Washington is “looking” at selling the missiles to other NATO nations that would hand them over to Kiev, the vice president has said
Washington is considering making long-range Tomahawk missiles available for Kiev, Vice President J.D. Vance has told Fox News. The White House is “looking at” the issue, he said on Sunday.
Earlier, several Western news media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and The Telegraph, reported that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky specifically requested the missiles from the US during a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York earlier this week.
According to the WSJ, Trump did not oppose the idea and was also open to lifting restrictions on Kiev’s use of US-made weapons in strikes deep into the Russian territory but made no specific commitments during the meeting. The president was previously against giving Tomahawks to Ukraine, according to Axios.
“We’re certainly looking at it,” Vance said when asked if Washington considers selling the missiles to other NATO members so that they could be handed over to Kiev. When further pressed on the issue of a potential escalation that could follow such a step, Vance said that Trump would ultimately determine Washington’s course of action.
The US president’s special envoy, Keith Kellogg, who also talked to Fox News on Sunday, said that “the decision has not been made” yet while confirming that Zelensky did ask Trump for Tomahawks. The missiles have a range of up to 2,500 kilometers and can be equipped with nuclear warheads.
Moscow has previously repeatedly warned that Western arms supplies to Kiev would not change the situation on the frontline and only risk further escalation, potentially leading to a direct conflict between Russia and NATO.
In November 2024, President Vladimir Putin warned that “the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West has assumed elements of a global nature,” and warned of a backlash if tensions escalate further.
His words came after Kiev launched several strikes using US-made ATACMS and HIMARS systems, as well as British-made Storm Shadow missiles, deep inside Russian territory after receiving a green light from its Western backers. The Kremlin then also warned that “reckless decisions” of Western nations supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles cannot be left unanswered.
