The United States is considering providing Ukraine with a cruise missile with a maximum range of about 1,600 kilometers, which can hit the Russian capital Moscow.
According to Xinhua news agency on September 29, U.S. Vice President Wences said in an interview with Fox News on September 28, that the United States is considering providing Ukraine with a range of cruise missiles that can cover the Russian capital Moscow through NATO European member states.
At present, the continued escalation of the confrontation between Russia and NATO around the drone incidents has raised concerns about the further outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in which case the US supplies Ukraine with "tactical" cruise missiles, and the possibility of conflict expansion is dramatically increased.
Wan Qingsong, deputy dean of the Institute of Russian and Eurasian Studies at East China Normal University, told The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) that US President Trump has shifted from insisting on ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict through diplomatic channels to more radical pressure on Russia's "Plan B", but the Trump administration, which seems to have made a "180-degree U-turn, has not announced any countermeasures against Russia, nor has it promised to provide new assistance to Ukraine. The only thing it is willing to promise is to continue to sell weapons to allies.
Tomahawk missile range covers Moscow
Wans said in the interview that the U.S. government would no longer provide funds and weapons to Ukraine in the form of donations, but instead demanded that European countries directly purchase weapons equipment and take greater responsibility for their "backdoors".
On September 23, local time, Trump met with Ukrainian President Zelensky during the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. According to the US "Axios News Network", Zelensky then asked the US to provide "Tax" cruise missiles, and Trump did not object to this.
The "Taxic" missile is a popular cruise missile, used by the U.S. Army in many foreign wars or military conflicts after the end of the Cold War, and is considered one of the core weapons of the U.S. Army's "surgical" precision strike. Since the 1980s, the "Taxic" missile has developed five generations, and the U.S. Army's main equipment is the fourth and fifth generation "Taxic" missiles. The missile range is about 1,500 kilometers, can be carried by surface ships, submarines and land-based mobile launch platforms.
The new "Tax" missile upgraded the navigation and communication system, increased the data chain and partly modified the atmospheric shape, the missile has better hidden capabilities, combined combat performance further improved, some models also added the phase-controlled line end active radar, which can be used to strike surface ships, especially against aircraft carriers, bipartisan attack ships, large destroyers and other large surface battleships.
Previously, the United States only exported this long-range weapon to the United Kingdom, in recent years, the United States began to export "war ax" missiles to allies such as Japan, Australia, the Netherlands.
In addition, the United States is also preparing to deploy the Typhon medium-range missile system capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles in Europe, which can also launch Standard-6 missiles. In July this year, the United States and the United States announced that in 2026, the United States will deploy land-based medium-range missiles in Germany capable of attacking targets in the Russian hinterland, including three types of U.S. land-based medium-range weapons: "Standard-6" missiles (SM-6), "Tomahawk" cruise missiles and "Dark Eagle" hypersonic missiles.
Military expert Han Dong said, "Although Ukraine demonstrated the 'Flamingo' cruise missile with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers some time ago, compared with the 'Tomahawk' missile, the 'Flamingo' is a very elementary cruise missile with stealth performance, penetration capability and strike accuracy cannot be compared with the 'Tomahawk' missile."
"The 'Tomahawk' missile adopts a complex composite guidance method of inertial navigation + satellite navigation + terrain matching guidance. It can fly at ultra-low altitude and avoid the opponent's air defense system. Its range also covers Moscow. For Russia, the threat level is far greater than that of the 'Flamingo'." Bird 'is bigger. "Han Dong said.
It is worth mentioning that a few days after the United States considered providing Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Zelensky threatened to strike the Kremlin. On September 26, Agence France-Presse reported that Zelensky recently threatened that if Russia did not stop attacking Ukraine, senior Russian officials should check where the bomb shelters near the Kremlin were located. Russian Presidential Press Secretary and Kremlin spokesman Peskov responded to this on the 26th local time, criticizing Zelensky's threat as "very irresponsible".
According to a report by Xinhua News Agency on August 21, Zelensky said that Ukraine has successfully test-fired the "Flamingo" long-range missile, which has a flight distance of more than 3,000 kilometers and is "the most successful missile currently owned by Ukraine."
