Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised Wednesday that “firepower” was coming for Ukraine amid speculation that Washington could hand Kyiv long-range Tomahawk missiles to pressure Russia to end the war.
Speaking ahead of a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Hegseth said members of the alliance have stepped up their commitments to Ukraine and those commitments “will soon translate into capabilities,” partly through an initiative by which NATO countries buy U.S. weapons and supply them to Kyiv.
President Donald Trump has been considering giving Ukraine the American-made Tomahawk missiles, which could be used to strike deep into Russia — something the Kremlin said would signal a “qualitatively new stage of escalation.”
It was not clear if Tomahawks were part of the “firepower” promised by Hegseth on Wednesday.
The Kremlin has warned that Western weapons raise the risk of widening the war.
It has cast the eastward expansion of NATO, a military alliance founded after World War II to counter the then-Soviet Union, as one of the reasons for what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Trump’s “peace through strength” strategy to settle conflicts was working, Hegseth said, alluding to the president’s brokering of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
He said peace comes “not when you use strong words or wag your finger,” but “when you have strong and real capabilities that adversaries respect.”
Trump will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, where the Tomahawk missiles are likely to be discussed.
In line with the Kremlin’s rhetoric, Trump said earlier this week that providing the long-range missiles to Kyiv could be “a new step of aggression.” But he also said he might tell Russia “if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send [Ukraine] Tomahawks.”
Earlier this month, the president said he wanted to know what Ukraine planned to do with the missiles before agreeing to supply them.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has not approved or proposed any new major arms packages for Ukraine and has yet to follow through on threats to impose new sanctions on Russia.
While running for president, Trump promised to solve the war within 24 hours, but has since conceded it has proved to be a much more difficult task, turning his attention to other conflicts after monthslong negotiations with Putin yielded little in the way of progress.
After initially laying blame on Ukraine for the war and suggesting Kyiv would have to cede territory, he has since shifted his position and said Ukraine could win back all of its occupied land from Russia. In more than 3½ years of fighting, Kyiv, backed by its Western allies, has managed to reclaim chunks of its land through successful counteroffensive campaigns, but Russia still occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory.
Buoyed by his Middle East breakthroughs this week, Trump now appears to have his sights set firmly on resolving the war in Ukraine.
“Let’s focus on Russia first,” Trump said, addressing other conflicts his special envoy Steve Witkoff could tackle next during a triumphant address to the Israeli parliament on Monday. Witkoff has previously traveled to Moscow for talks with Putin.
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