Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that discussions over the transfer of military assets from the United States—including its coveted Tomahawk cruise missiles—have motivated Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet President Donald Trump in Budapest, a new diplomatic engagement that Trump announced on Truth Social Thursday.
Trump’s announcement of a meeting with Putin, which he said would take place in the next two weeks, comes a day before he is set to meet with Zelenskyy for the third time in Washington. This development coincides with U.S. officials touting a new mechanism by which European allies purchase American-made military hardware to support Ukraine’s efforts in the ongoing conflict.
Trump has publicly mused about the possibility of sending Tomahawks to Ukraine. These missiles have a range of up to 1,500 miles, and Zelenskyy has said that acquiring these long-range weapons could bolster Ukraine’s war effort.
During a phone call on Thursday, Trump said that he and Putin “didn’t say much” about Tomahawks but “did talk about it a little bit.” The president expressed caution about releasing the missiles from U.S. stockpiles, noting, “We need Tomahawks for the United States. We can’t deplete [them] for our country. I don’t know what we can do about that.” However, Trump was more assertive on Sunday, stating, “If this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks.”
Upon arriving in Washington on Thursday, Zelenskyy said the agreement for a meeting in Budapest was a direct result of U.S. public pressure. “Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” he wrote on X.
In a meeting between U.S. officials and a Ukrainian delegation in Washington, both sides welcomed the news of a Trump-Putin meeting, according to a U.S. official. The officials believe that Trump’s phone call with Putin could lead to progress in his upcoming meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday.
### Tomahawks: Scarce but Impactful
The U.S. must exercise caution in distributing Tomahawk missiles due to “underinvestment” in the nation’s munitions stockpile, said Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Security.
“The U.S. has already spent Tomahawks in relatively low-risk operations,” Karako noted. “These are scarce non-nuclear strategic assets, and they need to be husbanded and stewarded for high-value targets.”
With their deep range and heavy payload, Tomahawks would enable a “Spiderweb” operation at range, according to Karako — a reference to Ukraine’s stealth attacks on Russian military assets using drones within Russian territory.
“You don’t have to smuggle stuff into Russia” if Ukraine is equipped with Tomahawks and the necessary launch systems, he explained.
However, the U.S. has only recently developed a very small number of ground-based launchers required for these missiles, raising questions about whether it can provide Ukraine with launchers on short notice.
The U.S. Army received a prototype for the Typhon missile launcher in 2022 and has only recently operationalized it. The Typhon, essentially a large tractor-trailer, lacks the mobility needed on the dynamic battlefields of Ukraine.
Additionally, the Marine Corps recently ended its Long Range Fires program—which became operational in limited numbers in 2023—that was capable of launching Tomahawks, citing mobility concerns. The Army has now taken over this program to address these limitations.
This week, Oshkosh Defense introduced a new, more compact vehicle capable of launching Tomahawks at the Association of the U.S. Army symposium. Dubbed “the future of long-range munitions,” the platform is not yet in production, a company spokesperson told ABC News.
If the U.S. can provide both the missiles and a complementary launch platform, the weapons system could pose a serious tactical threat to Moscow, Karako said. Ukraine could expect “a chilling effect on the ease with which Russia has been able to operate with impunity not far from the Ukrainian border,” he added.
The deployment of Tomahawks would almost certainly come with U.S. conditions on targeting. “I would not expect them to fly through the window of the Kremlin,” Karako said. Zelenskyy has pledged to use the weapons solely for “military goals.”
### Trump Administration’s Tone Shift
Speculation over Tomahawks—and related signals from Washington and Moscow—has emerged amid a shift in tone from the Trump administration. This comes after the president’s bilateral meeting with Putin in Alaska, which failed to yield the trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy that Trump sought.
The Kremlin has warned that a U.S. sale of Tomahawks would represent an “escalation.” Meanwhile, Ukraine has expressed interest in other weapons systems, including Patriot air defense systems.
U.S. allies in Europe have been purchasing U.S.-made military hardware through a new purchasing mechanism, heralded by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a NATO allies meeting on Wednesday. Speaking in Brussels, Hegseth called Russia’s war in Ukraine “continued aggression,” a term he had been hesitant to use in the past.
“If this war does not end, if there is no path to peace in the short term, then the United States, along with our allies, will take the steps necessary to impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression,” Hegseth said.
A European diplomatic source told ABC News that Patriot air defenses have been discussed under the new mechanism, but new arms sales to Ukraine will largely depend on the high-stakes meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy on Friday.
Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, emphasized this week that Tomahawks would put “a lot of Russian oil and gas infrastructure at risk.” He added, “Putin’s going to continue to get weaker and weaker.” However, he noted the final decision to send Tomahawks to Ukraine rests with the president.
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This evolving dynamic around U.S. military support, especially the potential deployment of Tomahawk missiles, underscores the complex strategic calculations shaping the conflict in Ukraine and diplomatic relations among the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tomahawks-center-stage-trumps-russia-ukraine-diplomacy/story?id=126596148
