President Vladimir Putin has also said, he's on the record saying that long-range
06:21missile strikes into Russia are being done or have to be done with the targeting and the
06:30coordination of the United States and of NATO. There's no way that attacks into Russian territory
06:37can be done by Ukraine alone. Last year after Biden announced the restrictions of lifting the
06:48restrictions on long-range missile strikes into Russia, Russia changed its nuclear doctrine as
06:55well. And they put in their doctrine that a non-nuclear country launching long-range missiles
07:04into Russia can be seen as a nuclear attack if it is done jointly with another nuclear country.
07:12France, the UK are nuclear powers. Germany may not be, but NATO, the United States, France, the UK,
07:20if those missiles are fired into Russia, Russia can now say that this is a joint attack
07:25with a nuclear power involved. The Taurus missiles have a range, I believe, of up to
07:301,000 miles, 500 to 1,000 miles. Correct me if I'm wrong there, but they can definitely
07:38hit deep inside of Russia and they can absolutely hit Moscow.
07:45What are your thoughts if a Taurus missile is launched into Russia? I agree with you that
07:52the missiles are probably in Ukraine. They just need to get through all of the red tape,
07:58the bureaucracy. They need to get the okay from the United States. They need to get the
08:02targeting from the US and NATO. They have to do a lot of things, Germany. They have to get the
08:06German personnel. The German personnel are probably already there, but they have to get the German
08:09personnel in place. Everything needs to be done in order to finally press the button and launch
08:14the missiles into Russian territory. What does Russia do? Well, I think the first thing to say
08:19is that we've had actually already deep missile strikes into Russia. I mean, they began in
08:27November. They were launched at various targets along in Western Russia. They proved completely
08:34ineffective. So, I mean, there's no fundamental reason I could see.
08:40Can you comment on a deeper? Yeah, even deeper. I mean, by now-
08:44Say heading towards Moscow. We have drones. We have drones every day trying to hit Moscow.
08:49They've been trying to hit targets in Moscow with drones and they've been completely unsuccessful
08:56in doing this. I mean, we've had vast numbers of drones. I suspect, by the way, again,
09:01going back to the question of panic, this is another factor because undoubtedly the Western
09:08powers, Western governments, European governments, the US government under Biden have provided Ukraine
09:14with massive assistance to help it carry out this drone offensive. They will have provided
09:19technology. They've provided input. They have probably-
09:22Well, they had a command center in Germany.
09:24Command center, all of this. The New York Times.
09:26Exactly. And it hasn't worked because the Russian air defenses have successfully
09:33handled the problem with the drones. And I think this is, I mean, much more than the effect of the
09:39Russian strikes on Kiev, which undoubtedly are having an effect. I think another factor for the
09:46alarm and dismay and panic is because it's suddenly coming to be understood that these
09:52Ukrainian drone attacks, in which a huge amount was invested. In fact, I can remember back in
09:58the summer, people were saying, the Ukrainians are going to be able to do all of this with all
10:02of these drones and that's going to be a major game changer. Again, I think there's alarm and
10:07dismay about the fact that this isn't working. So again, we get this pattern of demanding further
10:16escalation. Now, by now, I think the Russian air defenses around Moscow have probably become
10:22very powerful. The Russians probably expect these missiles to come. They were able to shoot down
10:30the great majority of attack missiles that were launched against Western Russia. They were able
10:35to shoot down the great majority of storm shadows. And apparently the storm shadows
10:41bear some resemblance in the way they operate to the tourist missiles. And on top of all of that,
10:47I understand that though the stockpile of tourist missiles runs to about 800, only around 200 at the
10:55moment are usable. So, you know, they could probably refurbish some of the others, but
11:01it's going to be very difficult to maintain, sustain a long-term offensive on Russia.
11:06So I'm going to tell you what I think. I think that this is a classic example of a person who's
11:12losing on the roulette tables and just goes on raising his bids, putting more and more money
11:20on particular numbers, hoping that next time you spin the roulette wheel, you're going to find that
11:27the outcome is going to be different. I think the Russian air defenses will cope with this,
11:32but at the same time, the risk is that you could end up with bankruptcy.
11:37You might actually hit something important in Russia. You might hit a location where there are
11:44Russians in large numbers, and this will result in many people being killed and dying. And that
11:51could create a major political crisis in Russia, but it will not be a crisis to end the war.
