Donald Trump has floated the sale of US-made Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, a move that could bolster Kyiv’s long-range strike capability against Russian targets and potentially alter the course of the war.
The US president is expected to discuss potential deliveries and how Ukraine would use the weapon with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House on Friday.
“The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon,” Trump said on Monday. “And honestly, Russia does not need that.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin, – who has held firm in his maximalist demands and so far rejected Trump’s diplomatic overtures on ending the war – said that arming Kyiv with a missile that could reach Moscow would mark a “new stage of escalation, including in relations between Russia and the US”.
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Here is what to know about the weapon and what it would mean for Ukraine to obtain it.
What are Tomahawks and how many can Kyiv get?
First developed in the 1970s, Tomahawks are subsonic cruise missiles with a 450kg warhead used primarily by the US Navy to attack high-value and heavily defended targets on land. Manufactured by RTX, Tomahawks cost about $1.7 million (€1.46 million) each.
With a range of up to 2,500km, Tomahawks can reach more than eight times farther than the Army Tactical Missile Systems (Atacms) provided to Ukraine by the Biden administration.
Tomahawks are typically fired from ships or submarines, but can also be launched from land, which is how Ukraine would likely use them against Russia.
It is unclear how many Tomahawks the US would be willing to sell to Nato allies for Ukraine, especially since the Pentagon has been expending them at a higher rate than it has been buying them.
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“That’s what they’re probably arguing over right now within the Pentagon,” said Jim Townsend, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence.
The US has bought only 202 Tomahawks since 2022, but has used at least 124 against the Houthis and Iran since 2024. It is also possible the US would use Tomahawks in any strike on Venezuelan soil.
“If we do give Tomahawks, it won’t be a huge batch, and that means that Zelenskiy will have to be very careful in terms of how he uses these,” Townsend said, adding they would only be used on the most strategic targets with the greatest chance of success.
Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defence programme at the Center for a New American Security think-tank, estimated that the US would provide only 20 to 50 of the missiles for Ukraine.
But Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official, said the US would probably be willing to part with “hundreds” of Tomahawks. In a war game earlier this year, Cancian estimated that the US has about 4,150 Tomahawks in its arsenal.
“We have a lot of Tomahawks,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Why does Ukraine want them?
Zelenskiy believes they would help Ukrainian forces to strike Russian military and energy targets currently out of reach with greater precision, which could change Putin’s calculus and force him to the negotiating table.
The weapon would allow Kyiv to perform “combined attacks and better destroy oil processing, military industrial complex, logistics and command and control”, said Mykola Bielieskov, a fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, a research institution supporting the Ukrainian president’s office.
Tom Karako, director of the missile defence programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think-tank, said Russia’s bombers involved in strikes on Ukraine’s civilian and military infrastructure were also “juicy targets”.
“There’s a number of high-value targets that these might be very useful to be used against to bring the pain to Russia, to make the pain more acute, and to hopefully make it sufficient to push them to the diplomatic table,” he added.
Townsend said the missiles would also give Kyiv “the ability to evade a lot of the Russian air defences” currently intercepting some of the Ukrainian drones targeting Russia’s oil refineries.
Right now, Russia has “an asymmetric advantage” because of its missiles and attack drone capabilities, Bielieskov said. “We need to remedy the situation in Ukraine’s favour.”
Why is Trump considering their sale to Kyiv?
Trump in recent months has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin, particularly after their failed Alaska summit in August, and is looking for more ways to pressure him, experts say.
Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said: “Having blown several of its own ultimatums, and threats of sanctions, [the Trump administration] has now reached for the few military capabilities remaining that Moscow might care about.”
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Trump “is disappointed with Putin” and now recognises that he “needs to get tough”, said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former defence minister and chair of the Kyiv-based Centre for Defence Strategies. When “Trump gave Putin positive motivators, he ignored them. Now it is a time for negative motivators.”
Zagorodnyuk said the Trump administration “now recognises that Putin is likely to escalate even if the US takes no action”.
Beyond their practical use, they would also serve as important “political signalling” from Washington.
“It would show the US supports us again, differently than before but decisively,” he said. “This is very important for Russia to understand its future chances, which is a big element in its decision making to continue the war.”
What are the risks and limitations in using them?
A key question remains whether Russia could use their delivery to Kyiv as a pretext to intensify its attacks.
A senior Nato official said Moscow would likely respond with “irresponsible rhetoric that includes a little bit of nuclear sabre-rattling” along with increased attacks along the front line and “some larger strikes” inside Ukraine.
“But I don’t think that there is a very concrete, specific response that the Russians could execute here that would really be something that was not well anticipated,” the official added.
Kofman also warned that “if this weapon is introduced more symbolically than decisively, doled out in small numbers, this may use up a potential source of leverage without much effect”.
Bielieskov said “for proper effect at least 100 missiles” would need to be supplied each month, “otherwise this drip-drop supply would dilute added value”.
Ukraine would likely face constraints in targeting, said Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst. “The US would likely maintain strict oversight over target selection to prevent escalation.” He added that the “very limited” supply of land-based launchers for Tomahawks could also turn into a stumbling block.
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But Zagorodnyuk said that issue was “sortable”. “We had those concerns literally with every new type of weapon systems” provided by Ukraine’s western partners, he said, “and eventually they were okay”.
If approved, the missiles could be delivered relatively quickly, a senior western military official involved in the discussions said, with US contractors deployed to assist in their use. That would remove the need for extensive training of Ukrainian troops, the official added, and allow the US to retain control over targeting and other issues.
Are they a game-changer?
In short, no. A senior Nato official said the Tomahawks “would complement what Ukraine has already been achieving” with its long-range drone attacks.
Zagorodnyuk said no single system alone had been a game-changer so far, “but in combination they can make a big difference”.
Cancian, the ex-Pentagon official now at CSIS, agreed, saying that it was “not the Tomahawk itself” that would be a game-changer, but that if they were sent in “waves” at Russian targets “that might do a lot of damage to the Russian energy system and maybe even airfields”.
Townsend said any deal on the Tomahawks would be “kind of a cherry on top ... because it’ll give Zelenskiy that long reach that’s going to put a lot of pressure on Putin”. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
