As Germany’s next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, prepares to step up support for Ukraine, the Kremlin is already trying to contain him with intimidation tactics. Merz’s response to Moscow’s threats will say much about his ability to lead Europe as the continent grapples with the complex new geopolitical realities of an expansionist Russia and an isolationist United States.
When Merz takes office in the coming weeks, his first major foreign policy decision will be whether to supply Ukraine with Taurus long-range missiles. Current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has consistently refused to do so, but Merz has signaled that he is willing to give the green light to the delivery. This would potentially allow Ukraine to carry out precision strikes against targets deep inside Russia.
The Kremlin is clearly anxious to prevent this from happening. Speaking in Moscow on April 17, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that any decision to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine would have serious consequences for Berlin and would be seen by Russia as direct German involvement in the war.
It is no surprise that Russia is rattling its sabres again. After all, this approach has served the Kremlin well throughout the full-scale war in Ukraine. From the first days of the Russian invasion, Putin has sought to exploit Western fears of escalation, threatening retaliation if Kyiv’s partners dared to cross arbitrary red lines drawn by Moscow that limit the scope of international support for Ukraine.
Russia’s threats have proven surprisingly effective. They have fueled a long debate in Western capitals over every aspect of military aid to Ukraine, and have made many of Kyiv’s partners reluctant to provide the kinds of weapons that could lead to a decisive Ukrainian victory. Indeed, as the Russian military struggled to advance on the battlefield, Putin’s ability to bully the West was perhaps his most important achievement of the entire war.
This success is all the more remarkable given how many times Putin’s bluff has been called. He launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, issuing thinly veiled threats that any Western attempts to intervene would be met with a nuclear response. When Western leaders ignored this and began arming Kyiv, Putin did nothing.
In September 2022, as he prepared to illegally annex four partially occupied regions of Ukraine, Putin famously declared his readiness to use nuclear weapons to defend his Ukrainian gains. “I’m not bluffing,” he declared. When Ukraine ignored his bluster and began liberating the strategic southern city of Kherson days later, Putin did not reach for his nuclear button. Instead, he ordered his defeated army to retreat quietly across the Dnieper River.
The Kremlin’s many chilling threats about the sanctity of Russian-occupied Crimea have proven equally empty. Since 2022, Moscow has sought to position the occupied Ukrainian peninsula as outside the current war. That has not stopped Ukraine from sinking or damaging about a third of Russia’s entire Black Sea Fleet, which has traditionally been based in Crimea. Putin responded to this highly personal humiliation in typically muted fashion, withdrawing his remaining warships to the safety of Russia.
Remarkably, Putin didn’t even react when Ukraine crossed the reddest of all red lines and invaded Russia in August 2024. Rather than declare World War III or try to rally his countrymen against a foreign invader, Putin actively sought to downplay Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s recent warnings about the potential delivery of German missiles to Ukraine are eerily similar to the empty threats Putin made last September, when the US was weighing allowing Ukraine to launch long-range strikes into Russia using American weapons. At the time, Putin said that any lifting of restrictions would mean that Russia was “at war” with NATO. However, when the US then duly granted Ukraine permission to begin attacking Russian targets, there was no discernible change in Putin’s position.
Russia’s saber-rattling over the Taurus missiles represents a crucial early test for Germany’s next leader. As chancellor, Merz will inherit a major war on Europe’s eastern border that is now in its fourth year and has the potential to spread further into the heart of the continent. He is also keenly aware that Europeans can no longer rely on the United States for military support, as they have for generations.
Germany is the obvious candidate to lead Europe’s rearmament, but Merz must first demonstrate that he has the political will to match his country’s undoubted industrial capabilities. US President Joe Biden has consistently sought to avoid escalation with Russia, while his successor Donald Trump appears more interested in building bridges with Vladimir Putin than in containing the Kremlin. If Merz wants to lead Western resistance to Putin’s imperial agenda, he could start by rejecting Russia’s threats and delivering Taurus missiles to Ukraine.
Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council's UkraineAlert service.
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