War Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged “more firepower” for Ukraine through NATO on Wednesday but held off on announcing the decision for the United States to send Tomahawk cruise missiles until President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.
Speaking at this week’s NATO “Defense Ministers Summit” in Brussels, Hegseth embraced Trump’s shifting stance on Ukraine. Lauding the president’s new, more aggressive stance toward Russia, the war secretary said it was a hallmark of his peace-through-strength strategy. He said the U.S. hoped more countries would join the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List initiative, which has so far seen $2 billion pledged for weapons for Ukraine.
“You get peace when you are strong. Not when you use strong words or wag your finger. You get it when you have strong and real capabilities that adversaries respect. And I believe that’s what NATO is doing. I believe that’s what the PURL initiative is. So our expectation today is that more countries donate even more, that they purchase even more for Ukraine to bring that conflict to a peaceful conclusion,” Hegseth said.
This approach reaped dividends in Gaza, he argued, where Trump negotiated the peace deal that brought an apparent end to the war.
Hegseth didn’t specify what firepower would be headed to Ukraine, and he declined to reveal whether the U.S. would send its much-hyped long-range Tomahawk missiles. The matter is expected to be at the forefront of the agenda on Friday during Trump’s meeting with Zelensky.
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Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, suggested that the prospect of Ukraine getting Tomahawks could help bring “the Russians to the table to negotiate a peace deal.”
While Trump has the final word on the matter, Whitaker noted that “the possibility of deep strike could change Putin’s calculation, as well, and would put a lot of things at risk, including significant energy infrastructure inside Russia.”
Trump teased the possibility of Tomahawks to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday.
“Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so. I think I might speak to Russia about that,” he said. “I might say, ‘Look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send Tomahawks.’”
“The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that,” Trump added.
The acquisition of Tomahawk missiles would be a triumph for Zelensky, who has spent much of his diplomatic blitz since day one of Russia’s invasion begging for long-range strike capabilities to target Russian infrastructure, and even Moscow itself. The Tomahawk is the longest-range missile in NATO’s arsenal that can realistically be given to Kyiv.
The missile, with a range of roughly 780 to 1,550 miles, depending on the variant, dwarfs the range of ATACMS, which has a maximum range of just 190 miles. This would put Moscow and Saint Petersburg well within range of the powerful missile.
However, experts warn that there are severe limitations on Tomahawk missiles. Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, estimated in a recent war game that the total number of Tomahawk missiles in the U.S. arsenal stands at about 4,150, the Financial Times reported. The Pentagon has already fired over 120 of the 200 it has procured since 2022.
Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security think tank, told the Financial Times that the U.S. could realistically only supply about 20 to 50 Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. Such a number “will not decisively shift the dynamics of the war.”
Kyiv could mix in the missiles with its other long-range drones in complex strikes to try to overwhelm Russian air defenses, but they “still will be a very limited capability … certainly not enough to enable sustained, deep attacks against Russia.”
Ukraine also faces the significant problem of how to launch the missiles. The Tomahawk has primarily been fired from naval platforms, with all combat uses coming from submarines or surface ships. The U.S. recently developed and launched the Typhon launcher for this purpose, but the large, clunky platform would be a primary target for Russian missiles and drones.
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The main reason that has prevented the U.S. from providing Tomahawks to Ukraine in the past has been fears of escalation with Russia, a fear still held. Moscow has repeatedly warned that any shipment of Tomahawks would be seen as a major escalation. Russia could expand its drone and missile attacks against energy infrastructure or other sensitive targets in Ukraine in response, as it has done in the past week.
The mere possession of the missiles could be a source of anxiety for the Kremlin, something the Trump administration hopes could bring it back to the negotiating table. The president has signaled his plan to shift focus to ending the war in Ukraine after the recent Gaza peace deal.