Previously, the U.S. had supplied Ukraine with long-range weapons, called "Army Tactical Missiles" (ATACMS) with a range of approximately 300 kilometers, and it was not allowed to use them to strike Russian targets.
The US "Wall Street Journal" website reported on August 23 that for several months, the US Department of Defense has been preventing Ukraine from using long-range missiles to attack targets in Russia. Several anonymous U.S. government officials revealed that during this period, Ukraine tried to use ATACMS to attack targets in Russia at least once, but the U.S. refused.
"Trying to shift the responsibility of the conflict to the EU and NATO"?
The recent "reversal" of Trump's position on the Russian-Ukrainian issue has also sparked concern and discussion on the course of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Trump held a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky in New York on September 23. He wrote on social media that Ukraine, with the support of the EU and NATO, is expected to "win back all of Ukraine and restore its status", and that the United States will continue to supply weapons to NATO, "let NATO use it".
In a 28-day interview, Wance attributed Trump’s change in attitude to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict’s massive casualties and impact on Russia’s economy, and called on Russia to “accept reality... sit down at the negotiating table to seriously discuss peace.”Wans said Russia has refused to hold bilateral talks with Ukraine in recent weeks and has also refused any trilateral talks.
The U.S. Wall Street Journal pointed out that there has been no substantial progress in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict negotiations that frustrated Trump, and his shift in stance was mainly to force Russia back to the negotiating table, rather than help Ukraine reverse the situation on the battlefield. The British Economist weekly analysis said that Trump specifically stressed "EU and NATO support" was an attempt to transfer the responsibility for the conflict to the EU and NATO.
“The message Trump wants to convey is that if Ukraine and Europe want to ‘defeat’ Russia, then the amount of weapons the United States will supply to Ukraine will depend entirely on the amount of weapons the European countries are willing to buy,” Vanson said.
According to TASS news agency, on 28 December, Russian President Peskov said that Russian President Putin was willing to meet with U.S. President Trump in Moscow, and the decision-making power was on the U.S. side. Peskov said that Putin's invitation to Trump remained valid, Putin was prepared and willing to meet with Trump in Moscow, all depends on Trump's decision.
On the battlefield, Russia's actions to attack each other's domestic infrastructure and military targets continued to escalate.According to Central Television news reports, the Ministry of Defense of Russia issued a notice on the 28th that from late night to the early morning of the 27th, the Russian army used high-precision long-range airbase and sea-based weapons and attack drones to carry out massive strikes on Ukrainian military industrial enterprises and military airport infrastructure.
Zelensky said in a social media post on the 28th that the Russian military used 500 drones and more than 40 missiles to carry out more than 12 hours of air strikes on Ukraine, which have now killed four people and wounded at least 40 others.
Russian state governor Vorobjov said on social media that the state was attacked by a drone from late night on 28th to early morning on 29th, killing two people.The Russian Defense Ministry on 29th that the Russian air defense system last night intercepted and destroyed 84 Ukrainian military drones over eight Russian regions.
The use of drones and missiles by the two sides to attack each other's domestic targets also caused the escalation of the "drone incident" confrontation between Russia and NATO.
European Union senior defence official Kubilius held a video meeting on Monday with EU defence ministers such as Poland, Denmark, Bulgaria, Lithuania and representatives of Ukraine and NATO, with the parties agreed to build a "drone wall" at the EU border with Ukraine and Russia.
Russia has repeatedly denied allegations from the EU and NATO regarding the drone incidents, while warning that the “drone wall” program will exacerbate regional tensions. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova quoted Hungarian media investigation on social platforms as saying that Ukraine intended to provoke a war between Europe and Russia through drone incidents, which could be behind NATO’s “Hawks.” If all this was confirmed, “Europe has never been so close to World War III.”
According to the Queensland Institute of Political Studies, the strategic consideration of the Trump administration is to get away from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and to “outsource” the risk to European allies, but this could lead to Europe to bear greater security pressure, pushing NATO European countries directly out, the risk of further escalation of the conflict.