ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE: President Donald Trump on Sunday warned Russia that he may send Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles if Moscow doesn’t settle its war there soon — suggesting that he could be ready to increase the pressure on Vladimir Putin’s government using a key weapons system.
“I might say, ‘Look: if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to Israel. “The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that.”
Trump said, “I might tell them that if the war is not settled — that we may very well.” He added, “We may not, but we may do it. I think it’s appropriate to bring up.”
His comments came after Trump spoke by phone earlier Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Trump said he mentioned possibly sending Tomahawks during that conversation.
“Do they want to have Tomahawks going in that direction? I don’t think so,” Trump said of Russia. “I think I might speak to Russia about that.” He added that “Tomahawks are a new step of aggression.”
His suggestions followed Russia having attacked Ukraine’s power grid overnight, part of an ongoing campaign to cripple Ukrainian energy infrastructure before winter. Moscow also expressed “extreme concern” over the US potentially providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.
Putin himself has previously suggested that the United States supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine will seriously damage relations between Moscow and Washington.
For his part, Zelensky described his latest call with Trump as “very productive,” and said the pair had discussed strengthening Ukraine’s “air defense, resilience, and long-range capabilities,” along with “details related to the energy sector.”
Trump in recent weeks has taken a notably tougher tact with Putin, after the Russian leader has declined to engage in direct talks with Zelensky about easing fighting.
Zelensky said Ukraine would only use Tomahawk missiles for military purposes and not attack civilians in Russia, should the US provide them. “We never attacked their civilians. This is the big difference between Ukraine and Russia,” the Ukrainian leader said on the Fox News “Sunday Briefing” program. “That’s why, if we speak about long-range (missiles), we speak only about military goals.”
The Ukrainian leader said they are still discussing the possibility that Washington might provide Kyiv with the long-range missiles. Trump said last week that before agreeing to provide Tomahawks he wants to know how Ukraine would use them because he does not want to escalate the war between Russia and Ukraine. Zelensky said he was still working on trying to convince Trump to approve a missile deal.
“We count on such decisions, but we’ll see,” Zelensky said.
Last month, Trump announced that he now believes Ukraine could win back all the territory lost to Russia — a dramatic shift from the Republican’s repeated calls for Kyiv to make concessions to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But the US president, at least so far, has resisted Zelensky’s calls for Tomahawks. The weapon system would allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russian territory and put the sort of pressure on Putin that Zelensky argues is needed to get the Russians to seriously engage in peace talks.
Trump said aboard Air Force One of the war: “I really think Putin would look great if he got this settled” and that “It’s not going to be good for him” if not.
Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500 km (1,550 miles), long enough to strike deep inside Russia, including Moscow. The Kremlin has warned against any provision of Tomahawks to Ukraine.
Putin said earlier this month that it was impossible to use Tomahawks without the direct participation of US military personnel and so any supply of such missiles to Ukraine would trigger a “qualitatively new stage of escalation.”
Still, Zelensky, in a Sunday evening address in Ukraine, said he saw Russia’s concerns as reason to press forward.
“We see and hear that Russia is afraid that the Americans may give us Tomahawks — that this kind of pressure may work for peace,” Zelensky said.
The war in Ukraine is Europe’s deadliest since World War II, and Russian officials say they are now in a “hot” conflict with the West. Putin portrays it as a watershed moment in Moscow’s relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence, including Ukraine and Georgia.
Ukraine and its allies have cast it as an imperial-style land grab and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.
