President Donald Trump said the Tomahawks would be ‘a new step of aggression’ if they were provided to Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Oct. 12 that he may authorize sending long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine if Russia refuses to end the war there.
Trump told reporters that he had talked to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the weapons. He said the long-range missiles would be sold to NATO, which would then provide them to Ukraine.
“They’d like to have Tomahawks,“ Trump said while aboard Air Force One en route to Israel. ”We talked about that. And so we’ll see.”
When asked whether the United States would supply Ukraine with Tomahawks, Trump suggested that he may speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin before reaching a decision.
“I might talk to [Putin],“ he said. ”I might say, ‘Look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks.’ The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that.”
Tomahawk missiles have a range of about 1,000 miles, according to manufacturer Raytheon. If equipped with the U.S.-made weapons, Ukraine would be able to strike targets as far away as Moscow.
Trump said the long-range missiles would be “a new step of aggression” in the conflict if they were provided to Ukraine.
“I might tell [Russia] that if the war is not settled that we may very well do it,“ he said. ”We may not, but we may do it.”
Zelenskyy said on Oct. 12 that he had spoken with Trump for the second time in two days to discuss strengthening Ukraine’s “air defense, resilience, and long-range capabilities.” The two leaders also discussed the energy sector, according to Zelenskyy’s statement.
“President Trump is well informed about everything that is happening,” the Ukrainian leader said on X. “We agreed to continue our dialogue, and our teams are doing their preparations.”
Putin has warned that supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would trigger “a completely new, qualitatively new stage of escalation” in the conflict and damage Moscow’s relations with Washington.
The Russian leader said the weapons could pose a threat to Russia but that he believes that they “won’t change the balance of power on the battlefield at all.”
“Can Tomahawks harm us?“ Putin said on Oct. 2. ”They can, we’ll be shooting them down and improving our air defense systems.”