11:58It will be a demand for deeper and stronger retaliation. So it shows you the extent to
12:06which Western leaders have become both desperate and are now gambling and taking ever wilder and
12:15more reckless risks, despite warnings that they already have that the Russians will regard these
12:22kinds of attacks upon themselves not as attacks by Ukraine, but as attacks by Germany if, as I
12:31said, tourist missiles get through and reach Moscow, which is the reason why Olaf Scholz
12:36didn't want to do it, by the way. Al-Khalili Well, that's my question to you. What if
12:42one of the tourist missiles manages to get through? The storm shadows did do considerable
12:51damage in the beginning, and then Russia got on top of it. But my understanding of the tourist
12:57missile, once again, correct me if I'm wrong about this, obviously the range has a lot more range,
13:03so it can travel deeper into Russia. I mean, Mertz even said that the purpose of the tourist
13:10missiles is to hit the hinterland. He even said it, to hit Russia's hinterland. That was his
13:14statement. So you have a longer range, and you have a nuclear-capable warhead. Is that correct?
13:22Vladimir Putin Oh, yeah, absolutely.
13:23Al-Khalili Okay. So what does that mean for
13:26Russia's nuclear doctrine? I mean, one of the arguments against, for example, the Tomahawk,
13:32which Ukraine requested at a time they were pressing the US to hand over the Tomahawks,
13:40is that even Biden had the sense, the Biden administration had the sense to say no,
13:45because ATACMs is one thing, but a Tomahawk going into the Russian Federation, even if it wasn't
13:54nuclear, the Tomahawk, the Russians would have to assume that this could be a nuclear strike,
13:59and they would retaliate. So even the Biden administration said right away,
14:04no, we're not going to hand over Tomahawks. So I mean, if a tourist missile is launched into Russia,
14:13does Russia assume that this could be nuclear? It's 99%, it's not. But you have a doctrine in place,
14:24and you just can't allow missiles with 1000-mile range to be launched into the Russian Federation.
14:33You made the point, what if this tourist does hit a target, knowing that Germany,
14:39German military personnel were actually there pressing the button and launching this missile?
14:46And furthermore, can you answer the question, what does this mean for the US-Russia relations?
14:51Because these missiles need US targeting, and they needed US approval. So just answer all of
15:01these things, maybe in a little more detail, because I think that the ATACMs, the storm
15:07showers and scalps were one type of missile. I think this is the tourist missile, while Russia
15:13would get on top of it, and I agree, I've read about 150 tourists would actually be delivered
15:19to Ukraine, and it would not change one bit the trajectory of the war. But the tourist does seem
15:28to be a bit different, just seems to be very different and seems to be an escalatory, meant
15:36to be an escalatory weapon. It is a massively escalatory step. I mean, you start deploying and
15:46using from the territory of Ukraine, a missile that can reach Moscow. Then of course, you are
15:55taking this a whole massive step further, and beyond what we've seen before. Now, if I can take
16:01your questions backwards, I mean, one of the primary purposes of doing this, and trying to
16:07get the Americans to agree to this, is precisely in order to destroy the whole process of rapprochement
16:16between the United States and Russia, the whole process of normalization of relations between the
16:22United States and Russia. The Russians have said as much today, by the way. They've said that this
16:29is the purpose of this, and that is why they're actually calling for an urgent meeting of the UN
16:35Security Council, in order to discuss it for that very reason. Because as I said, this is intended
16:42to jeopardize all of the moves that Donald Trump initiated as soon as he became president,
16:51to restart a dialogue with Russia. Because the Russians will say, yes, the Germans are heavily
16:56involved, but the Americans are obviously also involved, and the Americans are involved in
17:00attacking Moscow, and that is obviously the purpose of this. And therefore, it is very difficult. In
17:09fact, it might arguably be impossible for Russia to continue on this process of normalizing
17:16relations with the United States, which is exactly what the Europeans at this time want to achieve.
