Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a meeting with European leaders at the White House in August. Photo / Tom Brenner, for The Washington Post
The Trump Administration is raising pressure on Moscow to come back to the negotiating table to resolve the war in Ukraine, with United States Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warning the Kremlin of possible “costs” at a Nato meeting today.
The threats ramped up ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington on Saturday NZT.
Zelenskyy hopes to persuade US President Donald Trump to raise the stakes by supplying US-made long-range missiles for deeper strikes into Russia.
“If there is no path to peace in the short term, then the US, along with our allies, will take the steps necessary to impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression,” Hegseth told his European counterparts today at a meeting intended to drum up more military supplies for Kyiv.
“If we must take this step, the US war department stands ready to do our part in ways that only the US can do.”
As Trump signals he will focus again on the war in Ukraine, he has said he is considering providing Kyiv with longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles as a way of pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine has already wreaked havoc on Russia’s oil installations with its long-range drones, but the missiles could inflict greater damage.
“Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so. I think I might speak to Russia about that,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday. “I might say, ‘Look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send Tomahawks.’”
The next day, while spearheading the ceasefire deal for the Gaza Strip, Trump said he would turn to reaching a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, nearly four years since Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Russian officials have said Tomahawk deliveries would be an escalation.
Ukraine’s staunchest European backers prodded Washington to supply the weapons as Hegseth arrived at Nato headquarters today.
Defence ministers also deliberated on ways to tackle breaches of Nato airspace after a spate of drone incursions reported in European skies last month.
“If there’s anything we’ve learned under President Trump, it is the active application of peace through strength,” Hegseth told reporters. “That’s the focus of our efforts” in Ukraine, he said. “We’re going to be strong to bring that about.”
Hegseth pressed other Nato countries to put up more cash under a deal in which the Europeans fund American weapons sent to Ukraine, and to follow through on pledges to dramatically increase defence spending.
“Firepower. That’s what is coming. We expect and it is coming from Nato,” he added.
He said the “most effective deterrence” to Russia is a “capable, European-led Nato” and a “combat-credible Ukrainian military”.
The visit marked a shift from Hegseth’s first trip to Nato this year, when he rattled European officials by declaring that Kyiv’s goals were unrealistic and that the US, Europe’s most powerful ally, would look away from the continent.
After generally cordial relations with the Russian President, including a friendly summit in Alaska, Trump has expressed increasing frustration with Putin and Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine.
In recent weeks, with temperatures dropping across Ukraine, intensifying strikes on the energy system have caused temporary blackouts and water cutoffs as its forces grind forward in eastern Ukraine.
The Trump Administration recently decided to provide Ukraine with US intelligence for longer-range strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Tomahawks have a reach of up to 2500km, depending on the variant, compared with about 305km for ATACMS missiles, which the Biden Administration supplied to Kyiv.
That range could give Ukrainian forces more capability to hit targets deep inside Russia, including in Moscow.
Some European diplomats say the Trump Administration’s turnaround on Ukraine has been building for months, but they remain careful not to pre-empt a decision from a president who has flip-flopped on the conflict before.
Last month, after Trump embraced Kyiv’s ambitions to retake all Russian-occupied territory, a White House official described his apparent ire towards Moscow as “a negotiating tactic” to pressure the Kremlin.
The US ambassador to Nato, Matthew Whitaker, suggested the prospect of Tomahawks could help bring “the Russians to the table to negotiate a peace deal”.
“President Trump, certainly, is the final word on this,” Whitaker said ahead of Hegseth’s visit. “The possibility of deep strikes could change Putin’s calculation, as well, and would put a lot of things at risk, including significant energy infrastructure inside Russia.”
If Trump gives a green light, Tomahawks could be delivered through the deal Trump recently made with the Europeans, in which they would pay to get US weapons funnelled to Ukraine, a senior Nato diplomat said. He said it was not clear which countries might foot the bill in this case.
Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte said yesterday that European capitals have committed US$2 billion for US weapons for Kyiv so far and that “more than half of Nato countries have now signed up” for the arrangement.
He told reporters he was “very happy” about plans for Trump and Zelenskyy to meet this week, and that the two “are working closely together”.
Zelenskyy has long appealed for longer-range capabilities from his Western partners to strike across the Russian border.
The appeals for more hawkish support received the backing of allies such as the Baltic states and Britain, but they have also stirred concerns of escalation and embroiling Nato further in the war. Germany has shied away from promising its longer-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s team understands that there is serious US resistance to handing over Tomahawks and that the Trump Administration would supply them only if it sees a “total dead end” in talks with Moscow, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
Putin could still make overtures to avert such a decision, but Kyiv will try to make its case this week to get the missiles, the person said.
A senior Nato official said the impact of Tomahawks on the battlefield “would depend on how many and what you do with them, but in general, they would be a complement to the things that Ukraine is already using for long-range strikes”, including with its attack drones.
At the White House on Saturday, Zelenskyy also plans to request more air defences to counter Russian attacks. He said he and Trump held two weekend phone calls and broached the possibility of Tomahawk deliveries.
Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said the upcoming meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump could be a “pivotal moment,” as the US President “now has a window of opportunity and the time to seriously deal with the issue of Ukraine”.
He said Putin would engage in negotiations “when there’s serious pressure, if Ukraine gets such weapons like Tomahawks - and not only Tomahawks - with which we can destroy military objects deep into the territory of Russia”.
Russian officials have warned of dire consequences if Washington dispatches such weapons to Kyiv, including a direct conflict between Russia and Nato - a threat that Moscow has issued during previous debates on US arms deliveries.
“The supply of these missiles could end badly for everyone. First and foremost for Trump,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov then clarified in a briefing that Medvedev meant US troops would be directly involved because “handling such complex missiles will, one way or another, require the participation of American specialists”. Peskov also said reports about the possible transfer of Tomahawks should be analysed only after “the outcome of the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting”.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, said deploying Tomahawks would escalate the conflict in Ukraine “to the brink of nuclear war”.
“Donald Trump probably understands this better than anyone else, which is why he is in no hurry to hand over these deadly weapons and allow strikes deep inside Russia, as President Zelenskyy hopes,” he said.
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