Trump ‘not really’ considering transfer of Tomahawks to Ukraine

US President Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that Washington will not provide Ukraine with the long-range Tomahawk missiles it has been seeking for months — but conceded he could still reverse his decision in the future.

When asked by reporters on Air Force One if his administration was still considering supplying the US-made missiles to Kyiv, he replied “No, not really”, before adding: “It could happen, I could change, but at this moment I’m not”.

Trump’s remarks were his most definitive rejection yet of Kyiv’s requests for Tomahawks, whose range of over 2,400 kilometres would enable it to strike targets deep inside Russian territory — putting almost 2,000 Russian military facilities within the reach of Ukrainian forces.

In early October, the US president suggested he was close to approving the transfer before striking a more cautious tone, insisting that the US needed the missiles itself and that he wanted to focus on negotiating a diplomatic settlement to end the war.

On Friday, CNN reported that the Pentagon had given its approval for the missiles to be sent to Ukraine after concluding that the transfer would not have a negative effect on US stockpiles, and that the final decision lay with Trump.

For its part, the Kremlin has repeatedly said it would consider the transfer of Tomahawks to Kyiv a new stage of escalation in its war in Ukraine, with Vladimir Putin threatening a “very serious, if not overwhelming” response from Moscow should the missiles be used to strike Russian territory.

Amid continued uncertainty over Trump’s Tomahawks decision, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that Kyiv was working to expand production of its own long-range missiles to continue its strikes on Russian energy facilities.

“Long-range capability is a component of independence and will be the greatest component for ensuring peace”, Zelensky said. “All deep-strike goals must be fully locked in by the year’s end”.

Despite publicly expressing his frustration with Russia’s continued attacks on Ukrainian cities and Putin’s unwillingness to negotiate on the war, Trump said on Sunday that there was “no final straw” that would convince him that the Russian leader was not prepared to end his invasion of Ukraine.

“Sometimes you have to let it fight it out. They're fighting, and they're fighting it out”, Trump said. “It’s been a tough war for Putin. He's lost a lot of soldiers. Maybe a million. That's a lot of soldiers. And it's been tough for Ukraine. It's been tough on both. Sometimes you have to let it, you know, just get fought out”.