Tomahawks give Ukraine potential to strike deeper into Russiapublished at 11:43 BST
11:43 BST
Olga Robinson and Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify
As we mentioned earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today where he’s expected to make a case for the US to supply his armed forces with Tomahawk missiles.
These weapons have a range of up to 2,500km (1,550 miles) which would allow Kyiv to strike deeper and with more impact inside Russia. Ukraine could use them to target larger and more important targets, like air bases and military depots which are beyond the range of its current arsenal of missiles and drones.
“This could force the Russians to further disperse their air defence systems, which are already rather overstretched,” says Justin Bronk, an analyst with the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
But he warns this would simply increase the costs of the war for Russia and not fundamentally change the course of the conflict.
The Tomahawks would be “a scalpel, rather than a scythe,” agrees Justin Crump, a former British Army officer and CEO of risk consultancy Sibylline. He says only 20 to 50 could potentially be sent by the US due to stockpile shortages.