17:23Now, the Russians have said that if these sort of attacks do take place, they reserve the right
17:30to themselves to conduct retaliatory attacks on the European countries that are involved
17:38in these kind of operations. They've never taken that away, and it seems that from about
17:46mid-summer, missiles like the Oreshnik will begin to become available in quantities and could be
17:53used, and they absolutely do have the range to strike targets in Germany and do things of that
18:00kind. So, possibly an attack on the Rheinmetall facilities, just to say. I don't want to go into
18:09this in detail, but those possibilities are there, and there isn't a potential
18:18Western counter to these. The West doesn't have the ability, the force, the means to defend
18:28against missiles like the Oreshnik. Now, I think that Putin himself and the people around him
18:36will probably not want to go that far. They will probably say to themselves,
18:40look, we managed to cope with every other missile that the West has launched against us. We can
18:46counter the Taurus missile as well. It has a longer range. It has different capabilities.
18:54Germany itself does not have nuclear weapons. Of course, other countries in NATO, France, Britain,
19:01the United States do, but it would take a time for these nuclear weapons, these warheads,
19:08to be designed to operate with a Taurus missile. So, it takes us roughly six weeks to get on top
19:19and to understand how these missiles work, and we will be able to get on top of the Taurus.
19:25We mustn't be frightened or intimidated by it. We're winning the war, and we've got a bigger
19:31offensive coming. If we conduct this offensive successfully and well, 150 missiles isn't going
19:37to change the trajectory of the war. So, let's stick with that. Up to now, Putin has been able
19:46to win these arguments in Moscow, but this is a terrifying gamble. Nobody should be under any
19:54illusions about this. A terrifying gamble of a kind that would have been unthinkable during the
20:01Cold War. The point may come when the Russians say, or people in Russia say to Putin,
20:12look, this has gone far enough. We must start retaliating harder against the Europeans,
20:21especially the Europeans, because every message we're giving is simply not getting through.
20:28Yeah, that was going to be my follow-up question to you, is what happens when that first missile,
20:34if that first missile is fired into Russian territory, and the Russians do get on top of it.
20:41Yeah.
20:41They absolutely will get on top of it. We know this, that they will get on top of it.
20:45But what does it mean for Putin and his administration? What will people say? What
20:52will they think? What will the hardliners say? What will they tell Putin? We dealt with the
20:58attack, we dealt with the scalp, we dealt with the storm shadow, but this is too far.
21:04We need to do something. Is that what they're going to say? I mean, he's been very restrained.
21:10Everyone knows this. Everyone knows that Putin has fought a very restrained,
21:15a special military operation. He has fought a very restrained conflict.
21:23What happens? Does this finally push the Putin administration to reclassify what's happening
21:30in Ukraine?
21:31Well, they might very well do. I mean, it's something else, of course, and this is another
21:35thing to say, which is that one of the reasons why Russia launched the special military operation
21:41in the first place is to prevent Western missiles from being deployed in Ukraine,
21:48Western missiles with nuclear warheads that might potentially reach Moscow. So, Mauts is about
21:56perhaps to provide the Russians with proof that the West really does have plans to base
22:06nuclear capable missiles in Ukraine with the range to reach Moscow. So, at that point,
22:13and this might indeed be what the Russians will actually do, and it might explain a very,
22:19very extraordinary map that Dmitry Medvedev has published, which shows the whole of Ukraine
22:25as being a demilitarized zone, basically essentially controlled by Russia.
22:30Perhaps it might cause the Russians to say, look, it's now absolutely clear what West's
22:35intentions are. They are going to, at some point, install missiles in Ukraine. We must therefore
22:43press forward and upgrade the special military operation into a war. Remember Putin used the
22:51word war for the first time. By the way, I checked, it is the first time that he has used
22:58the word war. This was in the comments that he made on the 11th of May. So, upgrading-
23:07The late night comments-
23:08The late night two o'clock statement, the one which he was reading from notes.
23:13So, this is the point where we have to upgrade it to a war and aim not just for
23:21the achievement of the objectives of the special military operation, but all-out victory in
23:28Ukraine. Maybe that is a more realistic Russian response than launching strikes into Germany
23:38itself, which would be, well, I don't even want to speculate what that might result in.
23:44Do you think that that might happen?
23:48If one missile is fired into the Russian Federation, is that effectively the end of
23:55US-Russia rapprochement?
23:58I think it would be very difficult to keep the momentum going, to be honest. And I think that
24:04that's something that Donald Trump and his officials need to understand. I think that
24:11any attempt first to negotiate an improvement in relations between the United States and Russia,
24:20to try to distance Russia from China in even the most minimal ways, I mean, all of that is
24:28out of the window at that point.
