Donald Trump has issued a stark warning to Vladimir Putin, saying the US could send destructive Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine if Russia does not end the war soon. The American president has spoken of his disappointment at not being able to stop the fighting in Eastern Europe, despite thinking the conflict would be one of the first he could resolve.
Trump met with Putin in Alaska for face-to-face talks in August, but despite warm words and a long meeting between the American and Russian teams, the war between Moscow and Kyiv has continued. And in recent week,s the conflict has intensified, with the Kremlin launching some of the biggest missile and drone attacks since the invasion began in February 2022.
Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on his way to Israel, Trump said: “I might say ‘Look: if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks’.
The US Commander-in-Chief added: “Do they (Russia) want to have Tomahawks going in that direction? I don’t think so. I think I might speak to Russia about that. Tomahawks are a new step of aggression.”
Tomahawk missiles are a formidable US weapon, capable of hitting targets 1,550 miles away and delivering a payload of around 1,000 pounds of high-explosive. A variant of the missile can also be fitted with a nuclear warhead; however, there is no possibility of that model ever being deployed in the Ukraine conflict.
Russia attacked Ukraine’s power grid over the weekend as part of an ongoing campaign to cripple Ukrainian energy infrastructure before winter, while expressing “extreme concern” over the US potentially providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.
Kyiv regional Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said two employees of Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK were wounded in Russian strikes on a substation. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said that infrastructure was also targeted in the regions of Donetsk, Odesa and Chernihiv.
“Russia continues its aerial terror against our cities and communities, intensifying strikes on our energy infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, noting that Russia had launched “more than 3,100 drones, 92 missiles, and around 1,360 glide bombs” over the past week.
Zelensky said on Friday that he was in talks with US officials about the possible provision of various long-range precision strike weapons, including Tomahawks and more ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that “the topic of Tomahawks is of extreme concern.”
He told Russian state television: “Now is really a very dramatic moment in terms of the fact that tensions are escalating from all sides.”
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, also said that he doubts the US will provide Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
“I think we need to calm down in this regard. Our friend Donald … sometimes he takes a more forceful approach, and then, his tactic is to let go a little and step back. Therefore, we shouldn’t take this literally, as if it’s going to fly tomorrow,” Lukashenko told Zarubin, who posted them on his Telegram channel on Sunday.