Three US and European officials who were briefed on this matter said that the Pentagon had authorized the White House to offer long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, assuming it would not hurt its own stocks, and the ultimate political choice lay with President Donald Trump.
Trump previously indicated this month in a working lunch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House that he would not give the missiles to Ukraine because “we do not want to be giving things that we need to defend our nation.”
The Joint Staff had reported its evaluation to the White House earlier this month when Trump met with Zelensky, who has been urging the missiles to better attack the oil and energy installations deeper into Russia. Tomahawks reach a distance of approximately 1,000 miles.
The evaluation motivated the US allies in Europe, who think that the US will now have fewer legitimate reasons to withhold the missiles, two European officials said. During a press conference a few days before the encounter with Zelensky, Trump also told the press that the US has “numerous Tomahawks”, which it could possibly provide to Ukraine.
The US and European officers were shocked as a result of Trump, a few days later, radically switching his song as he delivered his opening remarks at a White House working lunch with Zelensky, stating that the US needs the Tomahawks. He then informed Zelensky in closed doors that the US was not providing them, at least not immediately.
Trump made the call a day after he made a phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who informed Trump that Tomahawks would hit the major Russian cities, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, and had no substantial effect on the combat arena but would ruin the relationship between the US and Russia, CNN has reported.
White House and Pentagon failed to respond to comment requests.
The missiles are not completely off the table, sources told CNN previously, and the administration has even drafted the plans to deliver the missiles to Ukraine as soon as Trump orders it. Trump has also become so exasperated over the last few weeks with Putin not showing any seriousness to peace talks to the extent of getting new US sanctions against Russian energy companies last week, and canceled, at least temporarily, a planned meeting with Putin in Budapest to discuss Ukraine.
Although the Pentagon is not worried about stockpiles, the US defense officials are yet to understand how Ukraine would train and use the missiles, officials indicated. The sources have also noted that there remain various operational problems that need to be solved so that Ukraine can incorporate the missiles successfully.
It is still unclear how Ukraine would launch the missiles in case the US supplied them. The Tomahawks are usually fired on surface vessels or submarines, and the Navy of Ukraine is drained to the end, so the missiles would have to be fired on land. The Marine Corps and Army have come up with ground-based launchers, which can be supplied to Ukraine.
Nevertheless, even in the event that the US was not interested in supplying the launchers, European officials are of the view that Ukraine may find a way around it. One of these officials noted that Ukrainian engineers could make a workaround to get the use of the UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles, which were made specifically to be used by modern NATO aircraft and had to be adapted into Ukraine’s aging Soviet-era fighter jet inventories.
Earlier this week, in a post on X, Zelensky wrote, “Ukraine expects to have more capabilities with long-range by the end of this year, so the war can be settled on equitable conditions for the nation.”
He wrote, “Global sanctions and our pinpoint precision are almost converging to bring this war to a close on terms that are fair to Ukraine. By the end of the year, all deep-strike goals should be completely locked in, as well as an extension of the long-range footprint.”
