On September 28, 2025, U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg said in a Fox News interview that the Trump administration was “looking at” providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine in response to a request from President Volodymyr Zelensky, though no final decision had been made at that time.

The announced possibility of a transfer appears intended to pressure Russia toward peace talks, but no definitive policy was announced.

The Tomahawk is a subsonic, long-range cruise missile designed for precision strikes against land targets, with an operational range of roughly 1,600–2,500 kilometers.

Strategic Implications

The Tomahawk can be configured as a strategic weapon with a nuclear warhead, though it is commonly deployed in a conventional form for tactical strikes.

Tomahawks are typically launched from ships or aircraft, which program the missile before launch with target coordinates, routing, flight profile, and digital terrain maps. Strategic launch platforms also upload arming codes. The missile navigates using a combination of inertial and satellite navigation.

For security reasons, strategic launch systems are generally operated only by U.S. personnel; allied personnel typically do not receive access to these launchers.

Initially, the idea of transferring Tomahawks to Ukraine seemed unlikely because it implied not only providing missiles but also transferring launch platforms and deploying U.S. personnel on Ukrainian soil to program and fire them.

Such a deployment would risk being treated as a direct U.S. attack on Russia, with the potential to provoke rapid and dangerous escalation.

Oshkosh X-MAV & Launch options

On October 13, U.S. defense contractor Oshkosh Defense unveiled a new mobile, ground-based launcher — the X-MAV (Extreme Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle) — reportedly capable of carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Based on the timing of the announcement, some observers assume the X-MAV could serve as a land-based launch platform for Tomahawks bound for Ukraine.

The X-MAV is described as a vertical-launch system compatible with Tomahawk dimensions and interfaces and is largely payload-agnostic.

Even so, delivering X-MAV launchers to Ukraine would not resolve the core problem of who would program, arm, and fire the missiles on Ukrainian territory.

That task would still likely require U.S. personnel or access to U.S. launch codes — a scenario that would risk direct U.S. involvement and rapid escalation.

Limited Transfer

The Financial Times, quoting Stacie Pettyjohn of the Center for a New American Security, reported that the U.S. might provide Ukraine with 20–50 Tomahawk missiles — a quantity unlikely to produce decisive strategic change.

If Pettyjohn means that 20–50 Tomahawks would not trigger an immediate Russian withdrawal, she is probably correct.

Nevertheless, Tomahawk strikes against Russia are unlikely to be intended as a single decisive blow. More plausibly, they would be part of a broader strategy of calibrated escalation designed to weaken Russian defenses to the point where further measures — including greater NATO involvement — become politically and militarily conceivable.

The Tomahawk’s greater range and flexibility give it advantages over the precision munitions Ukraine has used so far, such as ATACMS, Storm Shadow, and Taurus.

Longer range enables more circuitous routing, in-flight retargeting, and loitering options, all of which reduce interception risk. Combined with U.S. space and aerial ISR for targeting and battle management, Tomahawks would stretch Russian air defenses significantly.

The U.S. appears to be pursuing a “thousand cuts” approach: incrementally degrade Russian defenses so that NATO intervention becomes a more realistic option. Russia, for its part, has calibrated its use of force to avoid erosion of its conventional deterrent against NATO.

Relentless Tomahawk strikes would almost certainly degrade Russian air power and air defenses, potentially making a NATO ground intervention more decisive — though whether that would lead to the expulsion of Russian forces is uncertain.

Russia’s Options To Mitigate Tomahawk Threat

Russia cannot allow Ukrainian Tomahawk strikes to undermine its posture and thereby invite NATO intervention. Its likely responses would aim to raise the perceived cost to the U.S. and NATO while avoiding the rapid depletion of Russia’s most potent conventional forces (for example, the Oreshnik), whose loss would weaken its conventional deterrent. Possible measures include:

1. A more aggressive ground posture along its frontiers with NATO, including steps to destabilize lines of contact that would force NATO to reposition forces and materiel outside Ukraine.

2. Activation of sleeper cells or covert operations in European countries to create political destabilization and public unease.

3. Strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure that Russia has spared to date — for example, bridges over the Dnieper and command-and-control centres in Kyiv.

4. Targeting U.S./NATO aerial and space ISR assets that provide routing and targeting data for Tomahawks.

5. Raising its nuclear alert posture to signal deterrent resolve.

6. Using non-operational ICBMs with conventional payloads to strike critical infrastructure inside Ukraine.

On the fourth point: Russia would have difficulty determining whether a Tomahawk entering its airspace had been launched from Ukrainian territory or from another NATO country.

Moscow would likely assume that missiles could have transited Ukrainian airspace from allied launch sites. Although the U.S. maintains that current Tomahawk inventories are conventionally armed (the nuclear TLAM-N variant was retired), development of a replacement SLCM-N is ongoing; Moscow would doubtless factor the nuclear risk into its calculations.

Under such uncertainty, Russia’s use of non-operational ICBMs or other dramatic countermeasures would be strategically destabilising — potentially as destabilising as the initial introduction of Tomahawks into the conflict.