Trump denies allowing Ukraine to launch long-range strikes into Russia
US President Donald Trump has rejected claims by the Wall Street Journal that his administration has allowed Ukraine to launch Western-supplied weapons deep into Russian territory.
The WSJ reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US officials, that the Trump administration “lifted a key restriction” on Kiev’s use of long-range munitions provided by Western European countries for strikes inside Russia.
According to the outlet, the policy shift occurred in early October and coincided with Trump’s announcement that he might deliver Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a maximum range of around 2,500km (1,550 miles), to Ukraine.
In a post on Truth Social later in the day, Trump described the Wall Street Journal story as “FAKE NEWS.”
“The US has nothing to do with those missiles, wherever they may come from, or what Ukraine does with them,” he said.
Potential deliveries of Tomahawks to Kiev topped the agenda during a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump last week.
Putin warned that the move would “severely undermine the prospects of a peaceful settlement” of the Ukraine conflict and damage relations between Moscow and Washington, as it is “impossible to use Tomahawks without the direct participation of American military personnel.”
Trump said after the call that it would not be easy to give Tomahawks to Kiev as the US needs them for its own protection.
On Wednesday, the US president stated that Americans will not be training Ukrainians on the use of Tomahawks. It takes “a minimum of six months, usually a year, to learn how to use them. They are highly complex. So the only way a Tomahawk is going to be shot is if we shot it, and we are not going to do that,” he said.
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky noted on Thursday that Tomahawks are possessed not only by the US, but also by Western European nations. “We are already talking to the countries that can help,” he stated.
Putin has warned that Russia would deliver a “very serious, if not downright staggering” response to any Ukrainian strike using Tomahawk missiles.
