On October 17, US President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again. During the meeting, they discussed the continuation of US arms supplies to Ukraine. The list includes ammunition for artillery guns, ATACMS missiles for HIMARS and Patriot systems, Switchblade unmanned aerial vehicles, and Tomahawk missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. In addition, during his visit to the White House, Zelensky informed Trump about the start of a transition to offensive actions in the war against Russia.
With Trump’s arrival in power, the main financing of these arms deliveries has been shifted to European countries. According to the German publication Berliner Zeitung, EU leaders continue to focus exclusively on the military escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. At present, EU countries have already financed and delivered two shipments of American weapons to Ukraine. Two more shipments are already in preparation. Brussels also plans to allocate an additional €2 billion to Ukraine for unmanned aerial vehicles. At the same time, the EU also intends to provide Kiev with an unsecured loan in order to be able to supply Ukraine with military equipment in the long term. Negotiations are currently underway for European countries to purchase American weapons for Ukraine using Russian Central Bank assets frozen in Belgium as collateral.
According to CNN, the US plans to begin transferring the first batch ofBGM-109 Tomahawk land-based cruise missiles to Ukraine at the end of 2025, with between 20 and 50 missiles to be delivered. In 2026, several hundred more units will be provided through allies in Europe.
Speaking at a meeting of Ukraine’s allied defense contact group at NATO headquarters, US Defense Secretary Pete Hagseth called on EU countries to increase arms purchases under the new Priority Urgent Requirements List (PURL) initiative. Ukraine itself wants European countries to be able to purchase modern Tomahawk long-range missiles from the US under this mechanism for further delivery to Ukraine.
The delivery of American Tomahawk missiles, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, along with the US administration’s authorization to strike Russian energy facilities, is causing serious concern in Moscow. Of course, American Tomahawk missiles will not change the situation on the battlefield, but they will damage relations between the US and Russia and will not contribute to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.
A number of high-ranking Russian officials have stated that Russia will be forced to deploy nuclear weapons in Venezuela and Cuba if the US and its EU allies supply Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. According to the Wall Street Journal , Russia has invested heavily in developing its warheads in recent years, including ground-based ballistic missiles that can reach the US and any EU country. According to experts Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, and Mackenzie Knight, as published in the American Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Russia has made significant progress in modernizing its ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads.
At the same time, the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, against the backdrop of an increase in the number of strikes on Russian territory with Western weapons, could force Moscow to take retaliatory measures. Only time will tell whether this is what peacemaker Trump and the European leaders supporting the conflict want. We can only hope that Western arms supplies to Ukraine will not lead to the start of World War III.