Protection against Russian missile attacks for Germany and its neighboring countries.
(Photo: imago/Xinhua)
Berlin According to reports in the “Bild am Sonntag” newspaper, the federal government is examining the installation of an Israeli “Arrow 3” missile protection shield over the territory of the Federal Republic. This is intended to strengthen Germany’s defensive preparedness against possible rocket attacks from Russia.
The system is also known as “Iron Dome” and works with a missile radar system that could send data to the national command post in Uedem on the Lower Rhine.
Information about an approaching missile and its possible target could then be relayed to various locations around the country where anti-missile missiles would be stationed to launch an enemy missile.
Ready to use in three years
According to “Bild am Sonntag”, the system would be ready for use as early as 2025 and would be relatively inexpensive at around two billion euros. A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense did not want to confirm the report, according to the dpa news agency. She pointed out that the economic plan for the 100 billion special fund is currently still being coordinated. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Bundeswehr Inspector General Eberhard Zorn discussed on Wednesday how the 100 billion euro special fund should be used to strengthen the troops.
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The main rapporteur on the budget committee for the defense budget, Andreas Schwarz (SPD), told the “Bild am Sonntag” that he considered the “Arrow 3” system to be a good solution for better protection against the military threat from Russia.
Defense system could possibly only protect metropolises.
(Photo: IMAGO/ITAR-TASS)
Military experts doubt that the system would be able to protect the entire federal territory from Russian missile attacks. An Iron Dome like the one in Israel can only protect larger cities, such as Hamburg, Munich or Berlin, said former NATO General Hans-Lothar Domröse to the editorial network Germany.
The “Iron Dome” was installed in Israel in 2010 and, according to the manufacturer, has a hit rate of around 90 percent. According to various media reports, however, the rate of defense against rockets from the Gaza Strip was significantly lower.
Germany’s neighboring countries could also use the protective shield if they in turn set up anti-missile missiles on their own territory. The radar devices are considered powerful enough that they could also cover Romania, the Baltic States or Poland.
Blinking: No strategy for power transition in Russia
US President Joe Biden also expressed concern for the security of Eastern European NATO members during his visit to Poland. In his speech in the Polish capital of Warsaw, however, Biden caused confusion when he said the sentence about Russian President Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot stay in power”. Internationally, his statement was understood as a call for regime change in Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov then told the Russian news agency Tass: “Personal insults always close the window of opportunity for our bilateral relations under the current government.” The White House felt compelled to backtrack after the President’s statements. A spokesman for the US President’s Office made it clear that what was meant was that Putin should not exercise any power over neighboring countries or the region.
The US was not planning a change of power in Russia or anywhere else.
(Photo: dpa)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said in Jerusalem that the US had repeatedly asserted that it had no strategy for a change of power in Russia or anywhere else. That is always a matter for the people in the country concerned. Referring to Putin, Biden wanted to express that the Russian President should not have the power to wage war or aggression against Ukraine or other countries.
More Handelsblatt articles on the Ukraine war
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities are trying to evacuate people from the heavily contested cities of Mariupol and Luhansk Oblast. Mariupol Mayor Vadym Bojchenko described the actions of the Russian armed forces there as genocide. The Russian army had acted ruthlessly against all residents of the city, which had been badly damaged in the meantime.
The defenders put up “heroic resistance” in the extremely heavy fighting. The Ukrainian flag will continue to wave over the city, it will remain a Ukrainian city. “And our soldiers are doing everything to ensure that this remains the case in the future,” said Bojchenko. However, some parts of the city are already under Russian control. “The city is surrounded, the ring is getting tighter and tighter.”
New evacuation attempts
Refugees from Mariupol are to be picked up by a bus convoy from the nearby city of Berdyansk, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced. 15 buses were to take people to the central Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia.
A second escape corridor was designated for Sunday in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk. On Saturday, 5,200 people were able to save themselves from particularly hard-fought areas via ten defined routes, as reported by the Unian agency. According to unverifiable Russian information, more than 90 percent of the Luhansk region is under the control of Moscow-backed separatists.
Since the beginning of the war, the port city has represented the horror of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(Photo: IMAGO/Xinhua)
Most recently, the Mariupol authorities had given the number of civilian deaths as 2,187. “I can say that the number is now significantly higher,” Boychenko said, without giving any further details. More than half of the original 540,000 inhabitants have already been evacuated.
On Saturday, 4,331 more people were able to leave Mariupol via humanitarian corridors. A total of 5,208 people from Ukraine were brought to safety in this way.
Steinmeier also speaks of “harder days” in Germany
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also prepared people in Germany for harder times as a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The severe sanctions inevitably led to uncertainties and losses for us.
Germany also has to prepare for tougher times.
(Photo: dpa)
“We are also facing harder days in Germany,” he said on Sunday in a video message for a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic at Bellevue Palace. “We will have to be ready to wear them if our solidarity is not to be just lip service, if it is to be taken seriously.”
Those days would change the world and change us too – “perhaps faster than we thought possible,” said Steinmeier. “And the whole truth is: there is still a lot of hardship ahead of us.” Despite all ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the war, the following applies: “Our solidarity and our support, our steadfastness, and our willingness to make restrictions will be required for a long time to come .”
With agency material.
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