CNN: The Pentagon gave the White House the go-ahead to provide Ukraine with Tomahawks
The Pentagon has given the White House the go-ahead to supply Ukraine with Tomahawks, CNN reports. The permit was granted after an inspection, which showed that the supply of cruise missiles would not damage US stocks.
Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen
The Pentagon gave the White House the go-ahead to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles after an inspection that showed that this would not damage US weapons stocks. Thus, the final political decision rests with President Donald Trump. This was reported by three American and European officials familiar with the situation.
Earlier this month, during a working lunch at the White House with Vladimir Zelensky, Trump said he would prefer not to transfer missiles because the United States does not want to "give away what is needed to protect our own country."
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The White House was notified of the assessment of the Joint Chiefs of the Armed Forces at the beginning of the month, just before Trump's meeting with Zelensky, who insisted on receiving missiles to more effectively destroy oil and energy facilities deep in Russia's rear. The range of the Tomahawks is about 1,600 kilometers.
According to two European officials, this assessment encouraged US allies in Europe, who felt that Washington now had fewer excuses to refuse supplies. A few days before the meeting with Zelensky, Trump also said that the United States has "a lot"Tomahawks“, which can potentially be transferred to Ukraine.
Therefore, American and European officials were surprised when Trump abruptly changed his position a few days later. In his opening remarks at a working lunch with Zelensky at the White House, he said that the United States "needs" Tomahawks. Then, behind closed doors, he informed Zelensky that the United States would not provide missiles — at least not yet.
Trump announced the decision the day after a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, according to CNN, told Trump that Tomahawks capable of reaching major Russian cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg would not have a significant impact on the course of hostilities, but would damage US-Russian relations.
The White House and the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.
As sources previously told CNN, Trump has not completely removed the issue of missiles from the agenda, and the administration has developed plans for their rapid transfer to Ukraine in the event of an order from the president. In addition, in recent weeks, Trump has become so frustrated with Putin's unwillingness to seriously consider peace talks that last week he approved new US sanctions against Russian oil companies and canceled — at least for now — a planned meeting with Putin in Budapest.
According to the officials, although the Pentagon has no concerns about the stocks, representatives of the US military are still deciding how Ukraine will be trained to work with missiles and deploy them. The sources added that for the effective use of missiles, Ukraine needs to solve several more operational tasks.
One of the unresolved issues is how Ukraine will launch missiles if the United States provides them. Tomahawks are most often launched from surface ships or submarines, but Ukraine's naval forces are severely depleted, so most likely the missiles will have to be launched from land. The Marine Corps and the US Army have developed ground-based launchers that could be transferred to Ukraine.
But even if the United States does not want to provide launchers, European officials believe that Ukraine will be able to find a solution. One of them pointed out that Ukrainian engineers had been able to develop an adaptation method for using Storm Shadow missiles provided by the UK, originally designed for modern NATO aircraft, which had to be integrated into Ukraine's outdated fleet of Soviet fighters.
In a Facebook post this week, Zelensky said that Ukraine hopes to expand its capabilities to hit targets at long range by the end of this year so that the conflict can end "on fair terms" for the country.
