The Pentagon agrees to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles and leaves the final decision to Trump.
Arab Defense Website – October 31, 2025: The Pentagon gave the White House the green light to supply Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles, after an evaluation concluded that this would not negatively affect American stockpiles, leaving the final political decision in the hands of President Donald Trump. According To three American and European officials familiar with the matter.
Trump said earlier this month, during a working lunch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, that he would prefer not to supply Ukraine with these missiles because the United States “does not want to give up weapons it needs to protect its territory.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff informed the White House of its assessment before Trump’s meeting with Zelensky, who has been pushing for months to obtain Tomahawk missiles for use in targeting oil and energy facilities deep inside Russia. The range of these missiles reaches about 1,000 miles (about 1,600 kilometers).
The assessment raised the relief of European allies, who saw that Washington no longer had justification to refuse to supply Kiev with missiles, according to two European officials. Trump had said days before his meeting with Zelensky that the United States had “a lot of Tomahawk missiles” that it could theoretically give to Ukraine.
But American and European officials were surprised when Trump suddenly changed his position days later. He said at the beginning of the lunch with Zelensky that the United States “needs Tomahawk missiles,” and then informed Zelensky behind closed doors that Washington would not provide them at this time.
Trump’s decision came after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who warned him that supplying Ukraine with these missiles — capable of reaching major Russian cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg — would not change the situation on the ground much, but would harm US-Russian relations, according to a CNN report.
The White House and Pentagon declined to comment on the report.
However, sources told CNN that Trump had not completely taken the option off the table, and that the administration had prepared plans to supply Ukraine with missiles immediately if Trump issued the order. The sources also reported that the US President grew dissatisfied with Putin’s refusal to enter into serious peace negotiations, which prompted him to impose new sanctions on Russian oil companies last week, and postpone a scheduled meeting with Putin in Budapest to discuss the Ukrainian file.
While the Pentagon is not concerned about the stockpiles, the US Department of Defense is still looking into how to train Ukrainian forces to operate and deploy these missiles, as there are operational challenges that must be resolved before Kiev can use them effectively.
Among the outstanding issues is how Ukraine will launch the missiles if they are delivered. Tomahawk missiles are usually launched from warships or submarines, while the Ukrainian Navy has become almost paralyzed, which means that launches must be carried out from land-based platforms. Sources indicate that the Marine Corps and the US Army have developed land-based launchers that can be supplied to Ukraine.
But even if Washington refuses to provide the platforms to Kiev, European officials believe that Ukrainian engineers will be able to find an alternative solution, noting that Ukraine has previously succeeded in adapting British “Storm Shadow” missiles – originally designed for modern Western aircraft – to its fleet of old Soviet fighter aircraft.
In a post on the “X” platform this week, Zelensky said that his country hopes to expand its long-range strike capabilities by the end of this year, so that it can end the war “on fair terms” for Ukraine.
He wrote:
“Global sanctions and our precision strike capability complement each other to end this war on terms that are fair to Ukraine. All deep strike objectives must be achieved by the end of the year, including expanding our long-range capabilities.”
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