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The Pentagon has approved the transfer of long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, pending President Trump’s approval, CNN reported on Friday.
The approval is reported to be based on an assessment that the transfer would not negatively affect US stockpiles of the weapon.
Although Ukraine’s European allies have been pushing the US to provide the missiles to Ukraine, in recent weeks President Trump has resisted, claiming the US cannot afford to do so.
“It’s not easy for us to give… you’re talking about massive numbers of very powerful weapons,” Trump said before meeting with Zelensky at the White House on Oct. 17.
President Zelensky has repeatedly asked President Trump for the missiles, which he claims would be a “major investment in diplomacy,” since they would force Russia to negotiate in order to avoid facing strikes deep inside their own territory.
“The front line can spark diplomacy. Instead, Russia continues to do everything to weasel out of diplomacy, and as soon as the issue of long-range capabilities for us — for Ukraine — became less immediate, Russia’s interest in diplomacy faded almost automatically,” Zelensky said during a daily video address recently.
“This signals that this very issue—the issue of our deep strike capabilities—may hold the indispensable key to peace.”
Russia has warned the US that providing the missiles to Ukraine would represent a major escalation.
A week ago, the Kremlin announced that it had successfully tested a nuclear-powered cruise missile with a potentially unlimited range.
The 9M730 Burevestnik missile (Storm Petrel) is claimed to be “invincible” to current and future missile-defense systems.
“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” Putin, said at a meeting with his generals leading the war effort in Ukraine.
The missile was first announced in 2018 as a response to moves by the US to enlarge NATO and develop a missile-defense shield after withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Putin remarked that the missile had once been considered impossible to make, but now its “crucial testing” had been completed.
As Reuters reported, the announcement of the missile’s successful testing is clearly a sign to the West not to discount Russia’s military capabilities, as the war in Ukraine grinds on and efforts to bring it to an end continue to prove fruitless.
“For Trump, who has cast Russia as a ‘paper tiger’ for failing to swiftly subdue Ukraine, the message is that Russia remains a global military competitor, especially on nuclear weapons, and that Moscow’s overtures on nuclear arms control should be acted on,” Reuters notes.
“Putin’s message for the broader West, after the United States moved to provide Ukraine with intelligence on long-range energy infrastructure targets in Russia, is that Moscow can strike back if it wants to.”
