German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Chided for Revealing UK Troops Operating in Ukraine: 'Irresponsible'

German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has stirred a firestorm after he revealed that the British troops have been operating in Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. Scholz was arguing why Berlin would not supply Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles. This would need the German military boots on the ground to assist the Ukrainian forces, said Scholz, giving examples of the military of the UK and France inside the war-torn country.

“German soldiers can at no point and in no place be linked with the targets that this system reaches,” said Scholz, objecting to Ukrainian forces targeting the Russian infrastructure and clarifying that Berlin is not ready like the UK and France.

The DPA news agency quoted Scholz as saying that the Taurus “is a very long-range weapon, and what was done on the part of the British and French in terms of target-control and target-control assistance can’t be done in Germany.” The German Chancellor added, that it would be “not very responsible” on the part of Berlin to risk becoming a “party to the war,” or a direct confrontation.

A ‘flagrant abuse of intelligence’

Scholz’s remarks attacked backlash from the UK. Tobias Ellwood, the former chairman of the Commons defence committee slammed his revealing of the confidential and sensitive information as “a flagrant abuse of intelligence deliberately designed to distract from Germany’s reluctance to arm Ukraine with its own long-range missile system,” according to British newspaper The Telegraph. In response to German chancellor’s claims, western military bloc NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that there are “no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine.” 

Meanwhile, a senior European defense official was quoted saying that “everyone knows there are Western special forces in Ukraine – they’ve just not acknowledged it officially.” Following a summit in Paris on the Ukraine war, French President Emmanuel Macron similarly said that “in terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything,” as he hinted at the deployment of Western troops on Ukraine’s eastern flank to fight the Russian soldiers.