“A Russian Iskander-M missile can hit Berlin within five minutes,” writes Angelika Hellemann in Germany’s most popular newspaper, Bild am Sonntag, this Sunday, noting: “Germany is NOT (sic.) protected from this deadly danger.”
Hellemann cites a military source who warned that in an emergency, Germany is in the target range of all the important Russian missile systems, and has no protection against it.
“This could change soon,” she continues, revealing that Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his government are considering setting up a missile protection shield over the entire federal territory. As in Israel, an Iron Dome would then be stretched across the country.
According to Hellemann, when General Eberhard Zorn, commander of the Bundeswehr, the German Armed Forces, met with Scholz last week to advise how the Bundeswehr should be modernized with the newly budgeted €100 billion package, their discussion also touched on a missile protection shield, specifically: the Israeli Arrow 3 system.
“The system works like this,” Hellemann explains, “The missile radar systems of the Super Greene Pine type are set up at three locations in Germany. Your surveillance data will be reported to the national command post in Uedem (Lower Rhine).”
The EL/M-2080 Green Pine is an Israeli ground-based missile-defense radar produced by Elta, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, to operate mainly with the Arrow theater missile defense system of Israel, which is jointly funded and produced with the United States.
Green Pine was exported to India, and its advanced version, the Green Pine Block-B, was delivered to South Korea at a cost of $83 million apiece, as well as to Azerbaijan. The Israeli Air Defense Command within the Israeli Air Force operates both Green Pine radars and Green Pine Block-B radars as an integral part of the Arrow system.
“There, Air Force soldiers monitor the situation around the clock. If the radar detects a missile attack, an Arrow 3 is launched from one of the launchers distributed throughout the country. She intercepts the attacker missile in space and destroys it there,” Hellemann explains.
Then she gets to the bottom line: “Cost: €2 billion. The system would be operational as early as 2025. Advantage: The radar devices are so powerful that the protective shield could also cover Poland, Romania, or the Baltic States. Our neighboring countries would only have to buy Arrow 3 missiles, Germany provides the radar image.”
Andreas Schwarz, the chief reporter on the budget committee for the defense budget, told Bild am Sonntag: “We need to protect ourselves better against the threat from Russia. For this, we need a Germany-wide anti-missile shield. The Israeli Arrow 3 system is a good solution. We can also span the Iron Dome over our neighboring countries. In doing so, we would play a key role in Europe’s security.”
