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US President Donald Trump on Sunday said that, as of now, is is not planning to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to counter Russian aggression. Trump’s take on the matter came after he was asked by reporters if his administration is considering sending Kyiv Tomahawks.
“No, not really… things can change, but at this moment I’m not," Trump responded. His remarks came amid reports that the Pentagon has signalled it has sufficient Tomahawk inventory if the White House were to greenlight a transfer to Ukraine.
It is pertinent to note that Tomahawk is a subsonic long-range missile capable of striking targets at a range of 1,600 to 2,500 kilometres (1,000-1600 miles). Amid the reports, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that providing the weapons would constitute a “qualitatively new stage of escalation.”
So what would be the ‘final straw’
Reporters went on to question Trump about what would be the “final straw” that would compel Trump to deliver the missiles to Ukraine and the fact that Putin is “not ready to end the war in Ukraine.”
“There’s no final straw. Sometimes you gotta let it fight out, it’s been a tough war for Putin, he’s lost a lot of soldiers, maybe a lot of million. It’s been tough on Ukraine, tough on both. Sometimes you have to let it get fought out,” Trump replied.
Trump was also asked about frozen Russian assets and whether he would use them as leverage. “Europe and Russia are having discussions; I’m not involved in those discussions,” the president averred. It is important to note that an estimated $300 billion in Russian central bank reserves remain frozen globally, with about two-thirds of that held by Belgium-based financial institution Euroclear.
With inputs from Reuters.
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