The Kremlin’s latest red line Trump may be close to sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. Could they change the course of the war?
On October 12, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters he was considering supplying Kyiv with Tomahawk missiles if the Kremlin refuses to end its war against Ukraine. “I might tell [Putin], if the war is not settled, we may very well do it,” he said. “Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so.” The prospect of the U.S. arming Ukraine with these cruise missiles provoked a strong reaction in Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that such a decision would be a “serious escalation.” But even if Washington decides to move forward, sending Tomahawks to Ukraine may be easier said than done. Meduza asks and answers key questions about Tomahawk missiles and what difference they could make for Ukraine.
What are Tomahawk missiles?
Tomahawks are high-precision, medium-range cruise missiles — capable of traveling more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) — that became a symbol of American military power after the Soviet Union’s collapse. When they were first developed in the late 1970s, they weren’t nearly as accurate as they are today. At the time, they were designed primarily to carry nuclear warheads, with only one model — the anti-ship version — equipped with a conventional warhead and a radar guidance system for targeting vessels. Launch systems were created for surface ships, submarines, and ground-based use (the latter is known as the Gryphon system).
By the late 1980s, improvements in navigation technology had dramatically increased the Tomahawk’s accuracy, making it possible to develop versions capable of striking land targets with conventional warheads. But after the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, all ground-based Gryphon launchers — explicitly banned under the agreement — were dismantled.
This left the U.S. Navy, which wasn’t covered by the treaty’s restrictions, as the sole operator of Tomahawk missiles for the next three decades. That arrangement had its advantages: naval vessels are highly resilient platforms in combat thanks to their reliable air defense systems. Tomahawks, in turn, could be launched from the same versatile Mark 41 vertical launching systems used for various surface-to-air interceptor missiles.
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From the 1990s through the 2020s, the U.S. repeatedly employed Tomahawks in similar ways during wars and conflicts against relatively strong adversaries. Surface ships and submarines, each armed with dozens of missiles, would unleash massive salvos in the opening phase of hostilities to overwhelm enemy air defenses and destroy key targets, such as air defense systems, parked aircraft, and ground-based missile launchers. Tomahawk strikes became a hallmark of U.S. “retaliatory” military actions, such as those on suspected chemical weapons facilities in Syria. The threat of such strikes, meanwhile, became a cornerstone of America’s strategy for projecting power.
In 2019, after years of mutual accusations between Washington and Moscow over treaty violations, the United States withdrew from the INF Treaty, effectively bringing it to an end. The U.S. quickly launched a program to develop mobile, ground-based launchers for the Tomahawk, designed for both the Army and the Marine Corps. To speed up the process, engineers adapted the Navy’s existing Mark 41 launchers. The Army received multi-axle trailers fitted with four-cell launchers (capable of firing four Tomahawks), while the Marine Corps got truck-mounted, single-cell launchers.
By 2025, two batteries of Typhon systems — each with four launchers — had been produced for the Army and deployed to the Pacific region. The Marine Corps received six or seven launchers under its Long Range Fires (LRF) program, which was later shut down.
How would Ukraine launch them?
Donald Trump hasn’t said. Ukraine clearly can’t get sea-based launchers: in 2022, Turkey closed the straits leading to the Black Sea to all military warships, citing the 1936 Montreux Convention. The move limits Russia’s ability to reinforce its Black Sea Fleet but also prevents other countries from delivering Tomahawk-capable vessels to Ukraine.
As noted, the United States has two batteries of the new ground-based Typhon launchers. Both were produced for the Army and deployed in the Pacific to deter North Korea and China, and it’s unlikely they’d be sent to Ukraine. Lockheed Martin is now building a fourth and final battery, which — along with the remaining one — will likely be deployed in Western Europe sometime next year.
That leaves the modest LRF launchers that the U.S. Marine Corps ultimately abandoned. However, the Marines planned to keep using them for training purposes until a replacement could be designed. Finally, the United States is developing containerized Tomahawk launchers (the Mk 70) for small Coast Guard vessels. Those containers can be fitted to ships or mounted on trailers for overland transport, but the program is still in its infancy.
