In a congratulatory phone call from Zelensky to Trump on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said the two leaders talked about Russia’s latest strikes targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, as well as the possibility of Kyiv obtaining U.S. made Tomahawk missiles. In a post on X, Zelensky said “If a war can be stopped in one region, then surely other wars can be stopped as well - including the Russian war”.
The missile request is the latest in a long-running series of high-profile requests by Ukrainian officials for more powerful and sophisticated western support.
President Trump says he has “sort of made a decision” about giving Tomahawks to NATO for supply to Ukraine, but says he wants to know Ukrainian plans for them before sending them.
Moscow is pushing back against the possibility of providing U.S. Tomahawks to Ukraine, which could provide the capability for even deeper strikes inside Russia, something that wouldn’t play well for the Russian President at home.
President Vladimir Putin said recently that sending Tomahawks to Ukraine would significantly damage U.S.-Russia relations, and that the weapons would "mean a completely new, qualitatively new stage of escalation, including in relations between Russia and the United States".
Ukraine has already shown impressive tenacity in striking targets on Russian soil. Kyiv’s domestic drone campaign against Russian oil and gas facilities, aimed at cutting Russia’s energy export revenues that fund its war machine, has been remarkably successful. Moscow has publicly acknowledged that it is facing domestic fuel shortages, but has not publicly attributed the Ukrainian strikes as the cause. In June, Ukraine smuggled over 100 drones into Russia and launched Operation Spider Web, a drone attack that resulted in the loss of a third of Moscow’s fleet of strategic bomber aircraft.
And, Ukraine has already successfully employed advanced western supplied missiles like the US-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and the European-made Storm Shadow. The ATACM has a range of around 300 KM, while the Storm Shadow has a range of 250KM. Kyiv is also producing and testing its own long-range missile, the FP-5 Flamingo that has a stated range of 3000KM. Recent media reports indicate that Kyiv may have started using the Flamingo in an operational capacity, but details on the operations remain scarce.
An infographic titled "Range of ATACMS missiles" created in Ankara, Turkiye on November 19, 2024. (Photo by Murat Usubali/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Tomahawk would be a significant improvement in long-range strike capability for Ukraine’s military. The missiles, capable of being launched from ships, submarines and ground launchers, have a range of 1,500-2,000KM, and are capable of hitting targets accurately even in heavily defended airspace. The Tomahawk would give Ukraine the ability to hit most of European Russia, west of the Ural Mountains. That puts key political and military hubs like Moscow and St. Petersburg in range, as well as significant military assets and energy infrastructure.
A Tomahawk cruise missile flies toward Iraq after being launched from the AEGIS guided missile cruiser USS San Jacinto March 25, 2003 in the Red Sea. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
THE CONTEXT
- President Trump says he “sort” of has made a decision on supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks
- Foreign Minister of Estonia told Trump that Tomahawks could help Ukraine “push Russia back”
- The Tomahawk missile is made by Raytheon and has a range of 1,500-2,000kms (around 930-1,550 miles)
- It is approximately 750 Kilometers from Kyiv to Moscow
- Tomahawks are primarily launched from maritime platforms and are currently deployed on all U.S. ships and submarines equipped with vertical launch systems (VLSs).
- Ground-launched Tomahawks are launched from the Typhon, a new vertical launch system developed by Lockheed Martin to enable the U.S. military to launch Tomahawks from the ground. This system would likely be required by Ukraine.
- Since the 1990s, the U.S. Navy has purchased about 9,000 Tomahawk units at an average price of $1.3 million each. It is unclear where the U.S. stockpile stands currently. U.S. allies armed with Tomahawks include the Netherlands, Australia, the UK, and Japan.
- The Trump administration in late August approved the sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) missiles to Ukraine. They have a range of 250 miles. The purchase is being funded by Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and U.S. Foreign Military Financing.
Experts and analysts are watching closely for developments coming out of Washington this week. Some notable questions remain regarding the potential use of Tomahawks by Ukraine such as:- If approved, will they represent a significant increase in capability for Ukraine?
- What quantities and how quickly would Tomahawks be supplied to Ukraine?
- How is Russian President Vladimir Putin likely to respond?
Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery
Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery is a senior director at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He directs CSC 2.0, which works to implement the recommendations of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Montgomery is a principal member of the Cyber Initiatives Group.
Glenn Corn
Glenn Corn is a former Senior Executive in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who worked for 34 years in the U.S. Intelligence, Defense, and Foreign Affairs communities. He spent over 17 years serving overseas and served as the U.S. President’s Senior Representative on Intelligence and Security issues. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of World Politics.
The Cipher Brief: Is sending Tomahawk missiles going to enable Ukraine to do a lot more than it's already capable of doing now? Would it make a difference?
