The American "Tomahawk" missiles have been a hot topic in Washington, Kiev and Moscow recently. President Donald Trump no longer rules out supplying these weapons to Ukraine if Russia refuses to peacefully resolve the conflict. Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he and Trump had spoken on the phone about the missiles, without giving details.
A serious threat to Russia?
According to him, long-range missiles would help achieve peace. “As we see and hear, Russia is worried that the Americans could give us “Tomahawk“. This shows that this kind of pressure can contribute to peace,“ Zelensky said. The Ukrainian president has already announced that if the US supplies these missiles to Ukraine, it will use them only for military attacks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, stated that the “Tomahawk“ missiles do not pose a serious threat to Russia, but added that the supply of such missiles to Ukraine would be “an absolutely new, qualitatively new phase of escalation“ between Washington and Moscow. However, in an interview with Russian state television, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that Moscow is “extremely concerned“ that Kiev could receive such missiles. Tomorrow (Friday, October 17) Zelensky will meet with Trump in Washington, and long-range weapons and air defense are on the agenda of talks at the White House.
“Tomahawk“ - an old but proven missile
The “Tomahawk“ missile is a high-precision, strategic and tactical subsonic cruise missile with a long range. It is produced in many modifications, including for various warheads, including nuclear ones. It can be launched from various launch platforms. Its development began in the 1970s as a carrier missile for nuclear weapons in three versions: air (for bombers), ground and sea, explains Ukrainian military expert Konstantin Kryvolap in an interview with DW. Initially, the missile had a range of up to 2,500 kilometers, and later, when the nuclear warhead was replaced with a conventional one, the range was reduced to 1,600 kilometers, and the weight of the warhead - about 450 kilograms. But he said there are still missiles that can fly 2,500 kilometers.
Kryvolap also said that ground-based Tomahawk missiles and their corresponding launch platforms were decommissioned after the signing of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the United States withdrew from it in 2019 (during Donald Trump's first term), many launch sites were restored. Kryvolap believes that Ukraine now needs ground-based Tomahawk missiles.
A feature of the Tomahawk is that it flies at a very low altitude, adapting to the terrain and avoiding obstacles. "It makes the most of the existing technical developments for scanning the terrain from the cruise missile," Krivolap points out, adding that the "Tomahawk" is the conventional, i.e. non-nuclear cruise missile in the West with the longest range.
Why would the "Tomahawk" be a problem for the Kremlin?
The "Tomahawk" missile was introduced into service in 1983 and has since been used repeatedly by the United States in military operations - for example, in Iraq, Libya and Syria. In 2017 and 2018, the "Tomahawk" was used in Syria Russian air defense targets there have been successfully hit, says Andriy Kovalenko of the Center for Combating Disinformation at the Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
“Tomahawk“ flies with complex navigation, thanks to which, after being detected by radars, the enemy has only a few seconds to react. To effectively intercept this missile, a dense network of low-level radars, immediate transmission of data about the target, and synchronously operating air defenses are needed. “Russian systems then protected Syrian targets, but without success. “Tomahawk“ is especially effective when fired in groups. The Russian systems “S-400“ or “Pantsir“ are weak against the “Tomahawk“, Kovalenko claims.
The experience with the “Tomahawk“ missile and its long-range characteristics would allow the Ukrainian armed forces to hit important military targets in Russia at a distance of up to 1,600 kilometers, Oleg Katkov, a weapons expert and editor-in-chief of the military portal Defense Express, told DW. “They can destroy entire Russian weapons factories”, he emphasizes.
The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) also believes that with Tomahawk missiles, Ukraine could cause significant damage or even destroy important military facilities on Russian territory, such as the drone factory in Elabuga in the Republic of Tatarstan or the Engels-2 air base in the Saratov region. From there, Russia launches strategic bombers, which in massive combined attacks on Ukraine launch cruise missiles from the air. ISW believes that with Tomahawk missiles, the Ukrainians will be able to reach hundreds of military targets in Russia - between 1,600 and 2,000 objects.
How many Tomahawk missiles can Ukraine receive?
However, Ukrainian experts fear that Ukraine will not receive enough such missiles to hit all these targets. Ultimately, it is not known how many such missiles the US has and how much one missile will cost Ukraine. Let us also recall that currently Washington sells weapons to Ukraine only through the PURL mechanism - European NATO countries and Canada buy American weapons and provide them to Ukraine. Tomahawk missiles are expensive, and the price varies depending on which country buys these weapons from the US. According to Oleg Katkov, the Netherlands pays $12.5 million for one Tomahawk missile, and Japan - $4.25 million. The huge difference is due to the fact that Washington considers Japan's neighbor China to be the biggest threat to US national security.
„If we take the average financial package within the PURL framework of half a billion dollars and the price for Japan, we get about 117 missiles. Accordingly, in the option with the Netherlands, the number drops significantly. In recent years, about 50 Tomahawk missiles of all modifications have been produced annually. This is not much and means that Ukraine will definitely not have thousands of Tomahawk missiles - maybe not even hundreds, says Katkov. The number of missiles - if Ukraine receives them at all - will depend on how Kiev uses them and whether the Tomahawks will be able to change the course of the war.
Tomahawk deliveries as a signal to Putin
If the US president decides to deliver these weapons to Ukraine, this would be a direct consequence of Putin's refusal to accept any peace proposal from Trump. "The Kremlin's hysteria over the possible delivery of these weapons to Ukraine suggests that this could influence Putin's policy," John E. Herbst, senior director of the Eurasian Center at the Atlantic Council and former US ambassador to Ukraine, told DW in an interview. He believes that the delivery of the "Tomahawk" is unlikely to decide the outcome of the war. However, it could send a signal to Putin and encourage the Kremlin to negotiate peace.
Authors: Liliya Rzheutskaya | Roman Goncharenko