24:29Just to end the video, I think the best way to summarize what's happened with this announcement
24:39from Mertz is that he's bluffing in order to derail US-Russia negotiations, normalization.
24:54The danger is that his rhetoric, his bluff with lifting the restrictions on long-range missiles
25:05may actually turn out to lift the restrictions on long-range missiles,
25:11firing a long-range missile Taurus into the Russian Federation and causing
25:16all of this chaos. I mean, is that pretty much what's happening here?
25:20He's trying. First of all, I've come to the view that in politics, at least, Friedrich Mertz is
25:27not a clever man. I think that he's absolutely somebody who goes along with mainstream opinion.
25:35He reads all these endless commentaries that appear in the media. And by the way,
25:39the German media is on this is absolutely, I mean, it's off the rails in terms of Ukraine.
25:47They're getting more and more panicky and alarmed about the direction of the Ukraine war.
25:51They're getting extremely panicky and alarmed about the rapprochement with the United States.
25:57And so, Mertz is trying to play a game, a game of gambling and bluff and all of that,
26:06in which he's far over his head. I mean, he just doesn't know what he's really doing,
26:12and which he has no ultimate control over. If he starts talking about lifting long-range
26:20restrictions on missile strikes against Russia, as night follows day, there will be demands that
26:28those missile strikes actually do start to take place. And when we get into that kind of situation,
26:38the crisis will move to an entirely different level, and one which will not play out well for
26:46Europe or for Germany or for him personally at all. All right, we will end the video there.
26:54Is there anything else you want to add to this? Well, I mean, I said that Mertz is not a
26:58particularly clever man. Is there anybody in Europe who is? Any of the leaders in Europe or
27:04anybody? Orban, Fizzo.
27:05Well, Orban, Fizzo, but all the major European states.
27:08There you go.
27:09I mean, Starmer, Macron, Mertz. I mean, they're all in this together. And it's not that they don't
27:15want to find an off-ramp. It's that they burn every off-ramp that they're given. They try and
27:24set them alight. It's as if they don't want to retreat. They want to go on escalating to the
27:31point of complete disaster.
27:33Well, the issue is that the UK, France, and Germany, especially France, it seems,
27:43but also Germany, and then you've got all of them, all three of them,
27:48the leadership, they want a conflict with Russia.
27:51Yes, I know. They seek to ache for it. If they want war with Russia, if they actually want war
27:56with the world's most powerful nuclear country, then I mean, they're going about it in exactly
28:01the right way. They're trying to provoke a war with Russia, drawing in the United States.
28:08They want to draw in the United States.
28:10I mean, they want World War III. Now, it seems astonishing to say this,
28:14but that seems to be the way that they're behaving. Of course, many of the people in
28:18their countries don't. In Germany, we see that Mertz's support is sinking, the IFJ is rising.
28:25We see the same in France. We see, to some extent now, the same in Britain.
28:30But that doesn't seem to deter them. They seem to be absolutely hell-bent on starting an all-out
28:36conflict with Russia, regardless of the risks and of the dangers involved. It is bizarre that
28:44they're doing it in the way and to the extent that they are. I suspect that it's some basic,
28:52fundamental reason. They still believe that the power of the United States is so great
28:58that if there is a war, they will win.
29:02Just a final quick question. If you had to tell the Trump administration one thing about
29:07all the statements from Mertz, what would it be with regards to the tourists,
29:11the lifting of the long-range missiles? What would you tell the Trump administration?
29:14Tell Mertz to back off? What do you tell Trump to tell them?
29:20In order to avoid this escalation.
29:22I would tell the Trump administration to make a public statement that the United States opposes
29:29deep strikes against Russia. That's what I would tell them to do. Of course, there are problems
29:36in that there are many people in the United States who probably back strikes against Russia.
29:44I mean, there is that problem. But I think in this kind of situation, the stakes of this,
29:50the dangers here are so great that I think that that political risk needs to be taken. I think,
29:58again, most Americans would probably support the administration on this. But I think the
30:02political risk needs to be taken because the other risks are so much greater. We'll see what they do.
30:10All right. theduran.locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey,
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