October 24th, 2025
The initial attempt by U.S. President Donald Trump to satisfy the demands of former Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to receive Tomahawk-class cruise missiles from the United States, which can deliver either nuclear or non-nuclear warheads, caused an extremely negative reaction in Russia.
Initial Russian response
Featuring Russia's reaction Moscow saw four major and extremely negative consequences in this step: 1) a direct threat to the national security of the country; 2) violation of a number of Russian-American agreements on nuclear arms control; 3) further complication of Russian-American relations in general, and 4) regarded it as the final blow of political efforts aimed at achieving peace in this part of Europe, violated by the unprovoked combined aggression of Ukraine and NATO against the Russian Federation, unleashed by Kiev back in April 2014.
Kiev's demands for the transfer of the Tomahawk missile system and Washington's initial willingness to supply it to Ukraine caused extremely disturbing comments in the Russian expert community as well.
The main idea expressed in it was a warning to be prepared for the United States to unleash a nuclear war and for Russia to take preventive measures to prevent it. The task of destroying such American assets located "on distant approaches" was emphasized, and not only in relation to Ukrainian territory. It was noted that it would be advisable to withdraw the Russian proposal to mutually extend the validity of the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) after February 2026 when it expires. Attention was drawn to the fact that former Ukrainian President Zelensky is ready to plunge the whole world into a nuclear war in order to achieve his militaristic aggressive goals against Russia and Russian-speaking population.
Only after the explanations that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave to his American counterpart in a phone conversation with him on October 16th this year, Donald Trump, although publicly but only verbally, has so far refused only to provide Ukraine with such an offensive type of strategic strike weapons if they are equipped with nuclear warheads, or in the form of tactical weapons if they are fitted with conventional warheads.
The USA must have in its arsenal a sufficient number of such missiles to maintain the country's defense capability, the 47th American president explained. "The United States of America also needs Tomahawks. We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we cannot exhaust [our own arsenal]," he told reporters at the White House a few hours after a phone conversation with Vladimir Putin. Although Donald Trump subsequently denied the Wall Street Journal's publication about the possibility of supplying the Tomahawk missile systems to Ukraine, they may well be transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine after the U.S. military-industrial complex produces enough of them for its own needs and for supplies to its primary military and political allies. The Pentagon's military appropriations for fiscal year 2025 provide for the production of 32 Tomahawk missiles and 14 launchers for the Typhon missile system.
The strategic threat of using long-range missiles against Russia
The strategic threat from the use of such American cruise missiles and other long-range nuclear missiles from Ukrainian territory could well trigger a retaliatory nuclear strike from the Russian side against Ukraine. The same strike would be legitimate if such missiles were equipped with non-nuclear warheads, since it is impossible to know in advance which type of warhead – nuclear or non-nuclear – is installed on such a missile. This fact will not be able to be determined by either military-technical intelligence or human intelligence, since any non-nuclear warhead installed on these missiles can be quickly replaced with a more powerful nuclear warhead.
The strategic threat from the use of such American cruise missiles from Ukrainian territory would arise not only from the nature and high power of the nuclear or non-nuclear warheads they could deliver, but also because they could penetrate much deeper into the territory of the Russian Federation. The fact is that their maximum range reaches 2,500 km, which completely covers all European and partially Asian regions of our country if these missiles are launched from the Ukrainian territory.
The strategic threat from the use of such missiles from Ukraine would also come from the fact that only American, but not Ukrainian, military operators could serve them in full: from selecting potential targets and to determining the route of cruise missiles to such targets.The Pentagon's assurances that it will take from 6 to 8 months to train Ukrainian operators to control these missiles are not true. They will not be ready to fully target the Tomahawks at remote targets.
Why is only the ground-based method of basing such cruise missiles intended for the Armed Forces of Ukraine mentioned here? The fact is that Ukraine does not have such ships and combat aircraft that could carry such missiles on board. The conversion of Ukrainian naval and air carriers for their installation is impossible. For this reason, the new American Typhon missile system should not be confused with another Typhoon system could be used from the territory of Ukraine.
How does the Typhon missile system look like?
The named missile system as a transporter erector launcher was adopted by the U.S. Army in 2023 after two types of missiles were launched separately during flight tests: the Tomahawk missile and the SM-6 class interceptor missile. Originally named as the "Medium-range Capability System" (or shortly MCS), it was later renamed into the "Strategic Medium-range Fires System” (in the abbreviated form as SMRF). Typhon missile system batteries are regularly included into the Army's Multi-Domain Task Force” (MDTF).
Typhon missile system was developed by the Army as part of the service's Long Range Precision Fires program.
Each system contains four strike-length cells from the Mark 41 Vertical Launching System mounted in the footprint of a 40-foot (12 m) container. It also includes a vehicle with an operational center, a loading transport vehicle and a number of auxiliary support vehicles.
The first battery of the Typhon missile system was deployed outside the United States in the Philippines in April 2024. In 2026, such a system may be deployed in Germany. An exchange of views on its deployment in Japan has already begun between Washington and Tokyo.
Typhon and the New START
An attempt to deploy the Typhon missile system on the territory of Ukraine would lead to a violation of a number of Russian-American nuclear arms control treaties. In particular, its nuclear option would lead to a violation of the New START which expires on February 5, 2026, as well as the indefinite bilateral Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War. Initially announcing the possibility of transferring such a missile system to Ukraine, the American military and political leadership did not take into account the extremely dangerous negative consequences for the two aforementioned accords and the possibility of a nuclear all-out war between the two great powers.
In October this year, Donald Trump announced that the United States would comply with the quantitative limits on nuclear missile weapons set by the New START, but did not say whether the United States would provide Russia with telemetry information on the launches of its ballistic and cruise missiles. He also did not assure the Russian side whether Russian inspection teams would resume regular visits into American territory in accordance with this treaty to verify compliance with its provisions.
Moscow must make sure that the United States abandons the hostile course of the previous American administration, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in October 2025 at a webinar session called"History and Modernity of Russian Nuclear Policy and Public Diplomacy in the Nuclear Field."
Among other dangerous steps by NATO, the Deputy Minister noted the building of a global and multi-layered U.S. missile defense system and the associated "missile defense domes" of other Western countries. He listed the West's buildup of high-precision long-range capabilities to launch "preventive disarming strikes," including the advanced deployment of medium- and shorter-range nuclear-tipped missiles, as well as plans by the United States and a number of its allies to launch strike weapons into space in order to turn it into a warfighting domain.
According to Sergei Ryabkov, Russia leaves the door open for political and diplomatic solutions in the field of arms control and that the Russian initiative on the New START will be viable only if there is reciprocity from the American side, "which should not take steps that undermine the existing balance of deterrence potentials." He rightly believes that the above not only creates serious obstacles to a constructive dialogue on nuclear disarmament and arms control, but also forces other states, including Russia, to take "compensatory military-technical measures."
Russia would deliver a “very serious, if not downright staggering” response to any Ukrainian strike using any Western-made long-range missiles, President Vladimir Putin warned on October 23rd, calling pressure on Washington to supply such weapons “an attempt at escalation”.
Speaking to journalists after a meeting in Moscow, Putin cautioned that any employment of long-rangemissiles against Russian territory would provoke a powerful reaction. “This is an attempt at escalation,” he said. “But if such weapons are used to strike Russian territory, the response will be very serious, if not downright staggering”. “Let them think about that”, he firmly stressed.