Ultimately, if Trump so desires, there are ways to deliver Tomahawk launchers and missiles to Ukraine — albeit in small numbers. American factories are already winding down Tomahawk production, and supply issues would complicate ammunition deliveries. The United States plans to shift over the next few years to new missile types designed to hit moving targets, which means it’s gradually phasing out production of older weapons.
Over the last few decades, the Tomahawk’s primary tactic has been massed sea-launched strikes — or the threat of them. Ukraine will not receive that guaranteed means of breaking through an adversary’s air defenses. And even if every newly produced system were given to Kyiv, it would still be at least a year before any significant number of launchers arrived.
How are Tomahawks different from the weapons Ukraine already has?
The Tomahawk’s single biggest advantage is its maximum range. While classified (and varying by model), it’s estimated at roughly 1,500–2,000 kilometers (930–1,240 miles). For comparison, the Storm Shadow / SCALP cruise missiles long used by Ukraine’s Armed Forces have a range of about 300 kilometers (185 miles).
A reach of 1,500–2,000 kilometers is comparable to that of Ukraine’s long-range strike drones. But a Tomahawk’s warhead is an order of magnitude more powerful — roughly 450 kilograms (990 pounds) of explosive payload versus the tens of kilograms carried by most drones — and its warhead types can penetrate reinforced concrete or cover a wide area with submunitions. Tomahawks also fly several times faster than those drones (their cruise speed is roughly comparable to that of a passenger plane).
Tomahawks are also designed to be resilient against electronic warfare. They use multiple guidance systems — including TERCOM, which matches the terrain beneath the missile to an onboard map — rather than relying solely on satellite navigation corrections.
Since February 2022, Russia has been striking Ukraine with broadly similar long-range munitions. Kalibr and Iskander-K missiles are a central part of its combined strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. But the Russian military has clearly lacked sufficiently accurate reconnaissance to maximize damage. U.S. intelligence could help Kyiv employ long-range missiles more effectively, but only if launches were carried out on a massive scale, which is unlikely given how few launchers the United States is producing.
President Trump has said that he wants to know where Ukraine would be “sending” Tomahawk missiles before he agrees to supply them. According to Ukrainian media reports, Kyiv already handed over a list of some 200 potential targets last year. Assuming the list excludes targets that drones of similar range can already hit effectively, it likely includes large defense-industry facilities in Russia, such as the Tatarstan factory that produces Geran/Shahed-type UAVs. Air bases that host Su-34 bombers used to attack Ukrainian frontline fortifications are also potential targets. Over the past year, concrete shelters for aircraft have been built at those bases, rendering drone strikes with relatively small warheads ineffective.
Clearly, mass deliveries of powerful, long-range cruise missiles could change the course of the war — but only if they were truly large in scale. Under current conditions, any possible delivery of Tomahawk launchers would be more of a political gesture from Trump than a practical tool for countering the Kremlin’s forces.
So why is the Kremlin reacting so strongly?
For years, Russia has invoked the hypothetical threat of Tomahawk missiles near its borders as a justification for its aggression against Ukraine. The idea of U.S. cruise missiles in Eastern Europe — capable, in theory, of carrying nuclear warheads — has been central to the Kremlin’s narrative about the “root causes of the conflict,” which it claims to be “addressing” through its invasion. The irony is that, in the war’s fourth year, those missiles really could end up near the cities of Kharkiv or Sumy in eastern Ukraine — just a few hundred kilometers from the Kremlin itself.
Vladimir Putin has called the potential delivery of Tomahawks to Ukraine “a fundamentally new level of escalation.” And earlier this month, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated the Kremlin’s old talking point about “Russia’s fears.” “This is a special kind of weapon,” he said. “It can be equipped with either a conventional or a nuclear warhead.”
In reality, the Kremlin isn’t worried about a preemptive nuclear strike from Ukraine, and the West can’t provide Kyiv with enough long-range missiles to meaningfully change the course of the war. What Putin can do, however, is use the prospect of Tomahawk deliveries as a pretext for dramatically escalating his confrontation with the West.
Meduza’s Razbor (“Explainers”) team