Rear Admiral (Ret) Montgomery: I'm going to caveat this. I'm not opposed to Tomahawks. But I think it's “Tomahawks and.” And then how many Tomahawks? Ten Tomahawks won't make a difference. 100 Tomahawks won't make a difference. But 400 or 500 would. Is the U.S. willing to part with 400 or 500? Can Europe take a deep breath and pay for 400 or 500? And what are the Tomahawks going to look like? Are we going to strip them of certain capabilities and capacity? Then it becomes a slow land attack cruise missile. So I'm not sure.
Tomahawks would be helpful. What I'm sure would be much more, I think, operationally game-changing is the provision of the ERAM (Extended Range Attack Munition). And I'm thrilled with what the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Department of Defense writ large have done with the ERAM, which is effectively a small cruise missile with extended ranges well beyond ATACMS, but less than the Tomahawk. There's multiple variants of it. And when it begins to deliver, it'll be 10 here, 20 there, but eventually it should get up to about 100 a month for 20 months. And you can fire it from MiG-29s or Sukaloys or F-16s. This weapon is going to stretch the battlefield for the Russians and will force logistics and command and control and troop aggregation sites farther and farther from the front line.
And I don't think the Russians have demonstrated the ability to properly control and support forces at long range and distances. So, if the Russians are stretched out like that, combined with the operational and strategic pressure from the long range unmanned Ukrainian UASs strikes, and maybe the addition of Tomahawks, particularly to target the refineries, I think all of this can really cause Putin to readjust his thinking.
So from my perspective, things could get better. It's not “Tomahawks alone” or “Tomahawks or.” It's “Tomahawks and”, and the “and” is the big thing. And that “and” to me is the ERAM.
Corn: I think that what Ukrainians are doing is great. The Tomahawks would just increase their ability and increase, I'd say, the volume of the attacks and deep strikes that they could conduct inside of Russia.
And of course there's a symbolic and kind of political message here too. If the United States agrees to provide these weapons systems, it just shows that we're not backing down and we're not going to be intimidated by Moscow, which I'm sure the Ukrainians want to see because that's a sign of political support. That's important for them.
The Cipher Brief: Moscow is obviously rattling the sabers over the potential US Tomahawk decision. How do you assess Russia's escalation threats to the U.S.?
Corn: I find it ironic when the Russians say they're going to retaliate. They're already launching attacks. They're already targeting Ukraine and now also NATO countries, and I would say even U.S. interests. They've been doing it for years. So my own belief is it's a lot of saber rattling. It's a full court press right now in Moscow to try and deter Washington and Brussels from taking certain steps that will be extremely painful and costly for Moscow.
I'm sure that [talk of Tomahawks] increases Moscow’s level of concern. They definitely do not want the Ukrainians to have these weapon systems, and they're making all kinds of threats. They're looking for potential sore points with the U.S., for example, suggesting they will deploy new weapons systems to Nicaragua or Cuba. They're going back to the Cold War playbook that led to the Cuba missile crisis.
So I’m not surprised. Experience has shown that the Russians make a lot of threats, but those threats tend to be empty. Let's go back to all the threats they made over the F-16s, over the ATACMS, over Finland and Sweden joining NATO. I don't think that they followed through on a lot of those threats, not in the near term, not on an immediate basis or not in an obvious way. They may, of course, respond in the future, but so far they have not followed through on threats to use nuclear weapons, which they’ve previously implied as a potential scenario. So, they haven't followed through on previous threats. It doesn't mean they won’t do it in the future, but my assessment is they will not. .
Rear Admiral (Ret) Montgomery: Russia and China practice a similar provocation principle. We democracies bend and capitulate to the fear that an authoritarian regime might do something because they announce that they've got a red line or they've got an issue. And they provoke us. They tell us that the provocation will cause them to overreact and therefore we should stand down. At no point ever do they have the same sense of decorum or restraint, right? But apparently we're supposed to practice that restraint. Enough of that. We need to do what we think is right. If it's Tomahawks, fine. If it's Tomahawks and ERAM, which is what I think it is, great. If it was E-RAM alone, I think it’d be great.
What I say is, I would not back off. One reason I support sending Tomahawks now is because the Russians oppose them so much and I feel compelled to support the decision, if it's made, to send them. But the Russians are going to learn that they were complaining about the wrong thing. And by the time they learn that lesson, I think they're going to be in a lot of pain.
In Summary:
The coming decision on Tomahawk cruise missiles is a true inflection point for both Ukraine and the U.S.: it could materially expand Kyiv’s ability to conduct deep-strike operations, but only if supplied in sufficient quantities and paired with the right launch and logistical support. US and Western leaders must weigh that operational upside against difficult questions - platform and delivery constraints, the need for complementary systems like ERAM, funding and NATO cooperation, and the very real risk of Moscow escalating its response. Whatever Washington decides will test U.S. resolve, reshape NATO burden-sharing conversations, and have consequences that reverberate across the battlefield in Ukraine and Russia.
Follow The Cipher Brief for more timely analysis and updates as this critical story develops.
Ethan Masucol, Ian Coleman and Connor Cowman contributed research for this report
