Washington [US], October 8: Reuters reported on October 7 that US President Donald Trump said that a decision has been "almost made" on providing US-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, although he refused to disclose specifics.
President Trump said he wanted Ukraine to clarify its intention to use Tomahawk missiles, as he did not want to escalate the Russia-Ukraine conflict. If approved, the US could sell Tomahawk missiles to NATO countries for those countries to transfer to Ukraine.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US would provide Ukraine with intelligence on energy infrastructure deep inside Russian territory. However, for Kyiv to effectively attack those facilities, it would need missiles like the Tomahawk, which has a range of 2,500 km, while the missiles Ukraine has received from the West, such as the Storm Shadow or ATACMS, only have a range of 250-300 km. Meanwhile, Reuters cited several sources saying that the US is unlikely to provide Tomahawks to Ukraine, because the current stockpile has been allocated to the US Navy and other purposes.
The Financial Times also reported that some people within the Trump administration were skeptical about the impact of Tomahawk on the war situation.
During a meeting with Mr. Trump in September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Washington to transfer Tomahawks so that Kyiv could strike deep into Russian territory, including the capital Moscow. On the Russian side, President Vladimir Putin noted that Kyiv could not use these missiles without direct intervention by American soldiers, so this move would create a new escalation of the conflict, as well as an escalation in US-Russia relations.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
