The German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habek said on Sunday that he would send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine if elected chancellor, DPA reports.
Habek was asked in an interview with German public broadcaster ARD whether he would oppose the current chancellor's decision not to send long-range missiles to Ukraine.
He said that in his capacity as Minister of the Economy, he had repeatedly made decisions on arms supplies. "It was part of my job and it was one of the hardest decisions I had to make."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly asked his allies for long-range weapons so that the Ukrainian military can attack Russian logistics centers and military bases far behind the front lines and on Russian territory.
Scholz justified his decision not to deliver Taurus cruise missiles with several reasons, including that they would allow Ukraine to also hit targets in the Russian capital, Moscow.
Robert Habeck was officially nominated as a candidate for chancellor by the party of the "Greens".
Germany will hold snap elections on February 23 after Scholz's ideologically diverse tripartite coalition of his German Social Democratic Party (GSDP), the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) collapsed last week after months of infighting.
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Scholz said his conversation with Vladimir Putin on Friday gave no indication of a change in the Russian president's thinking about the war in Ukraine.
However, he defended his much-criticized decision to call the Kremlin.
Referring to the imminent return of Donald Trump as US president, he noted that it would not be good for Washington to maintain regular contact with Putin and for no European leader to do so.
"The conversation was very detailed, but it contributed to the recognition that almost nothing has changed in the views of the Russian president on the war - and this is not good news,", Scholz summarized.
Meanwhile, the US has announced that Ukraine will be authorized to strike Russia with US weapons.