‘I’m going to send them Tomahawks’ if Russia won’t end Ukraine war: Trump

Washington:  US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he may warn Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine could receive Tomahawk cruise missiles if Moscow fails to end its invasion.

Trump, who returned to the White House in January, has been weighing the possibility of supplying the long-range missiles to Kyiv through European allies. The proposal follows his meeting with Putin in Alaska in August, which did not lead to a resolution to the ongoing conflict.

“I might talk to him. I might say, ‘look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks,’” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked whether he would raise the issue with Putin directly.

The US President added that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had specifically requested Tomahawks during a phone call on Saturday in which the two leaders discussed a new weapons package for Kyiv.

“Tomahawks are a new step of aggression,” Trump said. “Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so.”

The Kremlin has previously warned that any move to supply Tomahawks to Ukraine would be seen as a significant escalation, potentially damaging already fraught relations between Moscow and Washington.

Trump, who is currently en route to Israel and Egypt in a bid to broker a long-term peace agreement in Gaza, has often described the war in Ukraine—now in its fourth year—as the most difficult of the global conflicts he has dealt with since retaking office.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of pro-Western Ukraine in February 2022.