(The Lion) — President Donald Trump is using a new and lethal carrot to try to force Russia back to the negotiation table with Ukraine over ending the years-long war: Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The news comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the U.S. president prepare for a meeting in Washington, D.C., at the end of the week, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
“The main topics will be air defense and our long-range capabilities, to maintain pressure on Russia,” Zelenskyy said, according to the AP.
The U.S. has previously denied Ukraine access to the Tomahawk, its most advanced long-range missile system, out of concern it could escalate the conflict by its ability to strike deep into Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the entry of the Tomahawk will not change the strategic situation on the battlefield, but will damage the relationship between the U.S. and Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
But after the major diplomatic breakthrough in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks, Trump appears eager to cement his legacy as a peacemaker by resolving another war destabilizing Europe since 2022.
“The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, a very offensive weapon, and honestly, Russia does not need that,” Trump said, noted Fox News. “I may tell him that if the war is not settled, we may very well. We may not, but we may do it. I think it’s appropriate to bring up.”
“I want to see the war settled,” he added.
Officials familiar with the discussions told reporters the White House is weighing a limited transfer of Tomahawks to Kyiv.
It’s a move intended to compel Putin to negotiate from a position of weakness.
Analysts at ISW say the missiles’ range of roughly 2500 km (1500 miles) would threaten critical Russian infrastructure far behind the front line.
A map by ISW shows all of Russia’s military assets in Europe would be at risk, with Tomahawks able to strike as far as northern Asia’s Yekaterinburg, on the cusp of Siberia.
The new math could shift Moscow’s cost-benefit calculation for continuing the war.
The Tomahawk is a precision-guided weapon used in every U.S. conflict since 1991. It has earned a reputation for accuracy, reliability and strategic flexibility, used often to send messages about U.S. resolve.
One analyst called it the U.S. military’s “wonder weapon” for its ability to strike command centers and communications without risking pilots or land deployments, according to 19FortyFive.com.
If approved for transfer to Ukraine, even a small shipment could alter perceptions of American determination to defeat Russia and strengthen the U.S. hand at any prospective peace conference.
Trump has framed the idea as an incentive for Moscow to end hostilities rather than an invitation to widen them.
The strategy has been described as “coercive diplomacy,” matching diplomatic overtures with credible military options to push adversaries toward settlement.
“I believe Trump is leveraging his recent actions in Gaza to aggressively reinvigorate a ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Russia,” Glen Howard, the President of the U.S.-based think-tank Saratoga Foundation, told the Kyiv Post.
The same type of “coercive diplomacy” helped mark a breakthrough in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas when Israel conducted an airstrike on Hamas operations in Qatar, reported The Lion.
Predictably, the Kremlin reacted with incendiary rhetoric, denouncing the potential deployment of new missiles.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally, warned any long-range missile deliveries could end badly for all involved, including Trump.
“One can only hope that this is another empty threat caused by protracted negotiations,” Medvedev said, according to Izvestia, the semi-official government newspaper in Russia.
The threats are a repeat of Moscow’s pattern of talking-up retaliation whenever the U.S. expands Ukraine’s arsenal.
Western observers noted similar warnings preceded deliveries of HIMARS systems and long-range drones – capabilities that ultimately shifted battlefield momentum without triggering a direct NATO-Russia confrontation.
Foreign Policy reported as many as 200 missiles could be transferred to Ukraine without endangering U.S. defense needs. But more than 200 would be difficult, because U.S. supply is running low.
For Kyiv, the calculus of the Tomahawk is straightforward.
It gives the beleaguered country long-range strike options especially for attacking Russia’s oil field operations, which could translate into a negotiated victory, Foreign Policy said.
Still, escalation risks are real and nuclear, which means the U.S. should tread carefully.
Moscow’s nuclear doctrine explicitly reserves the right to respond to territorial strikes threatening the Putin regime’s stability.
Multiple media reports have Putin and Medvedev warning the use of Tomahawks will introduce uncertainty regardless of whether the missiles carry nuclear payloads.
While the Tomahawks previously carried nuclear payloads, those versions were discontinued through negotiations with Russia in the 1980s, 19FortyFive reported.
But analysts warn the Tomahawks could blur lines between defensive aid and offensive intervention. U.S. experts, for example, will likely be involved in the process of selecting targets and launching the missiles.
Yet Trump’s Tomahawk plan counters with deterrence working both ways.
A credible U.S. commitment to defeating Russia may convince Putin he cannot win and must instead negotiate.
Trump also might be convinced that victory over Russia is plausible.
Some have warned Putin publicly that Trump’s “Art of the Deal” flexibility – recently on display in his take-it-or-leave-it negotiating stance with Hamas and Israel, forcing both to make an agreement, means as much as Trump wants peace, he might accept war too.
“Trump did not say that if Putin rejects peace he will ‘walk away’ [from Ukraine],” warned the American Enterprise Institute’s Marc Thiessen in May. “He said if Ukraine says yes and Putin says no [to peace] he will back Ukraine – arming Kyiv like never before and placing crushing secondary tariffs on Russian oil.”
