The delivery of Tomahawk missiles will significantly expand Ukraine's strike capabilities, allowing it to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. Potential targets include military bases, logistics hubs, airfields and command centers that are currently inaccessible to Ukrainian forces. The Tomahawk is a long-range cruise missile that flies at subsonic speeds with precision guidance, typically launched from ships and submarines.
The MK-41 launcher is only suitable for naval vessels, a land-based launch platform called Typhoon will be created only in 2023 and probably only in two units. Before lunch with Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky met with representatives of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, which produces the Tomahawk.
"We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume negotiations as soon as it hears about Tomahawk missiles," Zelensky said the other day.
The manufacturer Raytheon supplies land- and sea-launched variants. The Tomahawk can reach targets at a distance of between 1,250 and 2,500 kilometers, depending on the modification, even through heavily defended airspace. Each missile is about 6 meters long, has a wingspan of about 2.60 and weighs one and a half tons.
It can carry a nuclear or conventional warhead. According to analysts, Putin's moves are aimed at thwarting or delaying the transfer of the Tomahawk to Ukraine.
"This seems to be a problem that Russia is taking seriously. So it makes sense that this would be the right move for the United States. If Russia sees something as a threat, something significant and capable of impacting its ability to wage war, then that is a strong argument for providing such support to Kiev," said Keir Giles, a consultant at Chatham House.
The Pentagon's budget for next year calls for the purchase of 57 missiles at an average cost of $1.3 million each. The most advanced version is Block 4, which can fly for hours and allows data exchange to receive updated mission information and course corrections. Block Three already has more sophisticated electronics for coordinated attacks.
Although Russia could probably shoot down some Tomahawks, others would penetrate its air defenses, prompting the Kremlin to warn of dire consequences if America delivered the missiles to Ukraine, writes The National Interest .
According to the publication, the Tomahawks can – and will – be intercepted by Russian air defenses. This is not just speculation. It was convincingly proven more than 25 years ago – and the Kremlin’s air defenses have only improved in that time.
Tomahawks have a history of being detected and shot down by Russian aircraft. Even the relatively weak Serbian army shot down American Tomahawks from the sky in 1999, when the Clinton administration committed the US military to Operation Allied Force.
Although the exact number of Tomahawks shot down is unknown, and the U.S. military officially denies that Russian military equipment shot down Serbia's cruise missiles, we do know that some of these missiles were shot down. Independent analysis of multiple open sources and post-conflict analysis shows that a combination of radar tracking, surface-to-air missiles, guns, and electronic means made at least some interceptions by Serbia possible in 1999.
Multi-layered radar-tracked air defense systems, such as the S-125 Neva/Pechora, 2K12 Kub, and obsolete systems, such as the S-75/SA-2 air defense systems, when properly guided by radar, can engage low-altitude targets under certain conditions.
Cruise missiles flying low above the terrain can be difficult to detect at long ranges, but with competent radar operators, overlapping sensor coverage, and persistence, early detection is possible. In some cases, electronic warfare and jamming—spoofing—of guidance signals can also cause cruise missiles to deviate or fail to find their targets. During the 1999 conflict, Serbian forces used electronic warfare (EW) measures to complicate NATO operations.
How much this affected the Tomahawks is debatable. Some Tomahawks are designed with inertial navigation systems (INS), which reduce, but do not eliminate, their vulnerability to jamming. But if the Serbs were able to do it with relatively old Soviet technology, there should be no doubt that the Russians could shoot down similar cruise missiles today.
Moreover, there were unconfirmed reports that after President Trump’s Tomahawk cruise missile strikes on Syria in 2017, the Russian military had recovered fragments of one of the cruise missiles and may have acquired a U.S. Intelligent Reconnaissance System (INS) system. Although damaged, it is possible that experienced Russian engineers could analyze this system to create a countermeasure against it.
Russia’s air defenses are quite comprehensive. The Kremlin has multi-layered sensors and multiple levels of interceptors working together to detect and shoot down approaching Tomahawk missiles. The Russians can use electronic warfare (EW) techniques and so-called “soft kill” measures, which include jamming, tampering, and deception that can degrade the guidance, communications, and GPS signals used by cruise missiles or their supporting guidance networks.
Given that the only reason the Americans are even considering giving Ukraine Tomahawks is so that Ukraine can strike deep into Russia, it stands to reason that Moscow would already have some level of preparedness to defend against such attacks. After all, the Ukrainians would likely be launching their Tomahawks at large, strategically important areas of Russia. But the Russians can clearly predict where at least some of these attacks on Ukraine will be directed, and they will have reinforced key assets and dispersed forces so that a given number of successful strikes cannot destroy the command, control, or kill necessary for their defense. Moreover, Moscow has likely established a backup communications and sensor network to maintain situational awareness if the main nodes are damaged.
Although the Tomahawk is an older weapon system, it remains highly effective. Although some Tomahawks have been shot down before, there is no perfect way to ensure complete protection against the ubiquitous American cruise missiles. The missiles fly at low altitudes and use terrain cloaking techniques to reduce radar visibility and detection time by defenders. The Tomahawk's small radar cross-section and subsonic speeds give defenders little time to detect, track, make decisions, and engage. Massed salvos and distributed launches can overwhelm a limited number of interceptors. Electronic resistance also plays a key role in maintaining the lethality of the Tomahawk cruise missiles at peak performance levels.
Because American designers are familiar with Russian air defenses, they have created electronic countermeasures for these missiles. The Tomahawks use combinations of GPS and INS, as well as other anti-jamming measures, complicating the electronic warfare effects that the Russians would likely employ to defend against incoming Tomahawk cruise missiles.
That is why Moscow has made it clear that it views any decision to put Tomahawks in the hands of the Ukrainians as a real escalation by the Trump administration against Russia – one that would require immediate, real, and direct action by the Russians against NATO and American targets. Of course, Russia has drawn red lines before and refused to wage war against the West when they were crossed. But with such a daunting prospect of such a war, America and NATO should not push their luck.
The reality, however, is that the Tomahawk is not the revolutionary superweapon its supporters in Kiev and Washington believe it to be. It may have been in 2014, when the Russians invaded Crimea. But since then, the Russian armed forces have had ample time to learn and adapt to the threat of American cruise missiles.
Moreover, Moscow’s forces are fully aware of the logistical limitations of the Americans at this most desperate moment for their defense industrial base. The Americans could never provide Ukraine with sufficient levels of weapons to be even effective – even without taking into account all the technical capabilities that Russia possesses to take down these weapons.
A better use of time for Washington would be to prepare Brussels and Kiev to make peace with Moscow. Unfortunately, such a peace agreement seems further away than ever. So Russia will simply continue to drag itself into the war in Ukraine – and slowly but surely, win.
