Currently, there is a fierce debate raging in Germany about whether the country should supply long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, with the national children’s channel KIKA now wading into the debate in a clip that is being slammed by critics.
KIKA, which is run by public media giants ARD and ZDF, both funded by German taxpayers, ran a segment entitled “No TAURUS for Ukraine” featured on the children’s news program “Logo!”
The segment chides Chancellor Olaf Scholz for not sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine while using crude language in the 54-second clip.
In one scene, the Taurus missile is speaking, saying: “We need to give Olaf Scholz a real run for his money with cruise missiles… He refuses to extradite me to Ukraine.”
The Taurus addresses other missiles in the clip, including the Storm Shadow from Great Britain and the SCALP from France. When the Taurus complains that he is not being sent to Ukraine, the Leopard tank chimes in, saying it was the same story with him. Scholz notably denied Germany would send the tanks to Russia before later agreeing to, with the main battle tanks now routinely seen on the battlefield.
“Huh, screw you, the Ukrainians will get me,” says the SCALP to the Taurus, at which point the Taurus answers: “No wonder they want me. I’m clearly the better cruise missile!”
The SCALP answers: “Let me guess, you are not allowed to go to Ukraine because your chancellor is hesitating and hesitating again?”
The Storm Shadow also refers to the Taurus as an “ass missile,” as the missiles bicker throughout the video.
The bizarre piece of propaganda, which appears to target Scholz for his hesitancy to send long-range missiles to Ukraine, received sharp criticism from users on Youtube.
One user stated: “The editor responsible for this should be fired immediately.”
Another user said she used to work for Germany’s public media and was shocked by the video.
“Incomprehensible! I once wrote scripts for the children’s channel, for “Bernd, das Brot.” At that time, the editor deleted the word “dead” in my script, which rhymed wonderfully with “bread” but wasn’t intended to scare the children. Today, there are advertisements for weapons in the same network,” she wrote in a popular comment.
Another user wrote: “I can’t believe I’m forced to pay for these people to make cartoons about weapons of mass destruction, lol.”
All Germans are forced to pay for ZDF and ARD public media, which receives hundreds of millions in fees every year.
Logo! responded in the comments section of the video, writing:
“Thank you for your feedback. We understand that some of you have concerns about the depiction of weapons in our video and take your criticism seriously. We also discussed how the video could be played out within our editorial team. Un.logo! is a comedy format on TikTok that is aimed at teenagers and young people aged 13 and over. Here, topics are deliberately exaggerated using satirical means. Un.logo! stands out clearly from our Logo! content. We will take your comments into account in future discussions about topic setting.”
