The American Tomahawk missiles have become the latest piece of military equipment that Ukraine and its European allies want so that Kiev can confront a Russia that seems to have lost all possibility of victory, unless it manages to keep the war going until the governments of several European countries change.
On Friday, it was reported that the Pentagon had given the green light to provide Tomahawk missiles to the Zelensky government after evaluating that it would not negatively impact US reserves, leaving the final political decision in the hands of President Donald Trump, according to three US and European officials familiar with the matter who spoke to CNN. For now, the president has settled the matter by saying in recent hours that the shipment is something that "is not being considered" -"it would represent an escalation," he argues.
In any case, the Tomahawks would not be a master key for Ukraine to militarily overcome Moscow. This is not only due to political will but also due to technical limitations. It would take Kiev, hopefully, a year from the moment the United States decided to deliver those projectiles until they were ready to launch them.
On the other hand, the European Taurus missiles, although they have a shorter range, could be operational more quickly. But German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who just ten months ago was in Kiev promising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he would give them Taurus "if we win the elections," does not want to hear about it now. Only two European countries have the Taurus. One is Germany, which has 600 units. The other is Spain, which has 43. The Spanish government has never considered giving these weapons to the Ukrainians, and given the composition of the Spanish government, it seems unlikely to happen. The missiles were manufactured by a joint venture formed by the German division of the Anglo-German-French consortium MBDA and the Swedish company Saab Bofors.
The main problem with the Tomahawks is Ukraine's difficulty in launching them. Since the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 1991, until 2024, these missiles were not launched from land.
Thus, the Tomahawks spent almost 33 years deployed on US ships - surface and submarines - which have fired over 2,000 missile units against eleven countries. Iraq, with 1,618, is the country against which this weapon, which entered service in 1983 to counter the Soviet Union, has been launched the most.
But in 2019, Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the INF, which opened the door for the missiles to be launched from land again. Thus, in 2024, the Typhon batteries of the US Army began to be deployed, each with four launchers capable of firing four Tomahawks modified for land use.
In principle, this could open the door to the delivery of Tomahawks to Kiev. But things are not so clear.
As of today, there are only two active Typhon batteries. One is in the Philippines. The other is ready to be deployed in the Pacific, and this year it was on maneuvers in Japan. The Department of Defense - under both Biden and Trump - has been very reluctant to give new weapons systems to Ukraine.
Thus, part of the famous ATACMS missiles, which Washington has been delivering to Kiev bit by bit for a year, have either passed - or are about to pass - their expiration date. The Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, with which the Ukrainians halted the Russian invasion in 2022, were modified before being sent to Kiev. The Americans removed a microchip they did not want to fall into Russian hands - which, undoubtedly, would send it to China - before putting them on the planes heading to Ukraine.
This makes it very unlikely that Washington would want to give a new and sophisticated system like the Typhon to the Ukrainians. Even more so when the system is designed to be used against China, which for the United States is by far the number one defense priority. The possibility of developing a simplified Typhon for Ukraine seems to be ruled out. And, in any case, this would not eliminate the need to transform the Tomahawks transferred to Kiev.
All this is without considering the technical complexity of the Tomahawks. Even if Washington were to send the oldest versions of the missile, it is a small technological masterpiece. The current Tomahawks are mainly guided by GPS, which implies that if Ukraine uses them against Russia, some country - presumably the United States - is allowing its satellites to provide data to the Ukrainians to designate their targets within Russia.
This has been happening for the past two years, as Ukraine occasionally uses HIMARS and ATACMS to attack Russian border regions. But hitting Belgorod, 40 kilometers from the border, is one thing, and hitting a base or a refinery 1,500 kilometers inside Russia with a missile carrying a 400-kilogram warhead is quite another.
The Tomahawks have a complementary guidance system that in the older units is the main one, called TERCOM, which was not designed by any company but by Johns Hopkins University in the seventies.
The TERCOM (which stands for Terrain Contour Matching) makes the missile compare the electronic map it has of the regions it must fly over with what it is actually flying over. Thus, the projectile "knows" where it should go, allowing it to trace unpredictable routes that make it difficult to shoot down, even for a supposedly sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft defense. The data to feed the TERCOM is obtained by radar, satellite, and spy planes.
This is how these missiles can fly skimming the sea or, if flying over land, at a height of between 30 and 50 meters, for 1,600 kilometers - almost as far as from Madrid to Berlin - to hit the target within a 7-meter and ten-centimeter margin of error in 50% of cases (however, if the GPS is wrong, the Tomahawk can crash hundreds of kilometers away from its target, as has happened on several occasions).
All these missile adaptation problems, manufacturing a launch system, and the complexity of handling the system are considerable. The United States also fears that the technology of the Tomahawks and Typhons could fall into Russian hands. Donald Trump himself said on October 12 that training Ukrainians to use the missile would take between six and 12 months. Trump, whose virtues do not include trusting anyone, ended up saying that "the only way a Tomahawk will be fired is if we fire it, and we are not going to do it."
The use of the German Taurus is a slightly less complicated case, but still difficult. It is a missile designed to 'blast' protected targets, such as bunkers or large infrastructure, so it can be very effective for the Ukrainians and, unlike the Tomahawk, it is designed to be launched from combat aircraft.
Furthermore, it has a clear advantage over the Tomahawk: it is designed to be launched from combat aircraft. The problem is that as of today, Ukraine does not have any of the models that can carry the missile. Adapting the Taurus to Ukraine's F-16s would take months and, moreover, there is an element of uncertainty because the projectile's software (European) would have to be integrated with that of the aircraft (American), and it is not clear that, in a moment of huge transatlantic suspicions, Berlin and Washington are very willing to share each other's secrets of both types of weapons.
The European missile is smaller, has a range of only a third of the American one, and has never been tested in combat. But its radar 'undetectability' is very high, both due to its design and the material it is covered with.
All of this would make it ideal for Ukraine. But here again comes its guidance and target detection system, which is extremely sophisticated. The Taurus has one of the most advanced guidance systems of any modern cruise missile, combining GPS, terrain tracking, and optical image correlation to achieve high precision even in environments with strong electronic interference.
The Taurus employs one of the most advanced guidance systems of any modern cruise missile, combining GPS, terrain-following, and optical image correlation to achieve high precision even in environments with strong electronic interference.
Its design philosophy emphasizes autonomy and independence from GPS. This makes it difficult to use without training, which according to MBDA, can last a year or more. Finally, there is doubt whether Germany will allow Ukrainians access to the secrets of this technological gem and risk Russia obtaining them.